The City is planning to spend $57 million to redesign W42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues to increase safety for pedestrians and protect against terror attacks, while also replacing critical infrastructure.
The project, first reported by Crain’s New York Business, will widen the sidewalk by five to six feet along the heavily-trafficked thoroughfare, while adding stainless steel bollards at five-feet intervals along the curb, similar to those in Times Square and in front of the Port Authority Bus Terminal. The bollards would be complemented by stainless steel “security planters,” with the block’s existing newsstands shifted to the new curbline.
The sidewalks are set to be redesigned in “London scoring pattern” cobblestones, renderings of the project shared by the City’s Department of Design and Construction (DDC) reveal.
In addition to the safety measures, the City plans to replace a 48-inch wide water main running along W42nd Street, and a combined sewer system on 7th Avenue. The NYC Department of Transportation is to pay $41.7 million for the work, with the Department of Environmental Protection providing the remaining $15.2 million.
Work is expected to last four years, beginning in the summer of 2026 and concluding in 2030 if all goes according to plan, city agencies told Hell’s Kitchen’s Manhattan Community Board 4 at a recent Transportation Committee meeting.
“The construction phase is anticipated to be four years because of the level of coordination among the different stakeholders in the area,” said Andrea Nunez, a civil engineer for street infrastructure at DDC.
Times Square Alliance president Tom Harris said the project will help keep the public safe from terror attacks, like in 2017 when a car drove into pedestrians in Times Square, killing one person and injuring 22, or the more recent attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day.
“We did not need New Orleans to know we need this,” Harris said, adding that the work will “create a more positive pedestrian experience to the block, while at the same time putting protections in place for those pedestrians — so that their safety is put first.”
The City’s presentation of its project comes after three Manhattan community boards, including MCB4, proposed turning all of 42nd Street into a busway, similar to the one on 14th Street.
“Because this is a one-block project we haven’t really considered a busway as part of this project, but the geometry as proposed doesn’t preclude one in the future if we get to that point,” Casey Gorrell, a representative for the DOT, said at the meeting.
The redesign of W42nd Street is one of many infrastructure and construction projects in the neighborhood’s near future — including the Port Authority’s scheme to rebuild its 75-year-old bus terminal, the Hudson River Park esplanade’s redesign, and controversial plans for the Western Rail Yards.
“How much more construction can we have in a two-square-mile radius?” asked MCB4 transportation co-chair Jesse Greenwald. “We’re going to find out what happens, it’s going to be exciting.”