MTA Puts End To For Hire Vehicle Program, Offers Buses Instead

NEW YORK CITY — MTA's For Hire Vehicle program that has helped overnight commuters get around the city amid late night subway closures will end its service on Sunday, directing riders instead to three new bus routes.

In a news release, the MTA said the program has cost the organization some $6 million since it began in May and was forced to closed by financial constraints.

The release states commuters who have regularly used the program can now turn to a "trio of bus routes that largely mirror some of the more frequented trips that overnight FHV program users have been taking..."

The release states the MTA has added three interborough express bus options in addition to its usual round-the-clock routes: the B99, M99 and Bx99 routes. Routes were determined based on data from FHV riders.

The B99 route runs from Midwood in Brooklyn to Midtown West and follows a route similar to that of the subway, the release states.

The Bx99, meanwhile, connects the Woodlawn section of the Bronx to Manhattan's West Village by way of Jerome Avenue and down the east side of Manhattan. The route then travels across west 57th street and south to the West Village.

The M99 runs between East New York, Brooklyn and Hell's Kitchen by way of 14th street in Manhattan.

In a statement, New York City Transit's interim president, Sarah Feinberg, said the MTA is ending the For Hire Ride service because of "significant financial challenges," stating it has cost the organization $49 per trip, on average.

"Given our significant financial challenges, we are unfortunately no longer able to provide this service to the limited number of people it was serving sporadically, and the even smaller population it was serving regularly," Feinberg said. "We have recently added three new bus routes — all of which we believe will significantly assist our overnight passengers in this transition."

Some 1,500 customers have used the FHV program for their overnight commutes. Feinberg said the though the program has ended, new bus routes are designed to help commuters traverse the city as expeditiously as they did before.

"At the height of the pandemic, it was critically important to ensure essential workers who were subway-dependent could get to overnight shifts reliably, and without spending considerably more time on their commute than they were used to," she said. "We are proud of how quickly and efficiently we were able to stand up a program of this magnitude."