None of the needed planning, protocols, data collection, adaptations, or enforcement appear to be in place.
May 18, 2026 — It’s an incongruous sight: An ambulance, siren blaring, yet stuck in traffic even while the bus lane sits empty 30 feet away.
This scene, which Remapping Debate has witnessed several times, is emblematic of the lack of protocols or procedures for emergency vehicles to take full advantage of New York City’s growing network of bus lanes. Though first responders are allowed to use these lanes when responding to an emergency call, they are not expressly instructed to. And, in many cases, it may not be worth their while, due to the lanes being bus-only for only part of the day, or because of double-parked cars and delivery trucks blocking passage.
Response time matters
In an emergency, every second counts. In the case of cardiac arrest, each minute of delay decreases the chance of survival by 7 to 10 percent. Response times are similarly important for other medical emergencies, like strokes or traumatic injuries, as well as for police responding to crime scenes and firefighters responding to structural fires.
But in New York City, emergency response times have been going up: Between 2014 and 2024, emergency response times to the most serious calls increased by more than a minute, or roughly 13 percent, according to an analysis by the Independent Budget Office.
Though there are multiple factors behind this trend, “the number one driver of emergency response times is traffic,” said Laura Kavanagh, New York City Fire Commissioner from 2022 to 2024, in an email exchange. The existing data “suggest that the greatest risk to the average New Yorker is experiencing a medical emergency where response is delayed by traffic.”
Bus lanes, which are overwhelmingly concentrated in the most congested parts of the city, could help emergency vehicles get through that traffic. Nevertheless, the New York City Fire Department, which also runs the city’s emergency medical services, and the Department of Transportation, which plans and designs the lanes, lack clear policies and procedures for how emergency vehicles should make use of these lanes. It’s a conspicuous set of omissions as emergency response times continue to rise and the network of bus lanes continues to grow.
A shared goal
Reducing emergency response times is, ostensibly, a widely shared goal in New York City government, and it’s generally agreed upon that bus lanes can be part of the solution.
The Mamdani administration is committed to “ensuring street design facilitates fast emergency response,” Sam Raskin, the mayor’s deputy press secretary, said in a statement. “NYC DOT takes into account emergency response needs when planning changes to the street scape,” Raskin said, “including coordinating with FDNY on adding new bus lanes, which emergency vehicles are permitted to use.”
Council Member Lincoln Restler, a Brooklyn Democrat who has been a prominent voice in debates over the redesign of city streets, concurred. “Bus priority lanes are critical to improving bus speeds, and they also help move emergency vehicles more quickly and efficiently through our streets, particularly during rush hour when private vehicles crowd our roads,” he said in a statement.
First responders do, at times, drive in bus lanes to reach emergencies. “When our crews have an emergency, it definitely helps them to use the bus lanes,” said Oren Barzilay, president of Local 2507, the union representing New York City paramedics and fire inspectors. “I can confidently say that it has helped our response times.”
But beyond a general aspiration for emergency vehicles to make use of these lanes, and occasional in-the-moment maneuvering by emergency responders, there’s no formal policy or protocols on the matter.
In an email exchange, the FDNY press office confirmed that it does not have data on the impacts of bus lanes on emergency response times for fire crews or paramedics. It further confirmed that the presence of bus lanes, like the 14th Street busway, does not affect emergency vehicle routing. The department also said it does not instruct its crews to use bus lanes, writing instead that crews “may at times use these lanes when responding while exercising due regard.”
Barzilay acknowledged that FDNY does not provide guidance on where and how to make use of bus lanes. “We’re not given any information on what are better routes,” he said. But he added that he didn’t think EMS crews needed this information, saying that crews are better off using their own judgement. “We just use what is in front of us. If that lane is open, we take it.”
The Department of Transportation did not directly respond to questions about whether it has data showing how bus lanes affect emergency response times, whether the locations of hospitals and fire stations are taken into account in bus lane planning, or whether it has strategies to avoid conflict between buses and emergency vehicles in bus lanes. Instead, the agency referred Remapping Debate to the statement from the mayor’s press office.
Lack of data
There are several challenges standing in the way of emergency vehicles making full use of the city’s growing bus lane network.
The first is a lack of data on when, where and how bus lanes could be of use to emergency vehicles. There have never been any reports by city agencies or local think tanks on best practices. “There isn’t a ton of research on this really specifically,” said Alexa Sledge, director of communications for Transportation Alternatives, a public transit advocacy group in New York.
“Fire departments are not as data driven as other public safety agencies and are broadly resistant to doing so,” said Kavanagh, now a distinguished visiting urbanist at NYU Wagner School of Public Policy.
As Commissioner, Kavanagh in 2024 launched a partnership with researchers at NYU to collect better data on emergency vehicle routing and response times, though it’s unclear what has come of those efforts. FDNY said it does not have any information to share about the initiative.
In addition, the city does not publish emergency response time data broken out by time of day. Data from late night emergency responses, when there’s little traffic on the road, could demonstrate how much emergency response times could potentially be reduced if traffic were taken out of the equation.
Better data could help inform where new bus lanes should go, which ones best serve common emergency responder destinations like hospitals and fire stations, and which routes save crews the most time. This data could also inform bus lane design, demonstrating which bus lane types are most beneficial for emergency vehicles.
Data could further illuminate knock-on effects and unintended consequences. Even though emergency vehicles can access bus lanes themselves, it’s possible that the presence of a bus lane could create spillover traffic on parallel or intersecting streets, potentially slowing emergency response times elsewhere. Without that information, policymakers are left to speculate.
“Data gives agencies the ability to focus efforts where the impact is greatest, and it encourages innovation and collaboration,” Kavanagh, now a distinguished visiting urbanist at NYU Wagner School of Public Policy, said. “Without it, decisions are often driven by the loudest voice in the debate rather than the most useful or evidence-based one.”
Design challenges
Not all bus lanes are created equal. The impact of bus lanes on bus speeds — a topic on which there is a good amount of research — shows that many of the city’s most common bus lane types provide minimal benefit. A 2025 report from the advocacy group People-Oriented Cities found that curbside bus lanes increase average bus speeds by less than 1 percent. Offset bus lanes are marginally more effective, increasing bus speeds by an average of 7 percent. Together, these two bus lane types make up 88 percent of the city’s bus lane miles.
By contrast, median-running bus lanes and entirely car-free busways have been found to be much more effective at speeding trips. These designs are much less likely to be blocked by double parked cars and trucks or right-turning vehicles. The most prominent example of this design is the 14th Street busway, where bus speeds have improved by 24 percent since implementation. The median-running bus lane currently being installed on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, which will be protected from encroaching vehicles by concrete barriers, is expected to improve bus speeds by 20 percent.
Generally speaking, the bus lane designs that are most effective for buses should also be the most effective for ambulances, and vice versa.
“Look at 14th Street, where the bus lane is part of a broader car restriction and provides ample room to maneuver around obstacles, and you will often see emergency vehicles using it to respond,” Kavanagh said. “Look at parts of Fulton Street [in Brooklyn] where there are parked cars in the bus lane and packed traffic on either side, and you generally do not see emergency vehicles using it in the same way.”
It’s impossible to reach a firm conclusion on which bus lane designs are most effective for emergency vehicles, and just how much response times can be improved, without data reflecting the presence of optimal conditions. That includes not only settings where private vehicles comply with their obligation not to obstruct bus lanes, but also where buses themselves promptly yield to emergency vehicles seeking to make use of the bus lane.
Yielding the right of way
In areas with limited space to pull over, such as a curb running bus lane, or a protected median-running bus lane like the one going in on Flatbush, how should buses safely yield to emergency vehicles? It does not appear that the MTA, DOT and FDNY have adopted specific guidelines on this question.
“All bus operators are trained to yield the right of way to emergency responders,” MTA spokesperson Laura Cala-Rauch wrote in response to questions about specific procedures for bus-emergency vehicle interaction in different kinds of bus lanes. “Because such use is brief and operationally necessary,” she said, “it does not have a meaningful impact on bus travel times or lane performance.”
It’s not clear whether bus operators are expected to move out of a bus lane to clear the way for an approaching emergency vehicle, or how they should proceed when there is heavy traffic preventing the bus from exiting the bus lane, or when there are physical barriers separating the bus lane from the general travel lane. Protocols for how buses should temporarily depart from their normal passenger pick-up and discharge routine when an ambulance is approaching are similarly unclear.
This problem could occur more frequently as more high-quality bus lanes are installed and this infrastructure becomes potentially more useful to emergency responders. The better the bus lanes, the more emergency vehicles will make use of them, the more potential conflicts between emergency vehicles and buses.
Issues of enforcement
There has been a general sense that a lack of compliance with yielding to emergency vehicles and other rules of the road have been on the rise in recent years. (Though, again, data is lacking.) “From speeding since COVID to shifting policing priorities to oversized vehicles and even the advent of leading pedestrian intervals, there are real reasons to think drivers see traffic rules and signals as suggestions,” Danny Pearlstein, communications director for the advocacy group Riders Alliance, wrote in an email.
“Many drivers’ entitled, cavalier attitude shows up in failure to yield to everything from children walking to school to ambulances and firetrucks with lights and sirens blaring.”
Bus lane enforcement is crucial to the success of these lanes for buses and emergency vehicles. “Enforcement has to be a major part of the conversation around making street designs work for emergency responders,” Kavanagh said. Increasingly, the city is turning to technology to address this problem.
The MTA has made progress in this area. In 2024, the agency launched its Automated Camera Enforcement program, enabling bus-mounted cameras to capture the license plate of drivers idled in bus lanes or bus stops and automatically ticket them. Sixty bus routes are currently equipped with the technology. The MTA says that some segments have seen travel time improvements of 30 percent.
Ambulances and fire engines could, in theory, be equipped with camera technology that would ticket drivers who fail to yield. “Cameras on the front of emergency vehicles (to identify and ticket cars that block their way) are very likely to make their way into emergency vehicles, as they have with busses,” Kavanagh said. However, she also acknowledged that there are serious surveillance concerns around these technologies.
As with other camera-enabled traffic enforcement mechanisms, violators could get warnings escalating into higher and higher fees. Eventually there could be more serious consequences for the worst offenders, analogous to the “Super Speeders” bill recently passed by the New York State Legislature, which puts speed limiting technology in vehicles that have received the most camera-captured speeding tickets.
The MTA did not directly respond to questions about whether it uses or has explored using technology to make bus drivers and dispatchers aware of approaching emergency vehicles.
It does not appear that there is currently any extensive public education campaign focused on gaining greater public understanding of the need for yielding to emergency vehicles in general, let alone one specific to the emergency service consequences of impeding bus lanes.
Part-time lanes
Enforcement can also be undermined by the presence part-time bus lanes. These kinds of lanes make up a significant proportion of the city’s network, including those on sections of Fulton Street in Brooklyn and major Manhattan thoroughfares like Second Avenue, Lexington Avenue, and Fifth. Avenue. These part-time lanes may not have the same deterrent or habit-forming effects as full-time lanes.
Rules can also be confusing: Different portions of some Manhattan Avenues have different time restrictions on their bus lanes. For instance, some portions of the Second Avenue bus lanes are only active during weekday morning commute hours, while others are active 24 hours a day.
Part-time bus lanes are also not much help for emergency vehicles during most of the day, or the many bus riders traveling during non-commute hours.
“A lot of the bus lanes, even in the densest parts of Midtown, are only open during the most intense commuter times, even though obviously we know in New York City people are working 24 hours a day and also emergencies are happening 24 hours a day,” Sledge said.
Part-time bus lanes, which typically run alongside the curb, were intended to facilitate deliveries and parking during off-peak hours. While this compromise may make sense for many road users, it’s an indication that emergency vehicles were not considered in the implementation of the policy.
There is no current indication that the compromise is being rethought to give more weight to the needs of emergency vehicles and their users.
A broader coalition?
New York City streets, like those in other major cities, are becoming increasingly organized, with separate realms for cars, pedestrians, bikes, and buses. At the same time, technology is becoming a greater part of the transportation system, as cameras and speed limiters enter the traffic safety toolkit, and the widespread use of autonomous cars looks imminent. All of these remain polarizing issues.
Emergency vehicles have long been at the margins of the conversation around the evolution of city streets and the transportation system writ large. When emergency vehicles are invoked in this conversation, it’s often in service of preserving the existing allocation of street space, as with FDNY resistance to the expansion of protected bike lanes.
First responder agencies have legitimate concerns about streetscape changes impeding their ability to get to emergencies. But they’ve seldom shown any interest in affirmatively pursuing streetscape changes, or technological improvements, that could actually speed emergency response times. Bus lanes could be the place to begin that conversation.
In fact, there are already signs that bus lane projects are gaining acceptance among first responders, even as other streetscape projects, like bike lanes, remain controversial.
“During my conversations with firefighters who serve The Bronx, they’ve indicated that they do not oppose the implementation of bus lanes and see them as the most practical tool that has been used in road dieting efforts,” said Council Member Justin Sanchez, a Bronx Democrat, in a statement.
If the 7 million New Yorkers who do not ride the bus every day understood bus lanes as part of the city’s efforts to improve emergency response times, perhaps they, too, would be more inclined to support them.
“If you talk to the general public and you say, this is something that’s going to speed up emergency vehicles, that’s something pretty much everyone’s gonna get on board with,” Sledge said. “Anyone can be in an emergency vehicle any single day or night.”