Talk Bronx New York

Express Select Bus Service route will run between northern Manhattan and Co-op City in the Bronx.

MTA Is Onboard With Prepay Plan 

A plan to speed up bus travel by having riders pay before boarding will be launched in June - but declining tax revenues may delay other promised transit upgrades, officials said Monday.

The first Select Bus Service route will be between 207th St. and Broadway in northern Manhattan and Co-op City in the Bronx, Metropolitan Transportation Authority staffers said at a committee meeting at the authority’s Madison Ave. headquarters.

Helping to speed the trip, specially marked buses will have the technology to extend green lights at intersections on Fordham Road and 207th St. initially so they don’t have to stop as often.

Mayor Bloomberg’s administration and the MTA hope to later expand the fast-track service to four other routes, including 34th St. in Manhattan. Bus-only lanes will be painted terra cotta for higher visibility and officials will seek “an extraordinary level of enforcement” by police to keep other vehicles out, according to a summary released by the MTA.

Bus trips are significantly slowed by the time it takes riders to pay one by one while boarding. Select Bus riders will pay at curbside machines that give receipts before the bus arrives.

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A Boon For The Boroughs

Would congestion pricing ease the traffic that chokes Manhattan and is getting a stranglehold on the boroughs? Yes. Would it reduce air pollution? Yes.

But those benefits - important as they are - pale in comparison with the strongest reason New Yorkers should rally behind the concept:

Congestion pricing would produce the biggest mass transit improvements in decades.

Do you ride the E train between Queens and Manhattan cheek-to-jowl with fellow straphangers? There would be money to ease your pain.

Do you struggle to get to midtown from Bay Ridge because it takes too damn long on the subway and express bus service is poor? There would be money to help you out.

Are you stranded in the eastern Bronx? There would be money for commuter-line service.

Congestion pricing is less about auto traffic and more about mass transportation. It rightly should have been called the Subway and Bus Riders’ Convenience Package.

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New Refuge Islands for Bronx Pedestrians & Bus Riders

Streetsblog reader Ed Ravin sends along a photo of a new pedestrian refuge island that has recently emerged beneath an elevated subway platform in the Bronx. While the new sidewalks make bus riders’ lives a bit easier (and, perhaps, longer-lasting), Ed also has some ideas for additional improvements. He writes:

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