It's a full house (of bus scofflaws).
The MTA's new authority to give out bus-mounted camera tickets to drivers who double-park along bus routes or park in bus stops has resulted in more than 400,000 tickets handed out in just five months.
On Wednesday, data cruncher Jehiah Czebotar published a series of infographics showing the number of bus-mounted camera tickets and NYPD tickets written between January 2023 and December 2024 for various infractions that block buses from moving. As Czebotar shows, the agency's new Automated Camera Enforcement system nailed hundreds of thousands of drivers just for parking in bus stops or bus routes since the agency was able to start giving out tickets for that behavior in August.
"I was curious what the MTA bus cameras were up to and if it was working," Czebotar told Streetsblog. "Sort of an 'Is this thing on?' check."
The MTA has had the ability to use on-board bus cameras to enforce bus lanes on Select Bus Service routes since 2010, and all bus lanes since 2019, in a system that used to be known as Automated Bus Lane Enforcement (ABLE). Late last year the agency was able to greatly expand that authority to ticket drivers who block bus service anywhere along a route, whether an infraction happened in a bus lane or not.
The Automated Camera Enforcement system began with 623 buses on 14 routes that came online in August after an initial warning system, and then expanded to 1,000 buses on a total of 34 routes by the end of November.
Czebotar's graphics help illustrate the limitation of having only on-board cameras ticket offenders in bus lanes while letting behavior that clogs up bus service flourish outside of the red paint.
For instance, while the high point for ABLE tickets between January 2023 and December 2024 was the 90,627 tickets given out in September 2024 for driving in bus lanes, with a fully operational ACE system in December, MTA buses gave out 76,673 tickets for parking in bus stops and 64,978 tickets for double parking along a route, totaling over $11 million in fines from each tranche of tickets. In total, drivers racked up $225,458,863 in fines over the 24 month period Czebotar studied.
"Even I'm surprised a little bit that there's 70,000 tickets getting written in a month for [parking in bus stops]. It's hard to wrap your head around big numbers, but my favorite comparison is that the fines drivers are getting from bus-related enforcement are so large it's the same as entering the congestion pricing zone during peak hours 25 million times," he said.
The numbers of camera-issued tickets between 2023 and 2024 also dwarf the number of tickets handed out by the NYPD over that same timeframe. According to the data, cameras gave out 76.4 percent of bus lane and bus stop violations issued in the city, with a staggering 93 percent of those tickets given out by cameras in December 2024.
According to the MTA, the switch over to ACE has been a success in a number of areas. Bus speeds have increased 5 percent overall since the introduction of the cameras and as high as 25 percent on certain routes. Meanwhile, crashes involving buses have gone down 20 percent and bus emissions have even fallen between 5 percent and 10 percent where the cameras are in use.
"By helping to decongest the way ahead for hundreds of thousands of bus customers, the ACE program is having a big impact on speeding buses and improving the quality of life for New Yorkers," said MTA Spokesperson Laura Cala-Rauch.
The ACE system does seem to help keep people out of the way of buses: Of the 1,718,099 drivers who received a ticket during the two years in Czebotar's study, only 236,310 drivers got a second ticket. But there still was a cadre of 158,049 hardcore bus blockers who got a fourth or even fifth ticket for blocking a bus in that time period. Fines reach up to $200 for a fourth offense and $250 for a fifth offense in a 12-month period.
"By the time you're getting to your fifth violation a fine is not a deterrent, I think that's something that the data shows. People need to think about and come up with ways to address those persistent violators who park in bus stops and don't care about the fine," said Czebotar.
Advocates for bus riders suggested that at least as a starting point, fines should still escalate past the fifth violation.
"With the new law taking effect and more cameras rolling out, a spike in tickets is no surprise but they should decline as drivers change their ways," said Riders Alliance Director of Policy and Communications Danny Pearlstein. "Of course, car owners shouldn't be able to buy the privilege of making bus riders late. Instead, committed bus blockers should face escalating fines. Now that the nudge is in place and has had time to inspire good behavior, the legislature should amend the law."
