The penalties against UPS \u2014 whose slogan was once \u201cWhat can brown do for you?\u201d \u2014 far outnumber Frito-Lay, Verizon, FedEx and Con Edison on the list of businesses caught obstructing bus lanes the most.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese companies seem to have made illegal parking \u2014 especially blocking the bus lanes \u2014 part of their business model,\u201d Janno Lieber, MTA chairperson and chief executive, told THE CITY. \u201cIt\u2019s time to motivate them to get over that bad habit.\u201d<\/p>\n
UPS did not respond to requests for comment, nor did representatives for most of the other companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The push to get vehicles out of bus lanes comes as Mayor Zohran Mamdani has repeatedly pledged<\/a> to make buses faster and after he brought in a new adviser for his \u201cfast and free\u201d buses<\/a> campaign this week.<\/p>\n The top 25 bus-lane intruders last year combined for close to 130,000 violations, according to numbers provided to THE CITY. Frito-Lay trucks received 6,740 violations, Verizon vehicles were caught by the cameras 5,669 times, while FedEx and Con Edison were respectively hit with 4,240 and 3,546 violations.<\/p>\n In all, 843,000 violations were issued for bus lane blockers in 2025, according to a September report<\/a> by the city Department of Finance.<\/p>\n An Amazon spokesperson said the company works with more than 40 locally owned and operated delivery service partners that are responsible for day-to-day operations. The independent businesses employ more than 5,000 workers to make deliveries across the city.<\/p>\n \u201cWe expect all delivery partners to comply with local traffic regulations, and we\u2019re investing in long-term solutions, including fleet electrification, e-bike and walker programs to reduce our impact on city streets and be a good neighbor,\u201d said spokesperson Leigh Anne Gullett.<\/p>\n A Con Edison spokesperson noted that the utility\u2019s crews operate around the clock as part of the city\u2019s emergency response network.<\/p>\n \u201cAt times, that work requires prioritizing safety access over parking regulations,\u201d said spokesperson Anne Marie Corbalis. \u201cWhile safety always comes first, we work to minimize disruptions whenever possible.\u201d<\/p>\n When buses on a route are equipped with cameras, there is a 60-day warning period before motorists begin racking up fines.\u00a0<\/p>\n The violations were most common along the M101, where more than 50,000 violations were issued along the route that runs between the East Village and Upper Manhattan. Just under 41,000 bus-lane blockers were flagged along the M15, which links East Harlem and South Ferry. On the Bx19, which runs between the New York Botanical Garden in The Bronx and Riverbank State Park in Manhattan, close to 23,000 violations were cited.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cOur hope is that the [automated camera enforcement] program won\u2019t be just another fee that these companies see as a cost of doing business in New York,\u201d said Brian Fritsch, associate director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA. \u201cI hope that they realize these are their workers trying to get to and from work.\u201d<\/p>\n The penalties kick in once a vehicle is caught on camera twice for standing in a bus lane for longer than five minutes, with the initial $50 fine<\/a> matched for each additional violation, up to a maximum of $250. Vehicles can also get flagged if they are observed blocking bus stops twice for more than two-and-a-half minutes.<\/p>\n A Fine Mess<\/strong><\/p>\n Altogether, the city issued $54.9 million in fines for bus-lane violations in Fiscal Year 2025, just under 5% of the $1.1 billion in overall penalties for parking and camera violations.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a fraction of the $244.1 million in fines issued for speeding in school zones, according to the September Department of Finance report.\u00a0<\/p>\n Department of Transportation officials said that ongoing and planned street redesigns \u2014 including some that will place bus lanes in the middle of busy thoroughfares and not at curbside \u2014 are key factors in curbing bus-blocking violations and accelerating service.<\/p>\n \u201cACE enforcement is remarkably successful at changing driver behavior, with just 5% of vehicles receiving more than two violations, but delaying bus riders and creating dangerous street conditions cannot be written off by these large corporations as the cost of doing business,\u201d said Vin Barone, a DOT spokesperson.<\/p>\n Mamdani has committed to speeding buses by expanding the reach of bus lanes citywide and embarking on a series of street redesigns. One street overhaul announced this week for Flatbush Avenue<\/a> will eventually have buses running in the center lanes. Buses along Flatbush can crawl as slowly as 4 mph, according to DOT.<\/p>\n \u201cNew York City DOT is working to improve our street designs to better keep bus lanes clear for the more than 1 million daily riders and recently launched a new Curb Management Unit to improve how the city handles the increasing number of deliveries on our streets,\u201d Barone added.\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, the number of violations points to some of the obstacles in the way of Mamdani\u2019s fast buses commitment, which the mayor has paired with his hope of eventually securing fare-free service<\/a>. According to MTA data, buses last month moved at a citywide average of 8.3 mph<\/a>, including a low of 6.2 mph in Manhattan.<\/p>\n The Bronx was a tick higher at 6.6 mph. In contrast, Staten Island buses traveled at an average speed of 15.2 mph.<\/p>\n Donald Yates, a vice president with Transport Workers Union Local 100, cited taxis, for-hire vehicles, ice cream vendors and delivery trucks as roadblocks in bus lanes. He\u2019s skeptical about vehicles clearing out of the way.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s not enough real estate to make things change,\u201d said Yates, who represents Manhattan and Bronx bus operators. \u201cThe city\u2019s got to run, and I guess these deliveries help with commerce. I just don\u2019t see it changing.\u201d<\/p>\n The TWU Local 100 official acknowledged that vehicles for Con Edison sometimes land in bus lanes while crews are on emergency duties and also expressed sympathy for drivers of delivery trucks.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have to do their deliveries,\u201d Yates said. \u201cAnybody with common sense has some sympathy for that.\u201d<\/p>\n As Olga Villate waited for a southbound M15 bus at Second Avenue and East 50th Street, she said she is sometimes frustrated by what she encounters in the bus lane.<\/p>\n \u201cYou say, \u2018Why? Why is someone in the bus lane?\u2019\u201d said Villate, 45. \u201cDrivers see the signs for not going into the bus lane, and they just keep going in there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t understand why they don\u2019t respect it,\u201d she added. \u201cNo respect for the bus lane.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s what brown can do for you: turn commuting on the country\u2019s pokiest buses into even more of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":763460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,18394,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-763459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-buses","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116493194413342947","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/042826_blocked_bus_lane-3.jpg\")
A FedEx delivery truck blocks Broadway in Lower Manhattan, forcing another FedEx truck into the bus lane, April 28, 2026. Credit: Ben Fractenberg\/THE CITY<\/p>\n