NYC Bus Service Failures Cause Riders To Leave In Droves: Report

NEW YORK, NY — New York City's bus system — the slowest in the nation — has lost 100 million passengers over the past eight years, indicating its failure to keep up with the city's changing economy, according to a city comptroller's report released Monday.

Bus ridership has plummeted from about 870 million trips in 2008 to about 770 million trips last year, according to the report by city Comptroller Scott Stringer's office, titled "The Other Transit Crisis: How to Improve the NYC Bus System."

The buses carry about 2 million passengers a day, more than the combined ridership of the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad, New Jersey Transit and PATH trains. But snail-like speeds have driven down ridership — the MTA-operated vehicles travel an average of 7.4 MPH across the city, the slowest of the nation's 17 largest bus companies.

The failures have hit the outer boroughs hard even as they have outpaced Manhattan in job growth, meaning more people are now commuting to jobs within their home borough than outside it.

A dozen neighborhoods — including Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Red Hook and Glen Oaks — have added more jobs than the average city neighborhood but remain underserved by public transit, according to Stringer's report.

The bus troubles disproportionately harm poor and immigrant communities. The average bus commuter's income is about $28,000, less than three-quarters of the average subway commuter's, Stringer's report says. Some 75 percent of bus commmuters are people of color, and 55 percent are foreign-born.

The report comes amid a parallel crisis in the MTA's subway system that has drawn much more public attention and investment. The transit authority and Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration have worked in recent years to improve bus speeds. But Stringer, a Democrat re-elected to a second term earlier this month, said the city and the state-controlled MTA need to coordinate better and move faster.

"This cannot be a problem that is swept under the rug – this is an economic and social imperative that is critical to our future," Stringer said in a statement. "The status quo is unacceptable, and we have to do better."

The MTA and the city's transportation and city planning departments should conduct a "comprehensive review" of bus service patterns to align them with the city's growth, Stringer's report says.

The comptroller's report echoes the findings of a July 2016 report by Riders Alliance, a transit advocacy group, that showed a 16 percent drop in bus ridership from 2002 to 2015.

With the ailing subway system drawing the most public attention, advocates are working to help bus riders put their woes in focus, said Stephanie Burgos-Veras, an organizer with Riders Alliance's Bus Turnaround campaign.

"If we don't do something about it, the consequences have a real impact on New Yorkers and the New York City economy," Burgos-Veras said.

The city and the MTA have recently expanded Select Bus Service, a suite of express bus routes along which riders board the bus at all doors and pay fares before getting on. There are currently 15 SBS routes, with about 20 more coming over the next 10 years.

De Blasio's Department of Transportation has also added dedicated bus lanes and equipped intersections with transit signal priority technology, which detects when buses are coming and lets them pass through lights. DOT spokeswoman Gloria Chin said the city plans to quadruple the rate at which it installs that technology along routes around the city.

"Working with our partners at the MTA, we also announced plans to expand bus-priority treatments on local routes that will allow us to reach a half-million more bus riders each day," Chin said in an email. "These improvements to bus service citywide are possible as a result of the Administration's unprecedented $270 million in funding."

The MTA says its buses are in better shape than ever. The average bus now goes 6,400 miles between breakdowns, nearly double what that distance was in 2011. The agency got 277 new buses this year and expects to add another 1,700 in the coming years.

MTA Chairman Joe Lhota said the bus system's problems will persist unless state lawmakers impose a congestion pricing plan, which would add or increase tolls on bridges into Manhattan to discourage car traffic.

De Blasio opposes that idea, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo — the mayor's political nemesis who controls the MTA — supports it. Though the pre-emeninent congestion pricing plan focuses mostly on traffic into Manhattan, an MTA spokesman said it would deter people from driving in general.

"Traffic congestion is keeping the most reliable and advanced bus fleet in recent history from moving as efficiently as it can and should," Lhota said in a statement.

Scott Gastel, a city DOT spokesman, said Lhota's "inappropriate and misleading comments were not helpful at a time in which the City and the MTA must work together as partners" to fix the buses and subways.

Austin Finan, a de Blasio spokesman, noted that Cuomo has yet to propose legislation with a concrete congestion pricing plan. The mayor wants to hike income taxes on New Yorkers earning more than $500,000 to help shore up the MTA's coffers.

"New Yorkers will continue to flee the subways in favor of cars so long as the state-run subway system continues its spiral into disrepair," Finan said in a statement.

Burgos-Veras said the city and state could take action now to help along plans to improve bus service. The state should make sure the replacement for the MetroCard accommodates the Select Bus Service's all-door boarding system, she said, while the city should speed up its installation of transit signal priority technology.

This story has been updated with comments from the mayor's office and the city Department of Transportation.

(Lead image: A New York City bus trudges through the snow in downtown Manhattan in March. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)