New York City Department of Transportation
City, M.T.A. Launch Less-Slow Buses on 34th Street
The city and the M.T.A. officially kicked off their "select bus service" on 34th Street today, a higher-speed service that sets bus-only lanes on the street, from First Avenue to 11th Avenue.
The initiative, which ultimately envisions a partition between the bus lanes and car lanes, has been highlighted as a way to increase capacity to the far West Side as the area develops. It is now illegal for most other vehicles to travel in the bus-only lanes, recently painted red.The state Legislature did not act on a bill pushed by the city that would have allowed cameras to ticket drivers who venture into the lanes illegally, so the enforcement is left to the police. read more »
DOT Pitches Faster Buses, Fewer Traffic Deaths
The 6,300 miles of streets and the transportation infrastructure spread across New York City's 321 square miles “is coming up against limits,” the commissioner of the New York Department of Transportation, Janette Sadik-Khan, said in the agency’s “Sustainable Streets” plan announced today.
Since Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan never got off the ground, the DOT laid out a new blueprint to ease travel within the city by making streets more pedestrian friendly; targeting improvements in bus mobility, safety, and bicycling; and reducing the transportation network's impact on the environment. It's ambitious, but since Albany has no say in the matter it might be more likely to become a reality than its predecessor. read more »
