Sensible Transportation
The “Pokey” Awards

You might as well walk. The slowest city buses, such as the M34 in Manhattan, creep along at 4 mph during rush hour.

Most People walk at an average speed of about 4 mph. Motorized transport is supposed to move faster than that, which is why everyday 2.6 million New Yorkers pay to ride city buses. As it turns out, many bus commuters do not get what they pay for.

On September 23, The NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives identified and honored the City’s slowest buses with the 3rd annual “Pokey” awards. This year, the award for NYC’s slowest bus went to the M34 cross-town, which during the afternoon peak travels at about 4 mph. Straphangers and T.A. found that 19 city buses have run times over one hour and fifteen minutes, the time it takes a regular Amtrak train to travel between New York City and Philadelphia. Said Gene Russainoff, staff attorney for the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign, “It should not take as long to go the ten miles from downtown [Manhattan] to Harlem by bus as it does the 110 miles from New York City to Philadelphia by Amtrak.”

Clearly, New York City’s tax and fare-paying daily bus riders deserve much better. Aiming to speed city buses, the MTA and the City Department of Transportation are in the midst of a $2 million study to determine which Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) measures are most appropriate to speed NYC buses. Candidate strategies include wider bus lanes, physically separated bus lanes, longer bus stops and pro-bus signal timing. The MTA’s proposed 2005-2009 five-year capital plan includes $22 million to actually install BRT measures in 2007. While that is a good start, it will only cover the installation measures for BRT on a few short sections of one or two routes. Now is the time for the MTA to earmark more funds for 2008 and 2009 so that a meaningful percentage of NYC’s 2.6 million bus riders receive much-needed relief.

Happy Birthday Straphangers!

For 25 years, the NYPIRG Straphangers campaign has led the restoration of NYC transit; kept transit fares affordable; protected the rights of subway performers, leafleters and photographers and kept up the pressure to keep subways and buses running smooth and clean.

Happy Birthday Straphangers!

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