Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans to overhaul parts of Brooklyn’s Linden Boulevard, which has grown so dangerous that some lawmakers have deemed it the city’s “new Boulevard of Death.”
City transportation department officials on Monday night presented to a local community board a redesign that will add bus lanes, concrete islands and expanded pedestrian space to a one-mile stretch of the street between Fountain and Conduit avenues. The work will also bring new intersections at Pine and Emerald Streets.
Under the plan, the new bus lanes will be off-limits to passenger cars 24 hours a day.
The changes aim to discourage reckless driving, help speed up bus service, and make it safer for people to cross the 140-wide boulevard on foot.
Officials said they planned to complete the work in the summer of 2027.
The announcement comes on the heels of hit-and-run drivers killing two people — including a 4-year-old boy — last month. Nine people have been killed in car crashes along the busy corridor since 2021.
Just one of those deaths came on the section of Linden Boulevard that will be redesigned. It came when the driver of a speeding sedan lost control and flipped several times in August 2021, according to police reports.
Still, Mamdani said the redesign would help make the entire street safer.
“This project will deliver faster, more reliable buses for the 60,000 New Yorkers who rely on them every day — parents getting their kids to school, workers trying to clock in on time, families picking up groceries on the way home,” Mamdani said in a statement. “And redesigning this historically dangerous corridor will make it safer for everyone who has to cross it. When we make our buses faster and our streets safer, we’re making a clear choice about the kind of city we want to be: one that puts people first.”
The overhaul is the latest aggressive move by the Mamdani administration to redesign streets in Brooklyn in response to safety concerns. Since taking office, the mayor has moved forward with a plan to add new bus lanes on Flatbush Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn and advanced an ambitious overhaul for Grand Army Plaza that will ban cars from the space between the arch and the park.
Following last month’s fatal crashes on Linden Boulevard, Brooklyn Councilmember Chris Banks said the street was a “new Boulevard of Death.” Street safety advocates have previously given the same moniker to Queens Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue.
The transportation department found that buses often crawl along the stretch at speeds as low as 4 mph, frequently becoming stuck behind double-parked cars on the service road. The new bus lanes will be moved to the main part of the roadway.
Alexa Sledge, a spokesperson for the street safety group Transportation Alternatives, said the group hopes Mamdani will bring safety improvements to the full 6-mile stretch of Linden Boulevard from Flatbush to Ozone Park.
“This is a much safer and a much better experience for everyone,” she said. “We want to ensure this plan happens, it goes into effect as soon as possible and then it’s extended further along the roadway to ensure that everyone walking in and around Linden Boulevard is safe.”