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Countdown clocks are coming to an NYC bus stop near you
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Oct 23, 2026 at 10:59 a.m. ET
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Courtesy NYC Department of Transportation
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Oct 23, 2026 at 10:59 a.m. ET
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This column originally appeared in On The Way, a weekly newsletter covering everything you need to know about NYC-area transportation.
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New York City bus service might be slow, but more riders across the five boroughs will soon have an easier time figuring out how long they’ll have to wait at their stop.
The city transportation department inked a deal this week to add countdown clocks at more than 1,400 stops with a “digital panel on the side of the bus shelter,” documents show. The new digital clocks will also have a text-to-speech feature for the visually impaired.
The transportation department plans to outfit 2,900 of the city’s roughly 15,000 bus stops with countdown clocks by 2030.
Officials said 700 countdown clocks are already installed at bus stations.
Some New Yorkers noted the existing countdown clocks were unreliable.
Earlier this week, bus rider Arlen Sun waited at a Downtown Brooklyn bus stop with a countdown clock that said both a B61 and B65 would arrive in zero minutes. Several minutes went by without a bus in sight.
Sun, 25, checked Google Maps, which said the next bus wouldn’t arrive for another 10 minutes. He said he has little faith in the countdown clocks and rarely even looks at them.
“ They don't really work, and you gotta use online,” Sun said.
“ I feel like buses, you can't really have set schedule for these things, because it's never going to be on time really,” he said. “I guess that's just a part of taking a bus.”
The new countdown clocks will be a mix of digital screens affixed to the sides of bus shelters and other panels attached to bus poles. The city’s bus shelters are managed by the company JCDecaux, which has a deal with the city to build and maintain the shelters in exchange for the right to put up advertisements.
The city plans to hire a contractor to install 1,400 of the countdown clocks on bus poles.
The transportation department plans to spend $17 million to install the clocks, which doesn’t include the cost to maintain the equipment, officials said.
Officials said the new countdown clocks will be installed at locations based on ridership and what they call an “equitable approach” to ensure “all New Yorkers” can access the technology.
The city's current bus countdown clocks aren't exactly cutting edge.
Stephen Nessen / Gothamist
Countdown clocks take some of the worry out of waiting on platforms and are a service subway riders across all lines have enjoyed for years. MTA officials said the new screens will sync with the transit agency’s bus location system to ensure accuracy.
“These displays will bring the same type of real-time arrival estimates we provide through Bus Time, the MTA App, and screens on subway platforms, and we're grateful for their partnership,” MTA Chief Customer Officer Shanifah Rieara wrote in a statement.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani earlier this year announced plans to add 300 new bus shelters over the next two years. His administration has added new bus lanes across the city this year in a bid to make service more reliable.
“Every New Yorker deserves to know when their bus is coming,” the mayor wrote in a statement. “It’s another step toward the fast, reliable, world-class bus service New Yorkers deserve.”
Iris Velez, who caught a bus in SoHo earlier this week, said she normally avoids the service. But she said she might be enticed to ride the bus more often if the countdown clocks helped determine “which way would be a better route.”
NYC transportation news this week
Plants are sprouting out of a deteriorated MTA train yard roof. An MTA train yard in the Bronx where the 2 and 5 trains are serviced is in such a state of disrepair that vegetation is growing out of holes in the facility’s roof, according to a recent audit by the MTA’s Office of the Inspector General. Water drips down onto electrical equipment. A tarp has been laid out to collect water that flows into buckets. The audit also flags multiple – and in many cases, long-standing – issues that pose a threat to the workers on site and threaten to disrupt or slow down New York City’s sprawling subway network.
The Citi Bike empire is expanding. The bike-sharing network finished a push to add docks to seven more neighborhoods, including parts of the North Bronx and Eastern Brooklyn. Here’s where they’re adding more docks.
Lieber’s still a no on free buses. After a Brooklyn public school dean said he was brutally assaulted by MTA fare inspectors over a bus fare he said he paid, MTA Chair Janno Lieber reiterated his opposition to Mayor Mamdani's push for free buses.
Motorcycle crash closed upper lanes to NY on GWB. A fatal motorcycle crash closed the George Washington Bridge’s upper lanes heading into New York City during Thursday morning rush hour.
Ex-NYPD detective in custody after GWB shooting. A driver was shot and killed while driving on the George Washington Bridge’s upper level earlier this week. A retired NYPD detective is in custody for the road-rage killing, police said.
Port Authority plans long-term fix to Manhattan roadway where falling debris smashed cars. The Port Authority's board is set to approve a $117.5 million contract to fix the Trans-Manhattan Expressway, a 0.8-mile tunnel tucked beneath buildings in Upper Manhattan that connects to the George Washington Bridge’s lower roadway, where a piece of metal and a chunk of concrete fell from the roadway’s ceiling earlier this year.
Commuters worry about gun violence after fatal shooting at 53rd St. station. Several commuters who use the busy Midtown train station where a man was shot and killed last weekend told Gothamist they worry about persistent gun violence as NYPD statistics show murders and felony assaults in the transit system have increased this year.
Curious Commuter
Have a question for us? Use this form to submit yours and we may answer it in a future newsletter!
Question from Jeffrey in Manhattan
Why is it that the bus routes on the East Side avenues use the long buses while those on the West Side have much shorter buses? The level of ridership seems similar. The buses on the West Side are way too crowded!
Answer
The MTA typically runs longer buses — the ones with the accordion-style connection in the middle — on its busiest routes. The bus routes that run up and down the East Side are far busier than the ones on the West Side because there are fewer subway options. Manhattan’s busiest bus route — the M15 select bus — runs up and down First and Second Avenues. If there were a Second Avenue subway spanning the length of the borough, the bus route would see far fewer riders.
MTA spokesperson Aaron Donovan said that longer buses are prioritized for “higher ridership routes,” particularly the agency’s select buses that make less frequent stops than the regular local ones.
Fun fact: The MTA nickname for the longer buses is “artics,” short for articulated. The On The Way team prefers to call them “Bendy Bois.”
Tagged
On The Way
new york city
transportation
Stephen Nessen
Stephen Nessen covers transportation. Since 2008 he has reported on everything from Occupy Wall Street, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, Hurricane Sandy, to Trump’s campaign for president. His transportation reporting has taken him everywhere from the MTA’s secret Rail Control Center to the gleaming subways of Seoul. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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