BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Cameras have caught an
average of almost 28 scoffl aw
motorists a day for illegally
driving on the Jay Street busway,
according to data the city
provided to Brooklyn Paper.
Department of Transportation
enforcement cameras
have clocked 1,836 violations
on the red-painted lanes during
fi rst two months of automated
fi ning, and bus speeds
remained above pre-pandemic
levels, showing that the limit
on car traffi c is a boon for
straphangers, according to a
public transit advocate.
“The busway is working
well, it’s delivering better service
for riders and it’s consistent
with what we’ve seen with
other busways throughout the
city,” said Danny Pearlstein,
a spokesperson for the group
Riders Alliance.
Penalties for rule-breaking
motorists start at $50 per offense,
and increase by $50 increments
per violation, up to
a maximum of $200 for each
COURIER L 6 IFE, MAY 21-27, 2021
violation during a 12-month
period.
DOT installed two sets of
cameras at each entrance to
the busway. Jay Street cameras
have operated since December,
but the city didn’t
start using them to fi ne delinquent
drivers until March 8.
The 0.4-mile stretch between
Livingston and Tillary streets
is closed off to car throughtraffi
c between 7 am and 7 pm
on weekdays, with local access
still allowed on three cross
streets. One north-oriented
camera lives at Smith Street
between Livingston Street
and Fulton Mall, and the other
south-pointing cam is stationed
on Jay Street between Tillary
and Johnson streets.
As of May 12, more than
two thirds of the busway’s
tickets, about 1,219, came from
drivers heading south deeper
into Brooklyn, while 617 came
from cars driving north toward
Dumbo, according to
DOT’s fi gures.
Pearlstein argued that
drivers will get used to following
the law as busways become
more common across the Five
Boroughs.
“The busways are not
designed to raise revenue,
they’re designed to speed up
trips,” he said. “As busways
are rolled out more widely,
drivers will become more
used to the rules.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced
Tuesday the city
would install two more busways
in Queens and one in
Manhattan this year.
While drivers may be annoyed
by the new rules, straphangers
are surely pleased.
Bus speeds are up considerably
in both directions, with a
47–79 percent increase in traveling
pace for buses heading
south compared to 2019, and a
31–53 percent boost for buses
going north, according to a
May 4 presentation from DOT.
Jay Street is home to seven
bus lines which served 46,000
daily riders pre-pandemic.
The May 4 update shows
The Jay Street busway. Photo by Aidan Graham
that traffi c has dropped between
14 and 37 percent from
August to April, while overall
volumes of cars, buses, and
trucks varies between a 1 percent
rise and a 14 percent drop,
depending on the time of day,
according to the presentation.
Traffi c started increasing
again in the business district
from September to April, although
that coincided with the
government lifting COVID-19
restrictions.
DOT’s presentation did
not include data after May 3,
when some 80,000 municipal
workers started fl ocking back
to their offi ces, many of which
are in Downtown Brooklyn.
Caught in the act!
City fi nes 28 drivers per day on Jay Street busway
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