The crosstown bus moves - if you can call it that - across Manhattan's 14th St. at an average speed of 3.9 mph, earning it bottom honors in the annual Pokey Awards, handed out to the slowest coach in town.

Dishonorable mentions also were handed out yesterday to New York's most unreliable and off-schedule routes by the Straphangers Campaign and other public transportation advocates.

"There are 2.5 million New Yorkers who ride the buses each day, and they deserve better," said Paul White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives.

The ceremony took place in Union Square, just feet from where the M14A crawls by, and featured advocates dressed in tuxedos and handing out Golden Snail awards after each drumroll.

"They go slow because of the traffic," said Phyllis Casper, 79, a retired bookkeeper from Manhattan. "I could walk faster if my feet didn't hurt."

The subways are not an option because Casper has difficulty with the stairs.

"I hate to say I'm an old lady, but I am," she said.

The advocates agreed double-parked cars and bus stop hogs were in part to blame and called on government officials to help.

One proposal involves putting cameras on buses to capture the license plate numbers of drivers who park illegally or encroach in bus-only lanes or block bus stops. Violations would trigger tickets and fines.

A bill authorizing the bus cams was introduced in January and in each of the two prior years, but it has not made it out of the Assembly Transportation Committee headed by David Gantt (D-Rochester).

Commuters hope the measure will help make bus service more reliable.

Ed Powers, 78, a professor from Manhattan, said schedules for the M1 bus - deemed the most unreliable in the city - are "pure fiction." The M1 runs from Harlem to the East Village.

The Transit Authority agreed traffic is a problem, but in a statement tried to put the ultimate positive spin on the daily bus commute trauma: "Slow and unreliable bus service is very much a product of the city's vibrancy."