We love this time of year, when the Straphangers Campaign hands out the Pokey Awards for the city's slowest buses. Usurping last year's winner M34 from the slowest spot this year was the M14A, which goes between 11th Avenue and Avenue A, and then down to Grand Street, and travels at an average of 3.9 MPH, which is what a healthy New Yorker speedwalking can do easily (average pedestrian walking speed is 3 MPH). Ah, the combination of traffic and pedestrians around 14th Street, especially near Union Square . The M34's sped up from 3.4 MPH to a blazing 4.2 MPH - check out the the 2005 and 2006 speeds here (PDF). And the other borough's slow poke buses are:
Brooklyn: B35, 4.9 MPH
Bronx: Bx19, 5.1 MPH
Queens: Q56, 7.2 MPH
Staten Island: S42, 11.1 MPH
And this year, the Straphangers handed out the first Unreliable Award:
The groups also issued their first-ever list of “The Unreliables.” Buses made “The Unreliables” list if —according to MTA New York City Transit statistics — more than one out of five buses on the route arrived in bunches or with big gaps during the day or departed significantly off-schedule at night...
The most unreliable bus in New York City is the M1, with more than a quarter of its buses — 27.6% — arriving irregularly, the groups found. The route was awarded a question mark on a golden pedestal. The M1 travels from Harlem to the East Village along Fifth and Madison Avenues.
“The movies have their “Incredibles,” television their “Untouchables,” and now New York City buses have their “Unreliables,” said Gene Russianoff, staff attorney for the Straphangers Campaign. “You never know when these buses are coming or if they will arrive in bunched herds or wildly off-schedule.”
Hee hee! And it's so true - it's never rains but it pours when it comes to buses. Let's keep our fingers crossed for the success of Bus Rapid Transit Corridors!
The MTA's response was "Slow and unreliable bus service is very much a product of the city¹s vibrancy," which roughly translates to "Don't blame us for bad traffic, dumb pedestrians who walk against the light, and slow passengers getting on and off the bus and not using the rear exit to leave even though there are signs saying as much."
