Storm Puts Brakes On City Bus Service
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New Yorkers who prefer to use buses as their mode of transportation were in for a rude surprise because of the storm. NY1's Bobby Cuza filed the following report.It wasn't just cars spinning their wheels Monday. All over the city, buses too, were immobilized by the snow. On Fifth Avenue, a pileup of three buses choked off traffic all day.
Similar scenes played out all over the city. At one time, a thousand buses were reported stuck, transit officials said, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded.
"Some people they decide to walk, some people they decide to stay," said one MTA bus driver.
Many passengers reported spending hours onboard stranded buses, too far from home to walk and with no other warm place to go.
"I was so cold, freezing. I had to try and find some place to warm myself up," said one stranded bus rider.
The driver of one out-of-service bus in Brooklyn told NY1 he wasn't technically stuck but had been sent to pick up other stranded bus drivers, only to find he couldn't get anywhere near them, thanks to the fact side streets were impassable.
It added up to a nightmare both for bus riders and transit officials, who simply couldn't get many buses to budge.