Daily Archives: January 6, 2020

Locals to get their say on controversial 14th Street Busway

By Linda O’Flanagan

Businesses and residents on and around the controversial new 14th Street busway will get a chance to have their say at a series of public meetings this month.

Local Community Boards will be hosting meetings to provide information about preliminary data on what’s officially known as 14th Street Transit/Truck Priority pilot.

NYC DOT and their consultant team from Sam Schwartz Engineering will provide an update about the pilot. A presentation will describe the independent monitoring for the project and the DOT will share results from the preliminary report.

Despite a report from the city in December hailing the busway as a big hit, many residents and business owners have bemoaned the transit program that limits traffic to buses, trucks, emergency vehicles and drop-offs.

Continue reading →

Busway report finds decreased transit times

The busway on 14th Street officially launched last October. (Photo by Maria Rocha-Buschel)

By Maria Rocha-Buschel

The mayor’s office released a report on the 14th Street Busway on Wednesday, finding that ridership and speeds on the M14-SBS have both increased significantly, although car traffic slowed slightly on adjacent side streets.

Since the October implementation of the busway, officially called the Transit & Truck Priority (TTP) Pilot, crosstown commutes for bus riders are now as much as nine minutes faster than they were previously and trips along most of the adjacent side streets are less than a minute slower than before the restrictions were put into place.

Bicycling has also surged since the Department of Transportation created protected bike lanes on 12th and 13th Streets, in addition to an increase in popularity for Citi Bike.

The DOT studied the impact of the pilot on side streets from 12th to 19th, finding that travel times increased by zero to two minutes during weekday peak hours. Travel times increased slightly more on 17th Street between Third and Ninth Avenues, which saw a 3.4-minute increase in travel time. The report also found, however, that the volume of vehicles on 12th Street did not change significantly and actually decreased on 13th Street.

Continue reading →