Grand Concourse Redesign Explained

[00:00:00]New York is fixing one of the most dangerous [music] streets in the Bronx and in the whole city. Hundreds of people get hurt in crashes on the Grand [music] Concourse every year. The redesign is supposed to bring that number down and the first results are already in. I dug into the crash data from recent years plus the reconstruction project itself. So, are these changes actually working? What are the deadlines and what do the finished sections look like? Full breakdown ahead.

[00:00:29]>> [music] >> The Grand Concourse is often called the Bronx's main Boulevard and it's changing. The redesign has been running for 27 long years now and it's still far from done. Right now, four out of seven planned phases are finished. All together, that covers almost 3 miles between East 161st Street and East Fordham Road.

[00:00:57]On the service roads, they've added bike lanes and in the more recent phases, those lanes sit raised [music] above street level. Parking got reorganized, hundreds of new trees went in and the lighting was rebuilt from scratch.

[00:01:11]Crosswalks are now barrier-free with tactile [music] paving and audio signals for people with visual impairments. They also added protected left [music] turn signals along the Concourse and at the slip lanes onto the service roads, drivers [music] now hit longer braking pockets with a mandatory stop.

[00:01:28]The decision to overhaul the Concourse wasn't random. According to NYC Open Data, between 2013 and 2024, the Bronx's main street [music] saw 6,820 crashes. More than 3,300 people were hurt and [music] tragically, 24 lost their lives. The peak came in 2017, 760 crashes. By 2024, that number had dropped to 290. That's a 62% fall from the peak. Unfortunately, there's no detailed data for the earlier years or the most recent stretch.

[00:02:07]Worth noting, by 2024, four phases of the redesign were already complete. [music] So, these changes are showing real, measurable results.

[00:02:19]People had wanted to fix this street for a long time. The first real attempt came back in 1992. After a single year, 1991 saw 12 pedestrians killed in traffic.

[00:02:30]So, the city added left turn signals, pedestrian barriers, and repainted markings. But, those were just spot fixes, not a full redesign.

[00:02:39]The Grand Concourse actually has a long history behind it. It was built to echo the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The idea for the Bronx's main boulevard first came up in 1890. Construction itself started in 1894, [music] and on November 25th, 1909, the new thoroughfare officially opened.

[00:02:59]The Grand Concourse was designed by Louis Aloys Risse, a French immigrant engineer. A grand, 180-ft wide boulevard with three separate roadways and heavy greenery, it quickly became the Bronx's calling card. Not long after, the IRT subway line was built underneath it, and that set off a housing boom. By the '60s, little was left of that elegant boulevard. The city rebuilt the Concourse to favor cars. median got torn [music] out and paved over in green-painted concrete. By the '80s, things had gone further. Traffic lights were timed for a green wave, so drivers could blow through several intersections without stopping. Crosswalks and trees disappeared, [music] and the city even put up green, highway-style signs, just like on an expressway. That's exactly what earned the Concourse its reputation as one of the deadliest streets in the Bronx.

[00:03:57]The redesign is flipping that vision on its head, turning an urban highway back into a green corridor that prioritizes pedestrians, [music] cyclists, and buses.

[00:04:12]As urbanists have put it, this project is putting the grand back into Grand Concourse.

[00:04:18]Phase five is underway right now.

[00:04:21]On the stretch between East Fordham Road and East 198th Street, [music] new raised bike lanes, pedestrian refuge islands, and cobblestone tree pits are already going in.

[00:04:33]>> [music] >> Part of the concrete landscaped medians has been rebuilt, too. Phase five kicked off in August 2025. All work is set to wrap by fall 2027.

[00:04:44]The budget for this phase is $44 million, and it's fully funded in the city's capital plan.

[00:04:51]Two final phases remain: the southern stretch, essentially the gateway into the Bronx between 138th and 161st [music] Streets, and the northern stretch between 198th Street and Mosholu Parkway. Right now, neither of those final [music] phases has secured funding or a public design yet. So, there's no confirmed timeline for when the Bronx's own Champs-Élysées will finally be complete start to finish.

[00:05:17]Thanks so much for watching to the end.

[00:05:19]Let me know your thoughts on the Grand Concourse redesign in the comments, and don't forget to subscribe, like, and share this video with your friends. See you next time.