New Yorkers pride ourselves on speed. Yet millions of bus riders waste time every day, because our leaders value our time less than the time of others. As a new Riders Alliance report details, it’s time for a change.
New York’s buses are the slowest in the nation because of politics. Our leaders fail to prioritize bus riders, treating our commutes as negotiable. For health aides, teachers, restaurant workers, and caregivers, wasted minutes mean lost wages, missed appointments, and less time with family.
That’s why making buses fast and free, as Zohran Mamdani has proposed, is a responsible policy. Eliminating fares would cost less than 1% of the city budget. Like making the Staten Island Ferry free and providing student OMNY cards, putting buses — and riders — first on city streets is about political will and mayoral prerogative.
By contrast, the so-called “experience” candidate, disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, irresponsibly promised to “build a new subway system.” It’s an absurd notion that unfairly raises people’s expectations of City Hall.
New York’s subway took decades to build and is run by the MTA, which the governor controls. When Cuomo was governor, train delays skyrocketed, costing New Yorkers $280 million in annual lost time.
Cuomo promised a transportation plan during his primary campaign but never offered one. Instead, he stuck to exploiting people’s fear of the subway and the “chaos of e-bikes.” Mamdani won the subway rider primary.
Cuomo’s bus record in Albany was poor. Focused on appearances, he ordered a blue and yellow bus fleet. Meanwhile, his MTA canceled the planned expansion of Select Bus Service and slow walked efforts to speed up Brooklyn’s B82 route.
Mamdani meanwhile led legislative efforts to improve bus and subway service emerging from the pandemic, piloting free bus service in each borough, improving ridership and safety.
Working together with Mamdani and his team, Riders Alliance members won more frequent subway service on 14 lines. What motivated him then, and now, is fairness for riders.
The stakes are high. Bad bus service demands serious attention. A 2024 survey of 1,800 Flatbush Ave. bus riders by the Pratt Center and Riders Alliance found that 91% of bus riders have been negatively affected by delays.
Of those surveyed, two out of three riders endured long waits for service in extreme weather. Half of riders paid for a car service or taxi because the bus didn’t come in time. One in three riders was fired, reprimanded, or lost pay at work.
The next mayor will have big opportunities to boost bus service. Stalled bus priority projects on Fordham Road and Tremont Ave. in the Bronx and on Manhattan’s Fifth Ave. would speed up hundreds of thousands of commutes.
Improvements on Fordham and Fifth are opposed by a small number of powerful figures. Hundreds of thousands of bus riders lose time every day because our needs have come last.
But better buses are not just good policy, they’re the law. The Streets Plan law mandates 30 miles of new bus lanes each year and requires a new Streets Plan at the end of next year, meant to guide improvements for the next half decade.
The next Streets Plan should lay out a vision to bring true bus rapid transit to New York, with the potential to speed up some of the longest commutes in the nation from the northern Bronx to eastern Queens, southern Brooklyn and Staten Island.
By combining protected, high capacity bus priority lanes with intersection priority and level boarding through every door, bus rapid transit can deliver major speed improvements, shaving 10 to 15 minutes off of many trips and save riders a lot of valuable time every day.
Bus rapid transit is standard in Latin America and Asia. It’s saving riders time in Cleveland and Indianapolis, Albany and Buffalo. Since nearly half of New Yorkers lack easy access to our subway, our buses are a lifeline. But they’re failing.
Bus riders are the backbone of New York’s economy, riding from distant neighborhoods to deliver vital services in health care, education, hospitality and other essential sectors. It’s about time that the city values the time of the people who make life here possible.
The June primary showed a critical mass of New Yorkers yearning for transformative change that puts working people first. With much better buses, that transformation in our politics can be matched on our streets in the most tangible way — with more time to live our lives.
Plum is executive director of Riders Alliance.
