Shock! City bus service stinks: report

Transit advocacy groups released report cards for bus routes across the city Wednesday, and the grades weren’t exactly honor roll material.

Half of all the routes analyzed across the five boroughs received a “D” grade or lower, shining a light on the depressing, delay-ridden commutes that plague the city’s 2 million daily bus riders.

The report also shows breakdowns of bus performance by City Council district— all but five of the 51 across the city received “D” or “F” grades.

“For a long time I’ve felt that the problems on our buses were an ignored second transit crisis in this city,” said City Councilman Mark Levine (D-Manhattan), whose district received an F grade and has an average bus speed of 5 miles per hour. “All the attention goes to the obviously serious problem in our subways.”

Despite the dismal findings, the analysis does show that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s bus service is improving slightly. Last year, 30 fewer bus routes received failing grades than in 2017, a statistic advocates largely chalk up to improvements in the way that buses are dispatched.

Just one route detailed in the report received an “A” grade: the Q52 select bus, which travels from Elmhurst to the Rockaways.

Jaqi Cohen of the Straphangers Campaign attributes the route’s success to features like dedicated bus lanes and all-door boarding.