Council Panel Plans to Add Select Bus Routes

By LORENA RAMIREZ

The daily schlep for millions of New Yorkers might soon be over.

Department of Transportation officials on Tuesday voiced support of a bill endorsed by Mayor Bill de Blasio that would add 20 select bus routes in the city by the end of 2017.

The measure, discussed at a meeting of the City Council Transportation Committee would be modeled after the system in Bogota, Colombia, exploiting such features as speed, off-board fare collection, physically separated bus lanes and other attributes.

Introduced by Councilman Brad Lander (D-Brooklyn), the bill would require that DOT identify the areas of the city most in need of such a plan, practical corridors for routes, strategies for integration with existing transit systems, and an estimate of the capital and operating costs over the next ten years. In addition, the plan would include input from the MTA and the public, as well as informing community boards, borough presidents, and the public.

“Low-income New Yorkers and communities of color have disproportionally long commute times,” said Lander. “Meanwhile, jobs are growing in the outer boroughs, in parts of our city least equipped with the transportation infrastructure to sustain that growth. Adding new subway lines would take decades and cost billions of dollars,” said Lander. “Fortunately, a citywide BRT {Bus Rapid Transit}network – with more of the features like protected lanes, center medians, and stations that characterize the best BRT – is something we can afford and must implement rapidly.”

In order to reach the Mayor’s goal, DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenburg said, “We need to more than triple our past pace of planning and implementation, and this is going to take a lot of work. We are going to need the City Council’s help and leadership as we work with communities.”

In 2008, DOT and the transit officials installed seven SBS routes throughout the five boroughs.

“We have seen an average 10 percent increase in corridor bus ridership and a 15 to 23 percent improvement in travel time for all SBS riders,” Trottenburg added.

Officials said that planners now have their eyes on these streets for potential routes: 86th Street in Manhattan; Utica Avenue in Brooklyn; Flushing-Jamaica and Woodhaven-Cross Bay Boulevards in Queens.

Trottenburg estimated that De Blasio’s budget would llocate $295 million towards the expansion of SBS through 2025.

Transportation advocates strongly supported the plan.

“For me, Bus Rapid Transit means that I’ll have more quality time at home rather than on the bus,” said Emily December of Riders Alliance, a Woodhaven resident, “that me and my neighbors won’t have to treat our quality of life as a tradeoff for our commute. I want want a better commute for the high price we pay.”