| Issue 317 | May 14, 2001 |
Last
week, a New York Times reporter resurrected what has unfortunately
become a popular speed challenge: walking versus taking a NYC bus.
The reporter and his wife set out together from Broadway and 82nd Street,
headed for Third Avenue. He walked while she took the cross-town M79 articulated
bus. As before, leather beat out rubber. This time, the pedestrian's margin
was only one minute, as the reporter arrived in 22 minutes, his wife in
23 minutes.
In a similar test in 1994, A NY Newsday reporter on foot left a Midtown cross-town bus in the dust (MTR # 5). Her article was prompted by the forthright Transit Authority report entitled, "Faster than Walking?" which detailed how bus transit in the City has slowed to a near stand-still due to traffic congestion. The paper called for a redesign of city curb space and better bus lanes to move buses on chronically jammed avenues. The NYC DOT has also planned a "Bus Priority Network," but little effective action has been taken in either case. In 1999, the Federal Transit Administration gave NYC the dubious distinction of having the slowest city transit buses of any major U.S. city, averaging 8mph compared to the average speed of 13mph.
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