As far as public transit imagery goes, London’s buses are among the more iconic vehicles in the world. The red double-deckers just scream London, and the system is generally fast and efficient.
Here in New York, the buses are pretty much the exact opposite of that. They’re slow, unreliable and don’t enjoy any sort of preferential lane treatment. Commuters often see riding a bus as a chore rather than a convenience. But that will change if Jay Walder has his way.
The New Yorker-turned-Londoner-turned New York knows what an efficient and reliable bus system can do for surface transit. In fact, across the Atlantic, where Walder helped lead Transport for London, buses carry more passengers than the Tubes, and now Jay wants to improve New York’s bus system. He spoke at length with Times reporter Michael Grynbaum about our buses, and the takeaway is simple: “In London, you carry nearly twice as many people in the bus system as you do on the Underground,” he said. “We must close the gap and make more of the bus system.”
Grynbaum had more about Walder’s plans:
Mr. Walder’s plans include an expansion of dedicated bus lanes with stricter enforcement, aided by cameras mounted on street poles and on the buses themselves that can snap photos of offending cars. He wants to introduce the contactless fare cards — which can be quickly waved over a sensor — to the subways and buses, reducing boarding times. And he wants GPS devices on buses so passengers can tell when a bus is coming, even if the familiar bulky shape is not visible on the horizon.
“What I’d like you to think about is a train system with rubber-tire vehicles,” Mr. Walder said, peering out at the passing street. A single red car was parked in the bus-only lane on Flatbush Avenue, forcing the bus to merge into an adjacent lane and bringing traffic to a standstill.
“We’re on a bus right now where every seat is full,” he said. “How many people are on this bus? Seventy-five? But we haven’t prioritized this bus any differently than a car which has one person in it.”
That last line — prioritizing a full bus with 75 times as many people as most cars — proves to me that Walder gets it. Buses can be an effective tool used to get people out of their cars. Doing so, of course, requires enforcement, and the new MTA head is ready to go bat for his buses. “If I put train tracks down the street, you wouldn’t park your car on them. If I said this is a bus lane, somehow it becomes fair game,” he said to The Times. “One person’s use of a road impacts upon another person’s use of the road. My point is, if we have to make a choice, make the choice for the bus, not for the car.”
In his dubious transit plan for New York City, Michael Bloomberg has made improving the buses a top priority. With Walder, the MTA CEO and Chairman, fully on board, nothing is stopping the city from overhauling the bus lane system. Without securing approval from Albany, New York could install a series of dedicated bus lanes and preferential signaling. The NYPD could ramp up bus lane enforcement, and the MTA can implement pre-boarding fare payment systems as they research and develop a contactless fare card.
The buses are New York’s most underutilized resource. They show up sometimes and generally not with any correlation to the posted schedule. They slog through rush hour traffic at speeds often slower than a quick walk. We know the system needs work, and we know the city leaders are paying lip service to the improvements. Now let’s see some action.