Bus Lanes

Despite my relocation to Philadelphia, I still occasionally take a few moments to glance at the New York Times web page. New York doesn't seem so far or so long ago, and I continue to have an interest in the affairs of the city where so many of my friends live, and where I may return some day.

This morning, the Times features a piece about efforts by the MTA's new chief to make the city's bus lanes into...well, real bus lanes, as opposed to the traffic-clogged strips on the right-hand side of the street they usually are now. Every driver in the city seems to think the words "bus lanes" don't mean anything. As the Times notes, Londoners similarly regarded their own bus lanes this way until cameras started to be installed at intersections and fines for violations were raised substantially. The new MTA chief wants to try a similar approach but is hampered from doing so by the need to get Albany to allow intersection cameras.

All New Yorkers know that the City That Never Sleeps often doubles as the City That Never Moves, and buses are decidedly the worst part of New York's transit system. The Times article notes that the proportion of bus riders to subway riders in New York is the exact flip of what it is in London. In London, it seems, the buses have higher total ridership than the Underground; in New York, the subway has the upper hand.

Some of this, I suspect, may have to do with the layouts and age of the respective systems. Never having been to London, I can't speak for the layout of its system, but in New York there are so many subway stops (at least, everywhere except the far parts of the Outer Boroughs) that you don't have to go very far to get to the subway. London's system may not be quite so convenient.

But the problems the new head of the MTA is facing are very real. Bus service in New York doesn't just border on atrocious; it crossed the line a long time ago. Most lines stop every couple of blocks (much more frequently than transit experts say is ideal for the smooth operating of a bus system) and are snarled in traffic when they are in motion. For distances under 20 blocks, you are often better off walking; for greater distances, you're usually better off taking the subway. I tended only to take the bus when there was a lack of good alternatives (something that occurred frequently when I depended on the G train) or on lazy Sunday afternoons, when I didn't really care how long I took to get somewhere.

The failure of drivers to observe bus lane rules contributes to the problem. And it's been hard not to notice that the vehicles that violate these rules seem to fall into the categories I call the Two Ys:

1) Yellow cabs--though to be fair, yellow cab drivers seem to think most of New York's traffic regulations don't apply to them; maybe the city should make fare increases conditional on increased observance of the regulations.

2) Yuppies. I can't tell you the number of times I've watched a Lincoln Navigator weave into a bus lane, directly in front of a bus I was riding on, to make its turn that fraction of a second faster. I sometimes think New York would benefit tremendously from simply banning Lincoln Navigators from its streets.

But even here in Philadelphia, I notice a substantial number of drivers acting as if the words "Bus Lane" don't mean anything. There aren't as many of these lanes here as there are in New York, but they do exist. I think all of this bus-lane violation is indicative of a wider problem in our society--that substantial numbers of people think "the rules," whatever they are, somehow don't apply to them, and that the rest of us do nothing to disabuse them of this notion.

So I am all in favor of New York cracking down on bus-lane violation. The majority of New Yorkers who rely on the buses and subways shouldn't be inconvenienced this way by the wealthy few who can take cabs to work or drive their Lincoln Navigators in from Long Island.

I would also favor adopting, on a permanent basis, the regulations instituted during the transit strike prohibiting private vehicles with fewer than 4 occupants south of 96th Street in Manhattan, but one has to stick within the realm of the achievable.