Fast Bus-Only Lanes Headed To 1st And 2nd Avenues

Fast Bus-Only Lanes Headed To 1st And 2nd Avenues: "

The MTA is considering rolling out bus-only lanes on First and Second avenues that the agency says might shorten commutes between Houston Street and 125th Street. The 'East Side speedway' could be laid down by September 2010, and the agency is planning to stock up on 'dozens of super-stretch buses for the new service,' the Daily News reports.

The new 62-foot-long buses will have three doors instead of two, potentially allowing faster passenger loading and unloading. In a move the paper claims might end 'the torturously slow one-by-one shuffle of passengers past the onboard farebox,' commuters will swipe their MetroCards at curbside machines before they board the bus and receive printed slips proving they've paid the fare. The city is also planning to equip the buses with wireless technology that will change red lights to green lights when they approach, and in some places, the city might separate the bus lanes from other traffic with physical barriers.

But the biking and mass transit advocacy group Transportation Alternatives says the proposed high-speed bus route — which would be the city's second following the apparently successful Bx12 in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx — doesn't do enough, arguing instead for two bus lanes on each avenue, as well as barriers along the entire route, and new cycling lanes. "First and Second avenues need a game-changer," spokesman Wiley Norvell told the paper. "With 58,000 bus riders, 3,500 cyclists and hundreds of thousands of pedestrians using this corridor, it's high time we designed a true 21st century street that serves everybody."

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Neighbors Unite to Rant Against Tour Buses

Neighbors Unite to Rant Against Tour Buses: "

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

Last night at the Hudson Guild in Chelsea, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and a barrage of other city officials led a town hall meeting on the issue of charter and tour buses idling in the city—a frequent concern for residents of the Village and elsewhere. The night began tame with officials going over city plans for the fabled future Lower Manhattan bus garage and forcing tour buses to have their patrons wear headsets to prevent noise pollution.

The smackdown began when the locals hit the mic. Residents brought up a number of issues: air quality, idling in front of schools, congestion, noise, even breaking tree branches. Most represented teams were Bleecker Street and Hell’s Kitchen, with naturally different concerns. Bleecker's naps keep getting interrupted, while Hells Kitchen's complaints were more in the backed up and choked up categories.

Grey Bus Lines was blames as the biggest stinkers of the evening, along with on-the-street loaders such as Bolt and Fung Wah. The Bleecker Streeters told of tour buses letting off passengers without bus stops, leaving on heaters and a/c, congesting the streets for 20 minutes at a time, etc. One woman wore a dust mask to protect herself from the noxious gases...of the room.

The tour guides were the real victims of the night (just trying to make a buck, people!), but some were in attendance and didn't help their cause much by, dare we say, looking for a fight? At one point a bus driver referred to his coach as a 'padded movable prison cell,' because they have nowhere to park and let people off or something? Who knows, he got booed silent shortly thereafter. The Port Authority also got a collective 'BOOOO!' for their too-cool-for-school attitude and no-show.

Basically, some misbehaving bus drivers and companies got a good spanking, but as for the long term? Urbanite points out a couple City Council bills on the table, including one requiring companies to submit route plans for city and community review, and another that would require bus passengers to listen to the tours through those headphones. And if all that fails, well, then if you look out the bus to your left you can see a bunch of angry residents shaking their fists.

—Greg O'Malley

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MTA Chief Means Business on Getting Cars Out of Bus Lanes

MTA Chief Means Business on Getting Cars Out of Bus Lanes: "

Not in service, but still smiling! NYC Transit's hybrid ECO Saver IV. (Michael Coughlan/NYC Transit)

New Yorkers fed up with the city's overcrowded, snail's-pace buses can perhaps indulge in some guarded optimism now that new MTA 'czar' Jay Walder is promising to improve the system. Walder was formerly the transit guru in London, where, he says, 'You carry nearly twice as many people in the bus system as you do on the Underground.' In New York, the opposite is true, and Walder wants to change that while simultaneously reducing bus overcrowding. Is this guy crazy?

The Times recently rode the bus with Walder in Brooklyn, and, as a car parked in the bus-only lane forced the bus to merge into traffic, he explained his radical bus philosophy:

What I’d like you to think about is a train system with rubber-tire vehicles. We’re on a bus right now where every seat is full. How many people are on this bus? Seventy-five? But we haven’t prioritized this bus any differently than a car which has one person in it... If I put train tracks down the street, you wouldn’t park your car on them. If I said this is a bus lane, somehow it becomes fair game. One person’s use of a road impacts upon another person’s use of the road. My point is, if we have to make a choice, make the choice for the bus, not for the car.

Suck on that motorists! But how will Walder turn the beat around? As previously mentioned, he wants the city to impose stricter fines on bus-lane blockers, install cameras on buses to take photos of violators, and finance a public advertising campaign to educate the public about bus lanes. And in a pilot program on Fordham Road in the Bronx, buses can send signals to traffic lights to delay red signals, allowing a bus to make it through the intersection! Next up: tractor beams to toss cars out of the bus lanes.

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MTA Czar To Put Cameras On Buses To Catch Lane Blockers

MTA Czar To Put Cameras On Buses To Catch Lane Blockers: "

MTA CEO Jay Walder says this bus lane deserves the same respect as train tracks.

During his first day on the job, new MTA CEO Jay Walder announced a plan to install cameras on the front of city buses to take photos of any vehicles obstructing bus lanes. Like the city's red-light cameras, tickets will be issued automatically. Walder insists the innovation drastically improved the on-time performance of buses in London, where Walder worked before taking over the MTA. In February, the DOT began video surveillance of the 'high-visibility' terra cotta-colored express-bus lanes on 34th Streets, but this would be the first time buses were used for enforcement.

In an interview with WCBS Monday, Walder said, 'You and I would never think of stopping our car on a train track, but some how the idea of stopping a car in a bus lane seems acceptable. It's not.' Absolutely. Now, can we get these cameras for our bicycles to automatically issue tickets to bike lane blockers? Walder plans to implement other new technology in the transit system, including new E-Z swipe cards to ride buses and subways and more countdown clocks to tell you how much longer your beard will grow as you wait for the G.

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