Faster MTA Bus Service Starts in the Bronx Today

After years of planning, the MTA has re-launched bus service along the Bx12 route, which travels through the Bronx and Upper Manhattan. A NYC Transit director for bus service planning, Ted Orosz, tells the NY Times, "It looks cooler, it’s faster, it will run a little more frequently. All those things should increase ridership.”

The new "Select Bus Service" initiative includes more buses (up to ten more during peak hours), new designs on the outside of buses (shades of blue and a new logo treatment), clearly marked station, and faster fare collection, which means riders will be paying and swiping at curbside machines, instead of on the bus itself (passengers will get a receipt, and if they board a bus without one, they risk a $100 ticket). Bus lanes are also painted "terracotta," and law enforcement will make sure only buses are in that lane.

Another interesting feature is the "Traffic Signal Priority" system, which will, per Streetsblog, will keep "signal lights green, and [quicken] the cycle of changing red signals back to green, to allow buses to move through intersections more smoothly." The MTA hopes to bring SBS to other routes, like the 1st / 2nd Avenues' M15, 34th Street's M34 and M16, and 5th / Madison Avenue's M1, M2, M3, M4, M5 & Q 32 routes in Manhattan, Hylan Boulevard's S79 route in Staten Island and the Nostrand Avenue B44 in Brooklyn.