Comptroller Lander Sounds Alarm on Crawling Bus Speeds & Pitches Proposals for Fast-Tracking Performance

Adams’ DOT abandoned Select Bus Service and dropped every bus initiative 

New York Comptroller Brad Lander released a new report, Behind Schedule: How the New York City Bus System Slow Rolls Riders, on the performance of the City’s bus system, finding that bus riders traveled a mere 8.17 mph on average and faced delays in reaching their stops nearly a third of the time. Outcomes are worse for express bus rides with buses off-schedule nearly half of the time. The report highlights numerous missed opportunities to improve performance and boost ridership, which was down 40% between 2019 and 2024.

“1.1 million outerborough, working class, and disabled riders should not be stranded on their sluggish commutes,” said Comptroller Brad Lander. “Department of Transportation and MTA are abandoning riders at the wheel by installing fewer bus lanes, cancelling new Select Bus Service lines, and blocking all door boarding. Adams’ anemic transit roll outs have buses screeching to a halt. I am all-aboard for common sense solutions because New York is a world class city that deserves world class rapid transit.”

The New York City bus system serves 1.1 million daily bus riders, playing a central role in the daily lives of New Yorkers in the outer boroughs as well as disabled New Yorkers. Comptroller Lander’s analysis found that bus speeds are significantly slower than they were a decade ago and service is increasingly unreliable, while the Department of Transportation (DOT) and Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) canceled or downsized initiatives that would improve the bus system and commute times.

• Compared to the last decade, buses are now slower in every borough but Manhattan and fall far short of the City’s goal to improve bus speeds citywide by 25%.
  • In 2024, average bus speed citywide stood at just 8.17 mph, down 0.6% from 8.22 mph in 2015.
  • At 12.6 mph and 8.75 mph respectively, buses in Staten Island and Queens outpaced the city average in 2024, while speeds in the other boroughs ranged from 7.65 MPH in the Bronx and 7.37 MPH in Brooklyn to a low of 6.29 MPH in Manhattan.
  • With all but one of the city’s ten slowest bus routes in the Congestion Relief Zone, the City could take advantage of the reduced traffic to implement bus service improvements that could speed up buses.
• New York City buses fail to reach stops at their scheduled time 30% of the time, while express buses are off-schedule 37% of the time.
  • Queens boasts the four routes with the lowest on-time performances, with the QM5, QM6, QM31, and QM1 express buses arriving at stops five minutes after their scheduled time two-thirds of the time.
  • The S89 Limited bus and M79 SBS are the best performing routes with a 91% on-time performance rate.
  • Select Bus Service (SBS) buses–-which employs more reliable features seen on other municipal rapid bus systems-–have the best on-time performance at 75%.
• Over half of bus lines with headways under 10 minutes are delayed due to “bunching,” or being spaced too close together.
  • The least reliable bus lines citywide with high bunching rates are in Queens and Brooklyn, with the Q24 and B41 local buses bunched 23% of the time.
  • Although riders are supposed to wait no longer than 3.64 minutes on average for the Q24, due to bunching, the actual wait is more than double that at 9 minutes.

While MTA, DOT, and the City Council created actionable bus plans in recent years, Comptroller Lander charts how little DOT and the MTA enacted.

• Since 2022, DOT built only 23.1 miles of protected bus lanes, fulfilling less than the  mandated 80 miles in the NYC Streets Plan, and installed fewer bus lanes over the past three years than in the two preceding years.
• Meanwhile, MTA and DOT abandoned SBS implementation, completing only 16 out of 30 potential corridors.
• The MTA, citing concerns over fare evasion, never implemented plans for all-door boarding systemwide, a feature that boosted speeds on SBS routes by up to 19%.

New Yorkers across the boroughs should be able to expect an efficient, accessible, and reliable bus system – one they can depend on each day to get them where they need to go. Comptroller Lander proposes 11 recommendations across four key priority areas:

Plan, design, and build a world-class bus rapid transit (BRT) network for New York City, building on the success of existing initiatives:

1. MTA and NYCDOT should collaborate to revive and implement all 20 SBS routes originally proposed in 2009 and create new interborough connections, including a new SBS route along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront, connecting Manhattan to the South Bronx by combining the M15 and Bx6 SBS routes, and upgrading the B55 to an SBS route between Kensington and JFK Airport.
2. Take advantage of congestion pricing to implement new, large-scale busways throughout Manhattan’s Central Business District, modeled off the successful 14th Street Busway. With 30,000 fewer cars in lower Manhattan each day thanks to congestion pricing, NYC DOT should swiftly implement new busways going across 34th Street and 42nd Street, where buses are currently slower than anywhere else in the city.
3. Implement more high-quality busways and center-running bus lanes, which improve bus speeds and reduce time spent in traffic.

Maximize the effectiveness of existing bus service and priority tools through better enforcement, payment, and accessibility measures:

1. Improve automated enforcement to protect bus routes by standardizing bus lane operating hours across the city, restricting the legal reasons for private vehicles to enter a bus lane, and enforcing the use of loading zones to prevent delivery vehicles from blocking bus lanes.
2. Enable all-door boarding by refining the OMNY proof-of-payment system enabled and install tap-to-pay devices at a height and distance accessible to all riders.
3. Enhance fare enforcement by deploying civilian EAGLE teams on more local routes with currently limited operations.
4. Ensure all buses are accessible to disabled riders by retraining bus operators on using wheelchair lifts, piloting additional low-floor buses on express bus routes, and directly engaging riders with disabilities in efforts to improve bus service. Read the Comptroller’s latest audit on Express Bus Accessibility.

Strengthen agency management over bus priority initiatives:

1. MTA and DOT should set performance-based targets to meet, such as increasing average bus speeds by 25% citywide, cutting wait times in half on the 20 worst-performing bus routes, and reducing the rate of bunching on high-frequency routes from 14% to 5%.
2. The City and OMB should empower and resource DOT to hire and retain the qualified staff needed to meet performance targets and boost efforts stymied by staffing challenges.

Make buses more affordable:

1. Expand Fair Fares to CUNY students and New Yorkers with incomes at 200% of the federal poverty level to reach more regular commuters and transit users.
2. Expand fare discount programs for express bus riders, so they can receive a 50% discount under the Fair Fares and Reduced-Fare programs at all times of day.