By Gus Saltonstall
New technology has come to the Upper West Side.
A touch-screen that shows real-time bus wait times was recently installed near a M7, M11, and M79 stop at the corner of West 80th Street and Columbus Avenue.
The screen was one of four installed across the city on June 25 as part of a pilot program by the MTA and the New York City Department of Transportation, which will test the technology over the next year. The device tells you how long each bus line is away from the 80th Street stop.
“Providing bus riders with real-time information on bus time arrival is a powerful tool that will help New Yorkers to better manage their commutes,” a spokesperson from the DOT told West Side Rag. “We are excited to launch this one-year pilot and look forward to monitoring its success throughout the course of the pilot.”
Here’s what the screen looks like from slightly further back.
The DOT will conduct user surveys about the bus-time screen throughout the course of the pilot.
Multiple readers let us know that the other screen on the Upper West Side is located on Columbus Avenue between 74th and 75th streets The two remaining screens in the pilot program are in Queensborough Hill, Queens, according to the DOT.
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For the M7 and M11 it will be reading “4 will be arriving together in 90 minutes,”!
Same with the M104.
They need this at every stop on the UWS.
The uptown bus stop at 66th and Broadway greatly needs one of these screens. Various bus lines, uptown and crosstown, converge there, as well as the 1 train. Passengers who have trouble seeing approaching buses are left wondering if they should wait or opt for the train.
good point. knowing the arrival time of subway trains or busses has never been of much help to me. what else is there to do but wait? but when there are options, sure, its helpful to know.
There was one on Columbus around 91st st
the future!
By the way, the free MTA Bustime app will provide this info for you, plus help you find nearby stops and the like. No QR or other codes to scan, either–it uses your phone’s GPS. Honestly one of the great underappreciated achievements of NYC infrastructure!
Bustime is great, but my favorite app (which also works across public transit for multiple cities) is Citymapper. Arguably the best mapping app out there with real time arrivals.
The NYC MyTransit app has all local modes of real time transportation including subway, buses. LIRR & MetroNorth.
You don’t have to have GPS enabled to use BusTime. You can enter the bus line and then select the specific stop; it will show you all the buses that service that stop and how many minutes until arrival.
That’s what I use for figuring out bus arrival times.
The app Transit is great for looking at various options sorted by distance from one’s current location.
There are apps for bus arrival times that can be used at every stop. I question the need for the MTA to make such capital expenditures when there are better uses for those funds. I also don’t understand how one can better manage their commute when they are already standing at the bus stop.
I’m kind of tired of pulling my phone out for everything. How nice to just walk up, look at the sign and get the information. Once my phone comes out then I’m distracted by whatever else is on my phone.
I completely agree. Although it’s “nice” to have, I wish the MTA would spend money on other important things, like updating the subway signals, replacing the (40+ year old) subway cars, etc.
I was going to ask how is this new technology being funded??
Completely agree. MTA is constantly complaining about lack of funds yet wastes money on projects like this. First of all, the vast majority of people now have some type of app-enabled device. Secondly, until not many years ago, none of this was available and people survived by just having to wait and hope a bus would arrive. And it didn’t kill them.
I would love to know how much the technology and the installation of the technology cost.
By that logic there shouldn’t be maps anywhere.
There aren’t.
I loooooove MTA Bustime, but there are still accessibility barriers for some, and probably disproportionately among regular bus-riders (poorer, limited English fluency, various physical disabilities that limit effective use of a phone).
Yeah, but how many people carry iPhones?!
Or if you didn’t grow up with them… how to figure out how to use them to figure out when the bus is arriving! If you’re older, waiting 15 plus minutes for a bus to arrive is so awful/painful. No seats at most stops.
At least 6 or 8. Possibly more than 10 but likely not more than 13. On Sundays, somewhere in the range of 24.353 to 125. 71.
Oh, about 98% of the population have a smartphone. Apps work on all of them.
I believe he was using sarcasm to make his point.
I give it a week before it’s destroyed.
Surprising sentiment.
This design is prime candidate to be vandalized for sure. Hopefully we also get some mounted high at covered bus stops. They wont have all the fancy ADA buttons, but will be good enough for most. Fingers crossed the MTA doesn’t decide to fill them with adds, the way they have many of the subway ones.
Hope the screens endure the elements better than the LinkNYC screens.
Since they’re touch screen, will they fail as often as the touch screens on subway station MetroCard machines?
These are not touch screens. They just display the arrival times of the bus. Also, I suspect they use e-ink screens, similar to the kindle so it uses less electricity.
I hope they do this for the rest of the system. At least I can see where my taxes and fare are going
Edge,
Second paragraph of this article says they are touch screens, or at least one is.
Your taxes are going to illegal wars and massive corporate welfare.
A waste of money -typical of the MTA, Use Bustime on your phone or other available apps. Those public screens will just be germ collectors-touch at your own risk and keep your fingers out of your eyes.
Saw another one at 75th and Columbus
There is one at 75th and Columbus, but it is mounted up high so there is no interactivity.
Hopefully these will all be installed when the free bus service kicks in.
Aanother stupid promise to get votes sort of like the price of eggs
If I recall correctly, there have been similar bus-time screens along Madison Avenue in the 60s and 70s for several years, but larger and mounted high on poles near the bus stops. Easier to read than a touchscreen and less vulnerable to mishandling by vandals or the fumble-fingered.
Why waste the time with this expensive gadget
The original bus shelter contract required that there be bus info displayed,
in exchange for the builder keeping all the advert $$$ but that was never enforced
There are already countdown clocks that do the same thing at many UWS stops.
61/Bway for example
And more importantly they are above a height where someone can smash them as the ones in the subway regularly
That’s just great. But what about cleaning the sidewalks and streets.
There is so much garbage and dog feces on the sidewalks it’s like walking land mines.
Totally disgusting and disgraceful. Our politicians and representatives should be ashamed of themselves.
Re: “garbage and dog feces on the sidewalks….our politicians and representatives should be ashamed of themselves.” How about the
dog owners who don’t clean up after their dogs? and slobs who just
toss their trash anywhere? What do you want “politicians and representatives” to do?