Buses

MTA officials revealed today that the MetroCard will linger until 2022, though the agency still intends to phase in a new fare payment system starting in 2018. What remains unknown is whether the new system will enable electronic proof of payment, a fare collection method that promises to speed up NYC's snail-paced buses.

The presidency and Congress aren't the only things at stake when voters go to the polls next month. In several cities, people will also be deciding the future of their transit and transportation systems. With the odds of increasing federal transit funding looking remote in gridlocked Washington, these local ballot measures take on even more importance. Before the election, Streetsblog will be looking at what's at stake in some of the big transit ballot initiatives, starting with Indianapolis.

Buses on the M86 are moving faster and people have noticed -- ridership on the crosstown route is on the upswing again after declining for years.

Bus ridership in New York City has steadily declined since 2002, and bus riders put up with the slowest average speeds in the nation. But the MTA is in no hurry to fix the problem.

Just how bad do bus riders have it in NYC? Today the transit advocates with the Bus Turnaround campaign launched a web site that lets you look up any route in the system and see how it performs. Spend a few minutes on the site and you'll see why ridership has fallen 16 percent citywide since 2002.

With the City Council set to take on NYC's declining bus service tomorrow morning, here's a look at one of the many strategies DOT and the MTA can employ to speed up the city's slowest-in-the-nation buses: queue jumps.

An MTA bus driver killed a senior on the Lower East Side this morning.

If you've ever taken a New York City bus, you probably have a horror story. Maybe you were late to school thanks to a double-parked motorist idling in the bus lane, or missed an appointment after you waited 20 minutes for a bus to show up, then three arrived all at the same time, already packed with riders. Now you can tell your elected representatives to fix these problems via the Riders Alliance's "Woes on the Bus" campaign.