New York City's Other Transit Crisis

While New York City’s subway crisis receives the bulk of public outcry and attention from elected officials, the decade-long bus crisis goes almost unrecognized — and yet fixing it could help take pressure off the subways. For multiple reasons, including unreliable schedules, service cuts, competition from cheaper dollar vans, and gentrification, Brooklyn’s bus network has seen ridership fall more than 20 percent since 2007 — that’s 50 million fewer trips per year. This is a disaster for working-class New Yorkers: If they work inside the borough (and outside downtown Brooklyn) they must ride the bus, and among people working in Brooklyn, transit commuters have a median earning of $32,300 compared with $50,900 for drivers.

The good news is that much better service is feasible without blowing the budget. The existing resources of the MTA can be redeployed more productively. But that would require the mayor to have the courage to support a plan that calls for new street designs prioritizing buses over cars along Brooklyn’s busiest, most congested corridors.