The M50 bus, which travels cross-town on 49th and 50th Streets between First and Twelfth Avenues, won the Pokey award for the slowest bus in NYC this year, according to the annual analysis conducted by the Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives. The "victory" for the M50 is something of an upset, because for the past two years the crosstown M42 bus line has crawled away with the "uncoveted" Pokey for slowest bus service. But this year the M50 had the slowest bus speed, hitting 3.5 miles per hour as clocked at 12 noon on a weekday. more ›

Time is running out before we're all enslaved by our robot overlords to build a giant laser beam for eradicating the rival robot planet Node 49 (look it up) but the MTA is letting us feel superior one last time by voting for the most useful subway smartphone apps. Preview all 42 applications here, and vote for your favorites from now until January 11, when two Popular Choice winners will be crowned, along with the overall winner. Our money is on the app that keeps rats from crawling on your face. more ›

You'll recall that last month a private bus company was allegedly caught requiring female passengers to sit in the back of a public bus that connects the predominantly Hasidic neighborhoods of South Williamsburg and Borough Park. The company, Private Transportation Corporation, pays the city $20,000 a year to operate the bus route, and while the owner denies any gender segregation, several female reporters with different media outlets found that they were expected to move to the back. And though the company promised the DOT this sort of thing isn't happening, the Hasidic watchdog blog Failed Messiah has obtained a hard copy of their schedule that tells a very different story. more ›

Two Bronx bus lines and a third in Brooklyn may be abridged tomorrow due to "Halloween vandals," which has to be code for "drunk teenagers." According to NY1, the MTA may skip parts of the Bx8 in Edgewater Park, the Bx24 in Country Club and Gerritsen Beach's B31, "depending on the behavior of those out celebrating the holiday." Terrible Elvira-esque costumes and 18-year-olds holding pillowcases going as "ghosts" are apparently still tolerated. more ›

Five people were injured this morning when a bus bound for New York City rear-ended a tractor trailer at 5:35 a.m. on the New York Thruway. Lohud.com reports that the accident happened about two miles north of Exit 15A in Sloatsburg (voted the #2 place to live on the East Coast by Money Magazine!). There were 17 passengers on board at the time of the crash, and the five injured riders had to be "extricated" from the bus, which was operated by New York Trailways. more ›

NJ Transit bus driver Thomas Truex, who had 26 years on the job, was found dead in his idling bus at the Port Authority bus terminal yesterday—five hours after he was supposed to have headed back to the Meadowlands to return the vehicle to the garage. Investigators say the death isn't being treated as suspicious, but the incident has the Port Authority and NJ Transit scrambling to do damage control. more ›

We give them special little lanes for their bikes, we commission David Byrne to design artsy racks where they can lock them up, we even let them borrow bikes for free when they come to Governors Island for their precious MIA concerts. But it's never enough! Now some needy cycling advocates say they should be able to load their bikes onto the fronts of buses, like they do in other cities like Chicago, Las Vegas, and Kansas City. What's next, raising the height of bridges so cyclists can ride under with their tall bikes without bumping their delicate heads? more ›

Total of lost revenues incurred by the MTA due to last month's blizzard? $16 million. Cost of all that overtime? $14 million. Leaving New Yorkers stranded on the subway for hours? Priceless. All told, the blizzard ended up costing the MTA somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million. But hey, act of God, right? City Council Transportation Chair James Vacca doesn't think so—he's says all that could have been avoided if the MTA only had its shit together. Vacca, you ask the impossible. more ›

Just as the M15's select bus service had us believing that the MTA and its budget finally had quality service at heart, the Post reports that a committee is voting on cutting service on 40 bus lines. In the proposal [pdf], 40 of 64 bus schedule changes would "represent reductions in service levels to more closely align service with customer demand," which would ideally save the agency $300,000 a year. The MTA says the silver lining is that the less-frequent buses would arrive on time more often. They'll accept your thanks any time now. more ›

At a pres conference with the mayor today, MTA chairman Jay Walder talked about stuck buses and missing chains for a bit. "We have multiple types of buses, chains are put on articulated buses—they have the most probability of being stuck. We typically have not had difficulties with stuck buses with the types of buses we have today. The hybrid buses we use are typically able to get through the snow but for whatever reason this snow they didn't get through. I'm not a snow expert to tell you why." Which is how we got images like these. more ›

The New York Transit Museum has brought some vintage New York City buses back to the streets for their 17th Annual Bus Festival! This is going down now at Atlantic Antic until 5 p.m. today. You'll be able to check out 17 buses from the Museum’s vintage fleet on Boerum Place, just off of Atlantic Avenue. In addition to boarding the buses, you'll be able to take part in bus-related kids’ work-shops and speak with bus experts. Public transit nerds, unite! If you head over there, be sure to send us your photos, or tag them with "Gothamist" on Flickr. More on what you'll see, below: more ›

For all our muttered complaints, New York City's public transportation system is still one of the oldest and most extensive in the world. Dating back to 1910, the subway is today one of four in the U.S. to at least partially serve 24/7, 365 days a year, and is ranked fourth in the world for annual ridership, just under Tokyo, Moscow, and Seoul. But as in all other walks of life, though size matters, so does price. Following the horrifying news last month that the MTA greenlit a 7.5 percent fare hike for January, riders have been in an uproar. more ›

The residents and neighbors of the famous Dakota building on the Upper West Side are sick of seeing tour buses filled with folks who want to see where John Lennon lived and died. A long time resident told the NY Post that, “They are an inconvenience and a nuisance. When the tourists get out, they block the entire sidewalk and you can’t get back into your building. It’s dangerous because many times, the buses block the intersection. They block the vision of the pedestrian walking across. I’ve seen people nearly killed.” According to West Side Independent, who broke the story, the buses aren't always city buses—councilwoman Gale Brewer told them, “Both I and my staff have visited the intersections on weekend mornings and have learned that the majority of the tour buses come from out-of-state and Canada." more ›

Now that the Department of Transportation has revealed its latest congestion-fighting strategy—creating another pedestrian mall in Herald Square and giving buses half of 34th Street—the reactions are coming from pedestrians and drivers. Naturally, they have very different opinions! One driver complained to NY1, "Bad enough they closed Broadway. We can't even turn up and down Broadway. It will make it even more worse than what it already is," but a pedestrian said to the Daily News, "I wish they would do it tomorrow." more ›

As promised, the DOT is moving quickly on a plan to radically transform 34th Street to prioritize buses and pedestrians over passenger cars. The proposal [pdf], which was completed at the end of February, would essentially cut 34th Street in half, with the section west of Sixth Avenue running one way toward the Hudson River, and the section east of Fifth Avenue running one way toward the East River. Buses would travel in both directions in their own special lanes, and in the middle there will be another pedestrian plaza on the block between Fifth and Sixth, the part of town informally known as Clusterfuck City. more ›

A reader just sent us these photos, saying "Look what I found on my M14!" Indeed, this is worthy of at least one exclamation point (and some SubChatters were equally enthused after spotting one earlier this week). If you've never found yourself short of change or MetroCard funds after getting on a bus, here is typically what happens. The driver gives you some time to rummage through your purse for change (because no bills are accepted), then suggests you ask everyone on board if they have change, and then you basically get booted off at the next stop after an unsuccessful attempt at panhandling. But things are about to change, straphangers... as long as you're holding plastic. more ›

Here we go again. As mentioned yesterday, the cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority is looking for a way to cut costs — meaning that just about all of the extensive service cuts that were approved and then rescinded last year are on the table again. more ›

Earlier this year we learned all about the brand new buses that would be hitting the streets — and now the fleet of experimental turbine hybrid DesignLine vehicles are here. We rode one this morning and the biggest thing we noticed is that a voice comes on before every stop telling you to exit out of the back door. This request went widely ignored by passengers. more ›

Yesterday was first day on the job for new MTA Chairman and CEO Jay Walder, who decided to meet and greet subway riders at the Main Street subway station in Queens after meeting with MTA workers at the Corona Subway Maintenance Shop and the Casey Stengel Bus Depot. He spoke of "partnership with the MTA's hard-working men and women" to meet customers' expectations, promised an action plan the end of his first 100 days, and added, "New Yorkers should be able to expect the same type of customer experience riders enjoy in London"—whose transportation system he worked for between 2001-2006—"with accurate arrival information and modern fare technology." Hear that, New Yorkers—no more Underground envy! more ›

Midtown bus riders will now get to enjoy the luxury granted only to L train commuters up until now—knowing exactly how long they'll have to wait at their stop with convenient nearby countdown clocks. Eight LED screens have been installed across 34th street, giving riders arrival times for the M34 and M16 buses. The project costs the city nothing since a technology company donated the screens and buses are already equipped with GPS. Mayor Bloomberg pointed out that the technology is "similar to that used to track military vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan.” more ›

There's nothing like the MTA to make you question your faith! So maybe the new advertisements for Atheism on city buses are appropriate. The campaign will take over 20 Manhattan buses for about one month, and president of New York City Atheists, Ken Bronstein, says the test run could be reaching other boroughs later this year (the group's website is taking donations for the next roll out). The ads read: "You don’t have to believe in God to be a moral and ethical person." more ›

City buses in Manhattan might soon be catching your attention with new LED screens playing video advertisements along their sides as they ride about town. The MTA is about to test out the new ads on ten buses with hopes to expand to 200 buses with screens, which will they say will only be on the right side to avoid distracting other drivers. (No word on what happens if one bus is already another bus's right.) The screens will be equipped with a GPS, so ads can be adjusted for the neighborhoods they're driving through. An MTA spokesman said, "So if you're going down Lexington Avenue and the bus is at 65th Street, it could start advertising, hypothetically, Bloomingdale's." The screens have already began testing on the M79 in the Upper East Side, where residents are having flashbacks to the arrival of Kenny Rogers Roasters. One man told the Post, "It's just like you took my bed, and while I was asleep, moved it to the middle of Times Square. Neon signs are showing in my room. Bright, flashing neon." more ›

The MTA announced it will no longer put security cameras on its buses. Back in 2006, the MTA announced a $5.2 million pilot program with Integrian to put video surveillance equipment on 400 Manhattan buses, and then, if successful, the cameras would be rolled out to the entire 4,500 bus fleet. Now the Post reports that cameras were installed on only 272 buses—plus Integrian has gone out of business (the MTA says the system had "all kinds of issues"). This comes after a bus driver was killed by a fare-beating passenger earlier this month and two other incidents of bus drivers being assaulted during robberies. more ›

If you rode the V line on Sunday, you may have lucked out with a seat on one of the old 1930s-era subway cars deployed as part of the MTA's holiday train revival. But there's nostalgia rolling above ground too! Buses from the '60s and '70s are now operating during morning and evening rush hours on the M8, M14, M20, M23, M34, M42, M57 and M79 lines, and the Q32 in Queens, through January 2nd. A spokesman for New York City Transit tells the Post that while the older buses have less window space and weaker engines, they actually get better gas mileage than some modern buses: three miles per gallon of diesel, as opposed to two miles per gallon today. (Hybrids get about four miles per gallon.) Of course, the fare isn't vintage; a city bus cost 20 cents per ride until 1969, but these old timers have been retrofitted to take you $2 via MetroCard. more ›