{"id":35932,"date":"2025-11-11T12:42:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T12:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/35932\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T12:42:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T12:42:08","slug":"hells-kitchens-m42-crowned-nycs-slowest-bus-with-m57-and-m34-in-the-rearview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/35932\/","title":{"rendered":"Hell\u2019s Kitchen’s M42 Crowned NYC\u2019s Slowest Bus \u2014 With M57 and M34 in the Rearview"},"content":{"rendered":"

If it felt like your crosstown bus was crawling this year, congratulations \u2014 your instincts are impeccable. The new Pokey, Schleppie & Mazel Awards<\/a> report is out, and Hell\u2019s Kitchen has officially dominated the podium for slowest buses in New York City.<\/p>\n

\"M42The M42 Crosstown Bus picking through traffic on W42nd Street. Photo: Phil O\u2019Brien<\/p>\n

Leading the pack (or\u2026 slow parade): the M42, clocking in at a breathtaking 5.25 mph \u2014 the slowest high-ridership bus in all five boroughs. The golden-snail Pokey Award is back after a three-year hiatus, and W42nd Street proudly reclaimed its title as the place where time ceases to have meaning. <\/p>\n

Right behind it? Our own M57, shimmying across Midtown at 5.26 mph \u2014 barely fast enough to beat a distracted pedestrian with a latte. Rounding out our neighborhood medal haul, the M34\/M34A placed in the city\u2019s Top (Bottom) Five at 5.54 mph. It\u2019s an impressive achievement: three of the five slowest buses in NYC run through Hell\u2019s Kitchen.<\/p>\n

\"NewA table from the Pokey, Schleppie & Mazel Awards report showing the speed of local buses. <\/p>\n

The report by the New York Public Interest Research Group Straphangers Campaign and Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA blames 42nd Street\u2019s lack of a real busway, double-parked cars, weak enforcement and Midtown\u2019s eternal traffic Jenga. Even the congestion charge helped only so much \u2014 the M42 is still stuck behind a wall of delivery trucks, Ubers and tour buses that refuse to believe lanes have meaning.<\/p>\n

At a press conference on E42nd Street Monday (reported by amNY<\/a>), MTA chief of policy John McCarthy put it even more plainly: \u201cAs much as I\u2019d like to accept the award for the M42, it\u2019s really not the bus\u2019s fault. The bus wakes up in the morning, and it wants to provide great service, it wants to go fast\u2026 the problem is that things are in the way. It\u2019s the street, it\u2019s the road, it\u2019s the vehicles blocking buses,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

To add insult to immobility, the M42 also made the \u201cmost improved\u201d list, thanks to a tiny bump in speed over last year. That\u2019s right: it won the Pokey and landed in the Mazel Award rankings. Only in New York can the slowest bus be celebrated for getting slightly less slow.<\/p>\n

Across the city, Queens\u2019s Q8 took home the Schleppie Award for least reliable service \u2014 riders waited an average of 3.62 minutes longer than scheduled. Staten Island\u2019s S48 topped its borough\u2019s \u201cslowest\u201d list, and the M79+ won the first-ever Mazel for most improved. But let\u2019s be honest: Hell\u2019s Kitchen kept the spotlight.<\/p>\n

If all this feels familiar, remember that Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani spent part of his campaign quite literally riding our misery. We photographed him campaign-stumping on the M57, chatting with bleary commuters as the bus inched across town \u2014 a real-time demonstration of the problem he\u2019s pledged to fix.<\/p>\n

\"ZohranMayor elect Zohran Mamdani takes the time to chat to commuters on the M57 bus during his campaign. Photo: Catie Savage<\/p>\n

His plan? \u201cFast and free\u201d buses citywide, backed by bus lanes, signal priority and better dispatching. Whether Albany, the MTA and the city\u2019s budget agree is an open question \u2014 but bus riders in Hell\u2019s Kitchen would welcome even a single extra mile per hour.<\/p>\n

For now, though, the trophies belong to us. The M42 is once again New York City\u2019s slowest bus, and the M57 and M34 are right there on the podium.<\/p>\n

Congratulations, West Side \u2014 we\u2019re number one\u2026 in going nowhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If it felt like your crosstown bus was crawling this year, congratulations \u2014 your instincts are impeccable. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[13497,9,56,63,65,64,9515],"class_list":{"0":"post-35932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-bus","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-ny","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-nyc-headlines","13":"tag-nyc-news","14":"tag-transport"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}