Results tagged “busrapidtransit”

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.”

What's a Mayor to do? When he's not trying to quiet rumors that he has a bad relationship with Albany, Mayor Bloomberg is still getting shafted by Albany. The NY Times describes the latest indignity: How a city proposal for bus-only traffic lane enforcement was shot down.

Those lucky Staten Island residents that take the Victory Boulevard bus route have scored a victory. Starting next month, 300 buses on the route will be outfitted with special transmitters that can turn traffic lights from red to green. The transmitters will send signals to receivers on a 2.3 mile stretch of Victory from Forest Ave to Bay St that includes 14 traffic lights.

Yesterday, The Politicker reported that Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver "quietly" met with Governor Spitzer and Senate Leader Bruno (separately) and that congestion pricing was one of the topics discussed. Silver has publicly doubted the feasibility of Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan, leading the Mayor to go on the offensive and try to shame Silver and other lawmakers for holding up the legislation - especially when there's $500 million in federal funds for the taking.

On Wednesday, NYC Transit Authority President Lawrence Reuter announced he would be leaving his post in February. Reuter will be headed to Florida engineering firm Parsons Brinckerhoff - and to be closer to his grandchildren.

Nobody likes buses. Drivers can't stand sharing the road with them, and bus riders have to deal with traffic, lines to board, and late and infrequent service. But Bus Rapid Transit, soon to be implemented in New York, just might be the ticket to making buses sexy. BRT lines have a number of advantages over regular express buses that give them the ability to cruise down the road at near-subway speeds, for a tenth of the upfront cost.

Longtime readers may remember the Vision42 plan we covered at the beginning of 2005. Sponsored by The Institute for Rational Urban Mobility, the project would close 42nd Street to cars and lay down a light rail from river-to-river. Yesterday, Vision42 released their economic benefits study, which, if you believe it, says that a light rail would cost $500m, but generate more than a billion dollars in value. Don't get too excited yet-- according to the Sun, the project hasn't gained a lot of traction:

We love this time of year, when the Straphangers Campaign hands out the Pokey Awards for the city's slowest buses. Usurping last year's winner M34 from the slowest spot this year was the M14A, which goes between 11th Avenue and Avenue A, and then down to Grand Street, and travels at an average of 3.9 MPH, which is what a healthy New Yorker speedwalking can do easily (average pedestrian walking speed is 3 MPH). Ah, the combination of traffic and pedestrians around 14th Street, especially near Union Square . The M34's sped up from 3.4 MPH to a blazing 4.2 MPH - check out the the 2005 and 2006 speeds here (PDF). And the other borough's slow poke buses are:

Streetsblog has been covering the hell out of the livable streets movement in NYC. That includes everything from reducing traffic congestion to opposing huge developments like the Atlantic Yards. Check out these links they sent in this week:

- Implementing “sting” operations where officers ride the bus and jump out to issue tickets to any and all vehicles blocking bus lanes and stops.Yes, "sting" operations! We wonder if the cops would wear undercover "regular bus rider" gear, but either way, it would be awesome to see in action, not that the bus would move any faster. Hmm. Well, one thing we know keeps buses slow is that fact that many stop every 2 blocks. However, if even the local buses could stop every three or four blocks, we might be takling a whole different game.

-Hylan Boulevard Looking at the MTA's site, it's pretty cool that the MTA is taking other bus systems around the world into consideration - and we love any plan that wants better bus boarding!