Mayor Mamdani and Gov. Hochul announced a sweeping citywide bus plan
Mayor Mamdani and Governor Hochul stood together with member leaders from Riders Alliance to release a major new plan to improve bus service across the city. It is a major step forward for riders, and a powerful reminder that progress like this does not happen because good ideas simply appear at City Hall. It happens because riders organize long enough, loudly enough, and strategically enough to change what elected leaders believe they owe the people who rely on buses every day.
There is a lot in the plan to celebrate from finally launching all-door boarding across the city to building a new generation of rapid bus corridors that would move New York closer than it has ever been to true bus rapid transit. Some of the commitments are relatively straightforward. Others, especially the promise to speed buses up by at least 20% on each project, will be much harder. I want to share three things that make this plan especially significant:
It focuses on what bus priority infrastructure is supposed to deliver: faster, more reliable service for riders. For years, New York has treated bus improvements as an infrastructure question instead of a rider question or even an enforcement priority. The conversation and evaluation have been about whether a lane got painted, not whether riders actually got where they needed to go faster and more reliably. This plan is different. It places speed and reliability at the center and defines success by the impact on bus riders themselves.
It starts from the truth that on many major corridors, bus riders are the majority of street users. Despite this fact, bus riders are routinely treated as an afterthought in transportation decisions. Riders are workers getting to early shifts, parents getting kids to school, elders getting to appointments, and New Yorkers holding together the life of this city. It has never been a question to us whether their time matters, their commutes matter, or their dignity matters. A plan like this matters in part because it joins us in recognizing that in many communities bus riders are the people the street is expressly for.
It represents progress on one of the hardest challenges in New York transportation: getting the City and State to work together on a shared system. The Mayor and NYC DOT control the streets. The Governor and the MTA run the buses. That split has made it easy for responsibility to be delayed, diluted, or passed back and forth. One of the most meaningful parts of today was seeing the Mayor and Governor stand together alongside bus riders and publicly say what they owe bus riders and what they intend to deliver. If they follow through, it will not just mean faster commutes. It will mean real progress in getting the City and State to act like partners in a system millions of New Yorkers rely on every day.
We are proud to celebrate this moment. And still, a plan is just a plan until it is delivered. Making this real will require agency coordination, political will, public courage, and sustained pressure from organized riders when the inevitable resistance shows up. It will take a citywide campaign strong enough not just to win announcements, but to make sure every promise becomes something riders can feel in their daily lives.
And that starts now! You can take action today by emailing your City and State leaders to ask them to support plans to implement better buses in their district.