Buses

125th Street Riders: Bus Lanes Should Go All the Way to Morningside

Yesterday we reported that State Senator Bill Perkins' office has finally expressed satisfaction with the 125th Street bus improvement project, now that DOT has watered it down by shortening the dedicated bus lanes. Previously, Perkins had called on the city to "slow down" the plan to bring Select Bus Service to 125th Street due to what he claimed was insufficient community input, even though DOT and the MTA had been holding public workshops since last September. Streetsblog hit the streets yesterday afternoon to see what bus riders on 125th Street had to say about the situation.

By Stephen Miller

1:25 PM EDT on May 30, 2013

Yesterday we reported that State Senator Bill Perkins’ office has finally expressed satisfaction with the 125th Street bus improvement project, now that DOT has watered it down by shortening the dedicated bus lanes. Previously, Perkins had called on the city to “slow down” the plan to bring Select Bus Service to 125th Street due to what he claimed was insufficient community input, even though DOT and the MTA had been holding public workshops since last September. Streetsblog hit the streets yesterday afternoon to see what bus riders on 125th Street had to say about the situation.

None of the riders I talked to over the course of 45 minutes had heard about the plan to bring bus lanes to 125th Street, nor had they heard of Perkins’ “emergency” town hall meeting last week. They were all disappointed that, under pressure from Perkins, the city had decided to shorten the bus lanes by half, ending at Lenox Avenue instead of Morningside Avenue.

“I think they should go to Morningside,” Margaret Fernandez said while waiting for the bus at St. Nicholas Avenue.

Other bus riders agreed. “You need it all the way over,” Disney Aaron said. “It’d be better for people, man. Better for traffic, too.”

A major feature of the camera-enforced bus lanes is that they would cut down on illegal double-parking, which slows down buses stuck in traffic. Streetsblog spotted an NYPD officer ticketing a delivery truck that had parked in a bus stop on 125th Street at Frederick Douglass Boulevard. “It’s mostly double-parking. There’s plenty of it,” she said. “It causes so much traffic.”

Stephen Miller

In spring 2017, Stephen wrote for Streetsblog USA, covering the livable streets movement and transportation policy developments around the nation. From August 2012 to October 2015, he was a reporter for Streetsblog NYC, covering livable streets and transportation issues in the city and the region. After joining Streetsblog, he covered the tail end of the Bloomberg administration and the launch of Citi Bike. Since then, he covered mayoral elections, the de Blasio administration's ongoing Vision Zero campaign, and New York City's ever-evolving street safety and livable streets movements.

Buses | Eyes on the Street | Harlem | Select Bus Service | Transit

Streetsblog has migrated to a new comment system. New commenters can register directly in the comments section of any article. Returning commenters: your previous comments and display name have been preserved, but you'll need to reclaim your account by clicking "Forgot your password?" on the sign-in form, entering your email, and following the verification link to set a new password — this is required because passwords could not be carried over during the migration. For questions, contact tips@streetsblog.org.