TESTIMONY
BEFORE THE CITY COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION

by Kathryn S. Wylde, President and CEO
PARTNERSHIP FOR NEW YORK CITY

New York, New York
December 7, 2006

PDF 77K

Express Buses in New York City

Good morning. Thank you Chairman Liu and members of the committee for the opportunity to testify today.

The Partnership for New York City represents the city’s business leadership and its largest private sector employers.  Working together with government, labor and other nonprofit organizations, our mission is to maintain New York’s position as the leading world city.

Today’s hearing on express bus service is extremely timely. Earlier this week, the Partnership published a major study on the need for traffic relief and transit improvements in New York. We absolutely agree with Chairman Liu’s position that the MTA needs to expand the current use of express buses in order to fill the gaps in our current, inadequate public transit system. We also agree that the commitment to an expanded express bus system should be undertaken before instituting congestion charges designed to discourage use of personal cars for travel into Manhattan during peak congestion periods.

The problem with adding buses to the system, however, is that the streets of Manhattan are already full to capacity throughout the workday. Until we do something about congestion, it is difficult to establish reliable and efficient bus service. Express buses, like other vehicles, are caught up in traffic jams, miss their schedules, and lose ridership as a result. They also end up being money losers for the MTA because of the added costs of congestion delay and unreliability.

The Partnership’s traffic and transit study provides the first evidence of the huge cost that traffic congestion imposes on the businesses and residents of the Metropolitan Region.  We were able to identify more than $13 billion a year in losses to the regional economy and up to 52,000 jobs that are not being created every year because of traffic congestion. We also found that congestion throughout the region has passed the “tipping point” – that is, the point at which heavy traffic no longer contributes to a vibrant, healthy economy but is essentially destroying economic activity because it causes delay, inefficiency and increases the costs of living and doing business in New York.   Today, 48 percent of traffic congestion in our region is excess or destructive congestion. This cannot be sustained.

The primary source of traffic congestion throughout the region is the concentration of economic activity in the 8.5 square miles of the city that comprise Manhattan between 60 th Street and the Battery. Every weekday, more than 3.6 million people enter Manhattan’s Central Business Districts, traveling from every corner of the region. Two-thirds come by mass transit, but the rest come by private car. For many people, there is no efficient alternative to a car because they come from locations in the region that are not adequately served by mass transit or the transit services that exist are so slow and inefficient that they are practically useless.

Transportation officials are currently examining Bus Rapid Transit, which provides exclusive bus lanes, right of way, and the ability to control traffic signals. Cities in Europe, North America, South America and Australia have built Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems with a high degree of success over the last decade, offering travel times and comfort levels similar to light rail systems.  BRT systems in use today include separate, dedicated roads, high occupancy vehicle lanes as well as automated curb-guided and electronically guided buses. These systems lead to a tremendous increase in efficiency, turning buses into a viable alternative for commuters. The Partnership supports the city’s pilot project, which is testing the introduction of BRT in New York.

There are a number of options for transit improvement and traffic relief that the city needs to explore, as quickly as possible. Every day we delay, New Yorkers are losing time and money. This week, the Federal Department of Transportation has published an invitation for cities to apply for federal funding to pay for a comprehensive feasibility study for a traffic relief and transit improvement program.  For the five cities that are selected for funding, federal money is also available to support expansion of the existing transit system. This could expedite and help finance new express bus lines.

Over the next 25 years, it is expected that the city should grow by one million residents, and add 750,000 new jobs. Excess traffic congestion threatens that potential growth and, even with planned expansion, the current public transit system is inadequate to handle it.

We look forward to working closely with your committee and the entire City Council in the coming weeks and months to plan together the needed improvement of our system of mass transit to accommodate future growth.

The Partnership for New York City (www.pfnyc.org) is a network of business leaders dedicated to enhancing the economy of the five boroughs of New York City and maintaining the city’s position as the global center of commerce, culture and innovation.