MANHATTAN — Bus riders will have a better idea of when their ride will arrive with the addition of 48 new countdown clocks at stops in Midtown, city officials announced Tuesday.
The new clocks will announce real-time bus arrival information on the street, both visually and audibly, across the East Side and Midtown, along bus routes including the M101, M102, M103, M66, M31 and M57, according to DOT Manhattan Borough Commissioner Luis Sanchez, the Riders Alliance and Councilman Dan Garodnick, who worked together to secure $1 million in funding for the clocks.
Already, four clocks have been installed at the stops at East 60th Street and Third Avenue, East 50th Street and Third Avenue, 57th Street and Sixth Avenue, and East 68th Street and Lexington Avenue.
The next clocks are planned for Madison Avenue at East 49th and 40th streets, Fifth Avenue at West 42nd Street, and Lexington Avenue at East 57th and East 59th streets.
The rest will be up and running by the end of the year, though officials did not say where specifically they would go.
"This expansion of bus stop clocks is an important step that the city has taken to signal to riders that they matter,” said Rebecca Bailin, campaign manager for the Riders Alliance. “As we fight to make buses faster and more reliable, improvements like these are about equity: bus riders, who are disprortionately lower-income and more elderly than the city as a whole, will be able to plan their trips to accommodate their lives."
In 2015, Garodnick earmarked $950,000 for the project, and the Riders Alliance pushed the City Council to allocate discretionary funds to bring Bus Time signs to more places around the city.
