NYC Transit and the city and state departments of transportation are stressing improved intra-borough travel in their study of potential bus rapid transit projects in New York City.

Participating citizens seem to agree with the goal. At public meetings, there was general agreement that a strong role for rapid buses was connections between subways and local bus lines. Once participants learned the key differences between BRT and express bus service, they expressed increased optimism about the project’s success, although issues like bus lane enforcement were consistently raised.

There is no lack of suitable candidate routes for rapid bus service. The study project has identified several corridors in each borough. Most cut against the grain of the subway system to speed travel in poorly served corridors, such as east-west Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn routes, and north-south corridors and areas beyond the rail system in Queens. (Borough maps will be available via the project website: http://mta.info/mta/planning/brt/). The project team anticipates paring down the list to one corridor per borough for pilot implementation by summer 2005, and has noted that bus rapid transit elements may be added to some existing routes.

Program costs are still undetermined. Consultants indicated that their instructions were first to determine need, with a budget to follow. The MTA’s 2005-2009 proposed capital budget provides $22M for a BRT pilot program, but it’s unclear whether this will survive into an approved program.

. 

MTR back issues:

Go to index of all Mobilizing the Region back issues.