Bus Rapid Transit

DOT began installing the busway before Governor Cuomo canceled the full L shutdown — now its future is uncertain.

Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill on Saturday that will speed up bus trips by expanding the number of bus lanes where the city can deploy camera enforcement. The law now enables New York City to use cameras to keep car drivers out of exclusive bus lanes on up to 16 routes, an increase from just six today.

Last night, the State Senate followed the Assembly's lead and passed a bill to continue New York City's bus lane camera enforcement program and expand it to an additional 10 bus routes. The bill now awaits Governor Andrew Cuomo's signature.

Five years ago, the state passed a bill allowing the city to install cameras that catch drivers who illegally use bus lanes on six Select Bus Service routes. Unless Albany acts soon, that legislation will expire and the cameras will have to be turned off at the end of this summer.

There's $100 million for Bus Rapid Transit in the Assembly's budget proposal, and advocates are working to ensure the funds emerge intact from closed-door negotiations with Governor Cuomo and the State Senate.

After the state dumped transit in its rush to build a new Tappan Zee Bridge, Governor Cuomo announced a transit task force and promised to open the new bridge's emergency shoulders to buses. But connections for bus riders on either side of the bridge remain a mystery, and the state continues to throw out overblown numbers as its task force is set to relegate land-side bus lanes to a study after the bridge opens in 2018.

Governor Cuomo's post-Sandy infrastructure commission unveiled its recommendations [PDF] last week, and while it focused heavily on hardening the city's transportation network against future storms, it also offered glimpses of how infrastructure could be more resilient in the wake of disaster, with Bus Rapid Transit playing a prominent role.

The Cuomo administration's latest thinking on the new Tappan Zee Bridge, contained in the draft environmental impact statement it released yesterday, reinforces the state's commitment to building a sprawl-inducing, highway-only bridge. The document not only dismisses bus rapid transit, but also clears the way for an enormous expansion of automobile capacity and makes a mockery of New York's statewide smart growth law. We'll be breaking down the DEIS in a series of posts today.

For nine years, the state of New York has been studying how to replace the aging Tappan Zee Bridge. The bridge, which is more than 50 years old, requires ever more expensive repairs to stay structurally sound and was never intended to carry the volume of traffic that pours over it every day. Since 2002, an extensive public process has led to the development of four alternative plans for the Tappan Zee and the I-287 corridor. Each of them would rebuild the bridge, widen the roadway and include both a new Metro-North commuter rail line and bus rapid transit service across the bridge.