DOT report: NYC streets ‘more congested than ever'
NEW YORK (FOX 5 NY) - If the traffic in New York City has felt worse than ever before recently, it's not just your imagination.
According to the Department of Transportation's annual mobility report, things are moving slower on the city's roads than ever before. Bus speeds declined to just 7.58 miles per hour, the lowest average speed recorded in the last decade, while MTA bus and subway ridership is still near the all tie high at over 2.5 billion yearly riders.
Annual Fore-Hire Vehicle trips has grown to nearly 316 million, a 90% increase since 2010, but taxi speeds in Manhattan below 60th Street have slowed from 9 miles per hour to 7 miles per hour over the last eight years.
Bus ridership has also continued a trend of decline since 2013, while the number of daily cycling trips has continued to grow, with 30,000 additional daily trips between 2016 and 2017. Moreover, Citi Bikes are now over a minute faster (and 25 percent cheaper!) than a taxi trip across any distance within what the DOT call the "Midtown Core," an area stretching from the East River and 9th Avenue to 59th Street and 35th Street to the north and south.
"Our roadways are more congested than ever," said DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg.
But it's not all doom and gloom in the city. The majority (64.1%) of New Yorkers travel using sustainable modes of transportation like walking, biking, the bus or subway. Even ferry ridership has seen significant increases since its expansion, jumping by 4,000 trips a day from 2016 and over 15% since 2010.
"More people are traversing the city than at nearly any other time in history, but we must take action to better understand this new mobility, relieve congestion, and improve our transit system. I am excited about this new era of transportation and look forward to planning, evaluating and building this new mobility. Let this report serve as the next step in improving our transportation network for all New Yorkers," Trottenberg concluded.