Bus Rapid Transit

Streetfilms: Taking a Ride on Bx12 Select Bus Service

By Brad Aaron

1:15 PM EDT on March 30, 2009

Veronica Vanterpool
of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign recently took Streetfilms’ Nick Whitaker on a tour of the city’s inaugural Select Bus Service
(SBS) line, the Bx12, introduced last year on Fordham Road in the Bronx. As Nick writes:

Travel time on the route has been cut by 20 percent thanks to the
improvements, and commuters we spoke with certainly sang its praises. A
recent report
showed the SBS is carrying 30 percent more riders than the line it
replaced, and a NYC Transit rider report card found 98 percent of users
rated it satisfactory or very satisfactory.

The sky-high approval rating comes in spite of the fact that drivers can’t seem to stay out of the terra cotta bus lanes, an entirely predictable phenomenon that shows no signs of abating without ramped-up enforcement or the installation of physical barriers separating SBS lanes from other vehicle traffic.

Brad Aaron

Brad Aaron began writing for Streetsblog in 2007, after years as a reporter, editor, and publisher in the alternative weekly business. Brad adopted New York's dysfunctional traffic justice system as his primary beat for Streetsblog. He lives in Manhattan.