The 34th Street Crosstown Line is a

surface transit A surface, as the term is most generally used, is the outermost or uppermost layer of a physical object or space. It is the portion or region of the object that can first be perceived by an observer using the senses of sight and touch, and is ...

line on 34th Street in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

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. It currently hosts the M34/M34A

Select Bus Service Select Bus Service (SBS; stylized as +busservice) is a brand used by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)'s Regional Bus Operations for limited-stop bus routes with some bus rapid transit features in New York City. The first SBS route ...

routes of MTA's Regional Bus Operations. The M34 runs from 12th Avenue to

FDR Drive The Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive, commonly called the FDR Drive for short, is a limited-access parkway on the east side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It starts near South and Broad Streets, just north of the Battery Park ...

via 34th Street, while the M34A runs from

Port Authority Bus Terminal The Port Authority Bus Terminal (colloquially known as the Port Authority and by its acronym PABT) is a bus station, bus terminal located in Manhattan in New York City. It is the busiest bus terminal in the world by volume of traffic, serving abo ...

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Route

For most of its length, the M34 uses 34th Street to travel crosstown. There is a one-block stretch of the westbound route, between 11th and 12th Avenues, that runs along 33rd Street; this is because the M34 needs to terminate along the northbound

West Side Highway The Joe DiMaggio Highway, commonly called the West Side Highway and formerly the Miller Highway, is a mostly surface section of New York State Route 9A (NY 9A), running from West 72nd Street along the Hudson River to the southern t ...

. At its eastern end, the M34 turns north onto the service road under

to terminate at the

East 34th Street Ferry Landing The East 34th Street Ferry Landing provides slips to ferries and excursion boats in the Port of New York and New Jersey. It is located on the East River in New York City east of the FDR Drive just north of East 34th Street in Midtown Manhattan. ...

, which requires the M34 to make a U-turn at 35th Street and down southbound FDR Drive for one block. The M34A uses a different route than the M34 at its western and eastern ends. It travels along Eighth Avenue northbound and Ninth Avenue southbound between 34th Street and 43rd Street (using 43rd Street to terminate westbound), thereby serving the

. It also uses Second Avenue southbound and the FDR Drive service road northbound between 23rd Street and 34th Street in order to serve its

terminus as well as

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. The eastbound segment of the M34A between Second Avenue and FDR Drive uses 23rd Street.

Stops

History

Streetcar line

The Thirty-Fourth Street Crosstown Railway was chartered on March 18, 1896, being a consolidation of the Thirty-Fourth Street Railroad Company and the Thirty-Fourth Street Ferry & Eleventh Avenue Railroad. The stock of the company was owned by the Metropolitan Street Railway. The streetcar line was previously a horsecar line, and in July 1900 the line began running via storage batteries, but in September 1903 it was changed to using an underground third rail.

Local bus service

New York City Omnibus Corporation bus route (M19 - 16) replaced

New York Railways The New York Railways Company operated street railways in Manhattan, New York City, United States between 1911 and 1925. The company went into receivership in 1919 and control was passed to the New York Railways Corporation in 1925 after which a ...

' 34th Street Crosstown Line streetcar on April 1, 1936. In April 1986, the main bus route was renamed the M34. In 2010, it was one of seven local bus routes in Manhattan to participate in a PayPass

smart card A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card) is a physical electronic authentication device, used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) c ...

program. This program was a

pilot program A pilot study, pilot project, pilot test, or pilot experiment is a small-scale preliminary study conducted to evaluate feasibility, duration, cost, adverse events, and improve upon the study design prior to performance of a full-scale research pr ...

meant to find a suitable smart card technology to replace the

MetroCard The MetroCard is a magnetic stripe card used for fare payment on transportation in the New York City area. It is the primary payment method for the New York City Subway (including the Staten Island Railway), New York City Transit buses and MTA ...

. In August 2010, a program was implemented along the M16 and M34 routes, in which riders could track arriving buses. This later became MTA Bus Time.

Select Bus Service

The M34 SBS and M34A SBS routes began on November 13, 2011. Like other Select Bus Service corridors, off-board fare payment is used, as well as all-door boarding. These are considered by the MTA as two SBS services, the M34 34th Street Crosstown and the former M16 route, which was renamed the M34A; the routes share a single corridor. The stops are listed below from west to east. Red-painted bus lanes were installed on 34th Street between First Avenue and Eleventh Avenue. The stops at Madison Avenue and Lexington Avenue were eliminated, the westbound stop at Tenth Avenue was moved to Dyer Avenue, and a stop at West 43rd Street near Ninth Avenue was moved consolidated with a stop at 42nd Street near that avenue. A part-time stop at West 38th Street and Ninth Avenue was moved to West 39th Street. On April 8, 2012, as part of a pilot program that expanded on the 2010 pilot, MTA Bus Time was phased into this route. In April 2012, weekend service on the route was increased. Starting in early 2013, bus bulbs were installed at twelve locations along 34th Street, allowing buses to stay in the bus lane while stopping. In November 2015, the section between Lexington Avenue and Seventh Avenue was completed with the installation of four new bus bulbs, resurfaced streets, new parking spaces, and newly painted bus lanes. The portion between 12th Avenue and Lexington Avenue included the construction of eight bus bulbs at bus stops and one curb extension. The remaining segment, between Lexington Avenue and the FDR Drive Service Road is expected to be completed by December 2016. The remaining portion would install three bus bulbs at bus stops and would build two curb extensions. The entire cost of the project is $27 million. In its first year of operation, there has been 23% time savings. Since 2011, there has been 12% ridership growth on the route, while overall, bus ridership has been decreasing in Manhattan.

References

External links

* {{NYC streetcar transit MTA Regional Bus routes 034