Plea to use all the bus doors

TRANSIT ADVOCATES fed up with pokey bus service want the next fare-payment technology to allow bus passengers to enter from every door.

Only speedier Select Bus Service routes let people board all at once. Local buses still make riders line up and dip their MetroCard one by one, holding up the bus.

“Dozens of riders always have to compete to get on board,” Ramona Ferreyra, a Bronx bus rider and member of the grassroots group Riders Alliance, said at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s board meeting Thursday. “Sometimes, I don’t bother to fight them.”

Buses spend a fifth of their time on streets idling at bus stops, according to a report from the Bus Turnaround Coalition.

NYC Transit President Andy Byford vowed to stop passengers from fleeing buses with an action plan to improve service similar to MTA Chairman’s Joe Lhota’s effort to stop subway service from deteriorating further.

Outside of MTA headquarters, bus riders and transit advocates acted out the headaches, (above) shoving and line-cutting passengers face when they’re forced to board through a single door.

“It causes stress and anxiety for bus riders to get onto their bus,” said Stephanie Bugos-Veras, Riders Alliance’s senior organizer. “We need all door boarding in Andy Byford’s April bus action plan to improve buses and also make the ride less stressful.”

NYC Transit bus chief Darryl Irick at a Tuesday MTA board meeting promised “bold and radical” changes to fix bus service.

MTA spokesman Shams Tarek, responding to the call for all-door boarding, said that “everything is on the table.”