Ridership Surges on MTA Bus Co. Routes

MTA Bus Co. ridership increased by over 11 percent in 2007, according to figures released today by the agency.

Crain’s has the story:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority Bus Co. on Wednesday reported that ridership on its 81 routes grew an average of 11.1% during the 10-months ending December 2007, as compared to the previous period.

MTA Bus operates a network of 46 local routes in Brooklyn and 35 express routes in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Yonkers. Those routes carried an average of 367,000 riders each weekday for the 10 months ended in December, an increase of 9.7% compared with the same period in 2006. Increases were even more pronounced on weekends — Saturday ridership rose 15.1% to 196,300 and Sunday ridership increased 13% to 138,900.

“Thanks to a number of initiatives we’ve undertaken, MTA Bus is now the fastest-growing segment of the MTA network,” MTA Bus President Thomas Savage said in a statement.

Savage attributes the jump to improved scheduling reliability, maintaining or replacing older buses, "100 percent wheelchair accessibility," and route revisions — changes instituted since the MTA Bus Co. was created in 2004, when the MTA absorbed seven private companies franchised by the city.

MTA Bus Co. ridership accounts for approximately 10 percent of MTA bus users as a whole. 

  • Jonathan

    Fix the first sentence, please, Brad. This is not “City bus ridership” as a whole. The article refers to MTA Bus Co., which is composed of the formerly private bus companies in the boroughs, not NYC Transit’s bus system.

  • Brad Aaron

    Sure, Jonathan. Thanks.

  • MD

    Service is much better now on the Q35 to Rockaway.

  • bus rider guy

    NYC Transit buses have something like 2.6 million riders a day. Anybody remember when they are going to merge the bus co into the NYC Transit?

  • The MTA may plan to split NYC Transit into MTA Bus and MTA Subways. That’s just an idea and nothing’s been finalized. Otherwise, the MTA Bus has to meet NYCT standards in terms of handicap accessibilty, bus stop signage, etc… Interesting fact, I saw an old diesel bus on the Q18, with the old rollover destination sign and not long ago too.

  • mfs

    Save the B61!
    Supposedly, the B61 got low ridership scores (something I find hard to believe having taken it for the past five years) and they are cutting back service in the next year.

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

As Subway Trips Climb, MTA Bus Ridership Continues to Stagnate

By Stephen Miller |
While subway ridership hit a 65-year high last year, the story for surface transit in NYC is different. Bus ridership has yet to recover from a major round of service cuts in 2010, and in 2014 it lost some ground, according to new stats from the MTA. After the MetroCard boom in the late 1990s, bus ridership has dropped 10 percent since […]

B44 Moving 15-30 Percent Faster After Select Bus Service Upgrades

By David Meyer |
As bus speeds decline in NYC, the few routes that are getting dedicated bus lanes and off-board fare collection are bucking the trend. The newest evidence comes from the B44 route along Nostrand Avenue and Rogers Avenue in Brooklyn, where buses are moving 15-30 percent faster since NYC DOT and the MTA upgraded the line to Select […]

Every Bus Should Get Priority at NYC Traffic Signals

By John Petro |
New York City buses serve more than two million trips on an average weekday — more than twice the ridership as Los Angeles, which has the nation’s second-largest bus system. And yet the city’s buses are also notoriously slow and unreliable. Gridlocked traffic, long boarding queues, and the succession of traffic lights bog down surface transit in NYC […]