Friday’s Headlines: Bus Lane Enforcement Edition
The city has several tools to get drivers out of bus lanes, most notably automated enforcement cameras and NYPD traffic enforcement agents.
But one tool has been underutilized: uniformed police officers, who wrote just nine tickets to drivers blocking bus lanes last week — compared to thousands issued by TEAs and automated cameras. Meanwhile, on a visit to 57th Street this week, Streetsblog reporter Sammy Sussman observed 12 bus lane violations in three minutes.
Clearly, automated cameras and TEAs can only do so much. For many drivers and delivery companies, traffic tickets are simply the cost of doing business; some of the trucks Sussman saw had literally thousands of tickets on their records.
The threat of a fine is apparently not enough to get illegally parked drivers out of the way of buses — that’s where actual uniformed police officers have a role to play. Yet under Mayor Mamdani, the amount of bus lane tickets cops wrote was down 71 percent last week compared to the same week in 2025.
Watch below to see Sammy “ticket” a dozen illegal parkers on 57th Street:
In other news:
- DOT has begun installing the Brooklyn and Kingston avenue protected bike lanes. (anash.org)
- Mayor Mamdani’s enthusiastic pitch in February to President Trump to help the city build housing over Sunnyside Yards has seemingly gone nowhere. (Gothamist)
- Small property owners want to band together to share large curbside trash containers. (Gothamist)
- Are concerns about teens on illegal e-motos just another moral panic? (The Guardian)
- A hit-and-run driver was arrested after hitting and injuring a two-year-old boy and his mother. (PIX11)
- Labor groups and City Council members rallied on Thursday in support of the Delivery Protection Act. (amNY)
- Shared micromobility is another Big Apple “tale of two cities.” (The Micromobility Newsletter)
- The City Council passed a package of bills to address the scourge of New Yorkers who don’t clean up their dog poop. (NY Times)
- Don’t believe the hype: the Upper West Side has plenty of automated license plate readers, and none of them were made by Flock. (Gus Saltonstall via X)
- And finally, the City Council finally reversed the winter roadway outdoor dining ban it passed under former Speaker Adrienne Adams:
Read More:
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