Transit Activists Make Case for Citywide Bus Improvements

Pictured: Tabitha Decker, program director at the TransitCenter, speaks during Wednesday's press conference. Photo by John V. Santore

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN, NY — Jeanne Majors said she took a car service to the bus rally.

Because of traffic, it still took her an hour to travel from Jamaica, Queens, to Brooklyn’s Borough Hall, she said — but it would have taken twice as long on public transportation.

Majors, 67, said Wednesday that her neighborhood buses run too infrequently and are too crowded, meaning she always has to stand (especially when school is in session).

What’s more, the bus mechanisms allowing people with disabilities to board aren’t reliable, she said, often making the vehicles inaccessible to the elderly or those with injuries.

While she makes it work, Majors said, “not everybody is mobile, or they don’t know how to figure things out.” The current system, she said, is “just too time- consuming” for too many riders.

On Wednesday, Majors joined activists and a long list of elected officials in support of a new study outlining a series of ways the city can improve its bus system.

The study was the work of the TransitCenter, Riders Alliance, the NYPIRG’s Straphangers Campaign and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.

“New York City has a bus ridership and a bus quality crisis,” said John Raskin, the director of Riders Alliance, a transportation advocacy non-profit, during a press conference unveiling the study. “People are voting with their MetroCards to abandon the bus. We need to make it better.”

“I wouldn’t take the bus if I could avoid it,” said State Senator Daniel Squadron, whose district includes lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn waterfront from Greenpoint to Carroll Gardens.

Squadron said he has transit options, but “for New Yorkers who don’t, the world is very unfair. That is unacceptable.”

According to the study, on a typical weekday, New York City’s buses average 7.4 miles per hour, putting them behind Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Boston, Chicago and San Francisco.

Image courtesy of the TransitCenter

Unsurprisingly, while the city is gaining population, the study states, bus ridership fell 16 percent between 2002 and 2015.

To reverse that trend, the study outlines a series of recommendations to be adopted by the MTA and the Department of Transportation (DOT). Among them:

• The city should redesign overly complex bus routes, optimize the location of stops, and create new rapid service lines on crowded routes
• Riders should be able to tap a card to pay for a bus ride
• The city should provide more information to bus dispatchers so buses can be adjusted in real-time when routes are disrupted
• New dedicated bus lanes should be created so buses can avoid traffic
• Countdown clocks should be installed at stops and on buses so passengers can plan their commute more effectively

Dedicated bus lanes in Brooklyn. Image via the TransitCenter.

Those backing the report said that many of the recommended changes don’t require investments in expensive new technology and are instead focused on the way the system is managed.

In March, the MTA announced that $1.3 billion will be spent on 2,042 new buses for the city’s system, replacing about 40 percent of those in operation by 2020.

The vehicles will be equipped with WiFi, USB chargers and digital information screens. Seventy-five of the vehicles will be on the road by the end of this year, the MTA said.

In a statement, Polly Trottenberg, who heads the DOT, said that the agency "shares the goals of the TransitCenter report that we should improve bus service Citywide. "

"We are proud of our work with the MTA that has reduced travel times and increased ridership on Select Bus Service bus routes," Trottenberg said. "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.”

MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz challenged some of the report's premises while also arguing the city is already implementing many of its proposed solutions.

While “there has been a decrease in ridership in areas that are more congested, like Manhattan,” Ortiz said, “ridership is steady in the outer boroughs where traffic is not as bad and where there is more demand for [buses].”

“MTA is constantly re-evaluating bus routes to improve reliability and to optimize routes,” the spokesman continued, while the city is already using a new data technology called Bus Trek to avoid “bunching” (which is when buses arrive in groups).

Ortiz said the MTA supports the creation of more bus lanes, a responsibility of the DOT. And he noted that real-time bus arrival information is already available using the system’s Bus Time app for smart phones.

Finally, Ortiz said that tap-and-go payment technology is already in the pipeline, explaining that the city’s new buses will come with it, while older ones will be retrofitted to feature the more modern system.

A tap-and-go payment system. Image via theTransitCenter.

But on Wednesday, the transit activists weren't satisfied.

Raskin described the MTA's work "as a valuable but insufficient step." He applauded the DOT and the MTA for investing in buses but said more has to be done, and done more quickly, to meet the needs of New York's commuters.

Editor's note: this post has been updated with a comment from the DOT.