Why NYC Needs Busways and Traffic Reduction, in Two Pictures

Here’s a look at Roosevelt Avenue and 82nd Street in Jackson Heights earlier this afternoon. Streetfilms’ Clarence Eckerson says the line to get onto these buses snaked twice as long as what you can see in the frame. Buses were already rolling up full and proceeded to crawl along Roosevelt, in traffic, at walking speed.

Eventually these buses merge onto Queens Boulevard, where today they would have run into this hellish traffic jam:

Each of those buses, packed as they were, was probably moving about as many people as all the cars in this picture combined.

With HOV restrictions in effect tomorrow, everyone riding the bus won’t have such a sluggish trip. And if the city reserves some lanes exclusively for buses — which seems like it could be in the offing, though specific plans are unknown right now — bus riders can bypass traffic even more quickly.

Of course, gridlock on streets like Queens Boulevard was worse today than it usually is, but grinding traffic heading to the free Queensboro Bridge is a fact of life when the subways are functioning perfectly well, too. The steps the city is taking to make the transportation system function during this emergency are pretty close to what needs to be done to eliminate the daily dysfunction on NYC streets: road pricing and busways.