‘Get out of our bus lanes’: New York’s message to drivers
Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we will find out how the effort to keep bus lanes free is going. We also get details on legislation to restrict background checks on potential tenants in New York City.
They are almost as much a part of the cityscape as the buildings: cars or vans stopped in red-painted lanes marked for buses only.
Richard Davey — the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s unit that manages the city’s buses and subways — said he saw several cars and trucks parked in bus lanes last week as he took the M31 bus to a news conference. The route includes a 1.1-mile stretch of bus lanes on 57th Street.
The press conference was about cars and trucks parked in bus lanes. When Davey got there, he stood on a stage with the words “If you’re not on the bus” under the microphone. It didn’t take him long to finish the sentence: “Get out of our bus lanes.”
It’s a message that has been reinforced in recent weeks by the police’s Bus Lane Enforcement Task Force, which has about 85 traffic enforcement officers assigned to bus lane duties on weekdays. The officers write citations when cars or trucks are parked in bus lanes; they also call in tow trucks when the drivers are nowhere to be seen.
Since the task force began focusing on the bus lanes on Dec. 4, just over 4,511 traffic tickets have been issued and 230 vehicles have been towed, a police spokesman said. Officials said officers focused on 18 “bus corridors,” which were among 39 identified by the city’s Department of Transportation as candidates for “priority enforcement.”
The MTA posted a video of Davey walking along 57th Street with police officers and an officer telling drivers parked in the bus lanes to move on. The officer issued tickets for several trucks that were left unattended. Davey slipped one of the tickets under the windshield wiper of a truck.
Davey said the M57 bus route was the third slowest in the city. “It’s super, super slow,” he said.
In fact it is linked to the M31, the line he rode to the press conference, at an average speed of 7.67 miles per hour. Only the M42, at 42nd Street, and the M50, which runs through the city at 49th and 50th Street, are slower.
“Bus lanes are pointless unless they are free for buses,” said Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University. “Currently they are used for delivery trucks, all kinds of residential delivery services and people double parking. That increases parking capacity, not traffic flow.”
Sarah Kaufman, the director of the Rudin Center for Transportation at NYU, said increased enforcement would help buses get to their destinations faster. “One blockage of a car that is double-parked or waiting for someone, or a truck that is loading or unloading, can support an entire bus route,” she said.
Other transit advocates have noted that drivers who receive tickets once rarely violate bus lane rules again.
Davey said that by 2024, “our buses will essentially become more like ticket machines,” once additional onboard cameras are enabled. “We can fine cars double parked at bus stops,” he said.
The transport company plans to activate cameras on 500 buses this spring. The city already has bus lane cameras in more than 190 locations across the city. The city issued 551,852 fixed bus lane tickets based on video from those cameras in 2021, the most recent year for which figures are available, and collected $36 million in fines. The city also took in $4.2 million worth of cameras already installed on buses.
Davey was asked at the news conference about drivers stopping in a bus lane to load or unload luggage outside hotels.
“That’s OK, as long as it’s literally actively loaded,” he said.
Weather
It’s a sunny day in the low 40s. The evening is mainly clear, with temperatures around twenty degrees.
ALTERNATE PARKING
In force until December 25 (Christmas Day).
An estimated 750,000 people in New York City have a criminal record. Background checks by landlords have often deterred them from renting apartments, according to city officials, housing advocates and landlord groups.
Until now.
The city council has passed a bill that limits the ability of landlords to use criminal records to screen tenants. Landlords can still reject an applicant with a criminal record, but only if there has been a conviction in the last three years or a crime in the last five years. The bill also says landlords can screen based on convictions for certain sex crimes.
Cities like Detroit and Oakland, California, have passed similar legislation. Supporters say background checks penalize people who have already served their sentences or who may have been treated unfairly by the criminal justice system. And the multibillion-dollar tenant screening industry doesn’t always produce accurate reports.
Background checks make it more likely that people with convictions on their record will become homeless, say advocates of restrictions on screening.
The bill, which was approved by the city council by a vote of 39 to 8 with one abstention, attempts to balance tenants’ rights with safety concerns. The bill also includes feedback from some landlords and tenants, many of whom said the rules could be too restrictive.
“New Yorkers with convictions are overwhelmingly Black and Latinx due to the wide racial disparities in the criminal justice system,” said Juanita Lewis, executive director of Community Voices Heard, an anti-poverty nonprofit. “People affected by widespread discrimination now have new hope to move on with their lives,” she added.
Mayor Eric Adams voiced his support for the bill, saying in a statement before the vote that the City Council had “put the right guardrails in place” while ensuring the measure had “the maximum intended impact.”
METROPOLITAN diary
Celebrating Whitman
Dear Diary:
It was 96 degrees and carousel music was playing as I approached the academics hosting the annual Walt Whitman party in Brooklyn Bridge Park.
I asked if there was room for one more reader and was told to talk to the woman in blue. She was a professor of literature and had the final say.
When I spoke to the woman in blue, she said participants had to register online.
I wanted to read, so I told the truth.
“I’m kind of a big deal,” I said. “Your audience will love me.”
She handed me the microphone with an uncertain look. And with the Brooklyn Bridge as a backdrop, I borrowed a book from a woman who stood there, looked out at the audience and let out my barbaric cry.
Sometimes I fill myself with someone I love out of fear, out of fear that I am radiating unrequited love; But now I think there is no such thing as unrequited love – the reward is certain one way or another; (I loved a certain person fiercely, and my love was not reciprocated; yet I wrote these songs based on that.)
As I bowed and began to say goodbye, the people cheered. As I left the stage, I realized for the first time what it felt like to be acquitted.
—Danny Klecko
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send your entries here And read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. – JB
PS Here is today’s Mini crossword And Game competition. You can find all our puzzles here.
Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com.
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