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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Streetfilms: Drivers Behaving Rudely

Streetfilms: Drivers Behaving Rudely: "

Cars blocking crosswalks, drivers failing to yield to pedestrians, unnecessary honking -- New Yorkers have to contend with these violations every day on nearly every corner in the city.

As Streetsblog publisher Mark Gorton says in this Streetfilm, most drivers are not bad or mean people, but few seem to realize how their conduct behind the wheel inconveniences and endangers pedestrians. It's a level of rudeness and carelessness that we tend not to tolerate in other spheres of life, especially when you consider the risks involved in piloting a multi-ton vehicle. New Yorkers can get brusque or nasty on the subway, but you rarely see straphangers engage in behavior that poses an immediate danger to the people around them. So what is it about driving a car that lets people disregard the safety of others?

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NYPD Priorities in Action: Keep Traffic Moving, Pedestrians Be Damned

NYPD Priorities in Action: Keep Traffic Moving, Pedestrians Be Damned: "

Yesterday we saw what it looks like when police value pedestrian safety and enforce the integrity of the crosswalk. That's how they roll in Sacramento. Here in New York, the NYPD's priorities are a little different.

Clarence Eckerson recently shot this clip at the intersection of Canal and Lafayette. As you can see, an officer crossing the street with other pedestrians noticed a vehicle blocking the box (and a bike lane). Instead of giving the driver a summons, he proceeded to hold up everyone who had the right of way and wave the car through the crosswalk, directly into the path of at least one person on foot. All in a day's work for New York's finest.

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Municipal Parking Meters: What if...