Senator Tim Kennedy (D-Buffalo) joined NFTA Executive Director Kim Minkel to announce $3 million in state funding secured by Senator Kennedy to advance the NFTA’s ambitious Bailey Avenue Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project, as the NFTA’s Board of Directors today approved a $3.2 million contract for the design of the project. 

The project would dramatically overhaul one of the NFTA’s busiest bus corridors, easing the flow of people through this heavily trafficked city street.  The consultant team now coming under contract will develop a plan to improve and modernize bus service on Bailey Avenue to include features such as dedicated bus lanes in some sections, transit signal priority, intersections redesigned to expedite transit and an estimated thirteen stations to provide more comfortable waiting areas to transit riders and facilitate connections to east-west bus routes and other transportation modes.

The funding secured by Kennedy will support community engagement, preliminary design, and environmental reviews. The project, which is currently in the conceptual design stage, aims to have preliminary design and environmental reviews complete in 2026.

Bailey Avenue is a critical transit corridor. Bus routes along Bailey Avenue have some of the strongest ridership in the region. NFTA-Metro’s 19 Bailey route is the main fixed route bus service along the corridor, with more than 2,600 riders per weekday (2023). The north end of the corridor has a connection to University Station, one of the busiest stops in the system, which provides connections to the Metro Rail and thirteen other fixed route bus services, including high ridership routes such as the 12 Utica, 24 Genesee, and 32 Amherst. Median household income of residents in this corridor is around $28,000, with 46.1% of residents renting their homes, and a young population with a median age of 22 years old (2019).