Transit advocates, officials rally in Brooklyn for more reliable bus service, better routes throughout NYC
Bus riders don’t have to suffer through slow buses and uneven, unreliable service.
That’s the word from fed-up transit advocates and elected officials, who rallied Wednesday around a turnaround plan to speed up service.
The plan from Transit Center, a policy group, calls for more bus-only lanes and street cameras to catch cars wandering onto the bus paths, boarding at all doors and redesigned, simplified routes. These features are already in use in other cities, with the report citing standout systems in London and Seoul.
“The buses are the worst way to get around the city of New York,” state Sen. Dan Squadron (D-Brooklyn) said outside Brooklyn Borough Hall. “That is unacceptable.”
As trains see more riders packing themselves into stations each year, bus ridership has plummeted 16% since 2002, though it still serves 1.7 million riders a year.
The drop is attributed to frustratingly slow speeds — 7.4 mph on average, according to the report.
While Gov. Cuomo and the MTA in May unveiled a splashy new fleet of buses, equipped with Wi-Fi and USB charging ports, Riders Alliance director John Raskin called it a “valuable but insufficient step” to improving service.
“People are voting with their MetroCards to abandon the bus,” Raskin said. “We need to provide good enough bus service that people decide to ride it again.”
Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Manhattan), who chairs the Transportation Committee, said that large metropolises in countries like Mexico and Brazil are leaving New York in the dust.
Rodriguez said he will hold a Council hearing on improving bus service this year.
MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said the agency is already studying changes to bus routes in Staten Island, Co-op City in the Bronx and northeastern Queens.
“Many of the recommendations in the report are actions the MTA is already taking,” he said in a statement. “MTA is constantly re-evaluating bus routes to improve reliability and to optimize routes in order to serve areas where the demand is highest.”
City Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, also an MTA board member, said she agreed with the report’s suggestions on fixing problems in the bus system.
“I hope that the city and the MTA can build on our productive partnership by bringing more dedicated bus lanes and better enforcement to the entire bus fleet — along with innovations like all-door boarding and contactless payment,” she said in a statement.
Riders, meanwhile, had little love for the bus.
Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez said that he wants a hearing by this year on improving slow and unreliable bus service at the rally. (DAN RIVOLI/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)“I don't have a car, we rely on the bus service, especially when there is an issue with trains,” said Michael Yakobson, 47, of Bensonhurst.
But he voiced complaints common among passengers that buses are chronically late and then bunch up when they do arrive.
“They're constantly coming as a pair, two or three buses,” he said.
Asked about the service she gets for her $2.75 fare, Marie Williams of Crown Heights said, “not enough.”
She uses the B46, Brooklyn's most used bus, to get to doctors appointments and for errands.
“I have to make sure we leave very, very early,” she said.