New Yorkers are abandoning the city’s sluggish buses by the droves — even as the subways experience record ridership and the population keeps growing, officials said Thursday.
Transit experts at a City Council hearing said the MTA’s buses carried more than 1 billion passengers in 2002 but only 906 million last year.
“With over half a million jobs added since 2010, our city is in the midst of a population boom and our transit system is struggling to keep up,” said Tabitha Decker, research director for the Transit Center advocacy group.
“The failure of our bus network is a citywide issue and it’s one that we can and must solve.”
The MTA, which operates 5,725 buses, blamed the nosedive on quicker, nearby subways, as well as slower bus service.