October 24, 2006

2006 Pokey Bus Award goes to 14th Street's M14A

The annual Pokey Bus Award results are out, and the loser is. ...

The slowest of the buses in New York City, the M14A, creeps along its 14th Street and Avenue A route at an average speed of 3.9 miles per hour at noontime, according to the latest study by NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives.

That snail's pace was slow enough to dethrone last year's loser: the M34, which traverses Manhattan at 34th Street.

The Straphangers this year added a new category to the competition, The Unreliables (with its own unreliable spelling in the logo, upper right.) The citiwide Unreliable trophy this year goes to the M1, the city bus least-likley to show up on schedule. The M1, which travels from Harlem to the East Village along Fifth and Madison Avenues, arrives at irregular times 27.6 percent of the time.

Meanwhile, the MTA is working on a pilot project to speed up some routes, the New York Times reports today. Five routes citiwide are slated to get special lanes, computer-controlled stoplights, and cameras mounted at bus stops and on the buses to photograph and thus ticket, any vehicle blocking a bus lane.

The five test routes would be in place by 2008, including the one along First and Second avenues in Manhattan, which transit officials call the most heavily used urban bus route in the United States.

Earlier: City's pokiest little bus inches along at 3.4 mph

October 24, 2006 10:40 AM in Downtown, Midtown, Transportology, Upper East Side

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