New York City’s public transportation is in the midst of a slow-moving crisis. Years of deferred maintenance, staff shortages, and insufficient funding have left subway commuters navigating regular delays and bus passengers riding the slowest buses in the nation. Some attempts to improve this state of affairs, like increased headways and more efficient routes, have been slow to materialize. And congestion pricing, which would provide much needed funds for upgrades to the transit system, has been caught in a decades-long will-they-or-won’t-they plot. As planners and politicians push for interventions like charging infrastructure to encourage adoption of conceptually climate-friendly electric vehicles that will do little to ease congestion, effective public transportation, especially buses that transport commuters swiftly to their destination, may be the crucial piece of the puzzle for a greener, more equitable city.
In the absence of comprehensive investments, the MTA, which oversees the City’s subways and buses, but notably does not oversee its streets, and DOT, which does, have an arsenal of tools that, deployed effectively, can quickly speed up commutes: red paint, signage, and enforcement cameras. These are the elements of a bus lane. The premise is simple — designating a part of the road for the exclusive transit of public buses — and is enforced through a range of designs. In some places, a lane is just a suggestive red painted strip, in others, a robust busway is separated by bollards. A flurry of new bus lane construction followed the passage of a streets master plan by New York City Council in 2019, but more recently, installation has slowed. Mayor Adams only built 20.7 of the 50 miles of bus lanes mandated by law between 2022 and 2023, and many of these have been undercut by the political maneuvering of wealthy neighbors and business owners. As the city vacillates in making significant changes to its traffic patterns, John Surico surveys pavement marking practices and politics across the five boroughs, and photographer Alexa Hoyer focuses in on guidelines many drivers choose to ignore.