Slow and steady wins the race? Well, in the case of the M42…kinda.
Named the slowest NYC bus route, again, the Midtown path just took home the 2025 Pokey Award, an honor from the New York Public Interest Research Group’s (NYPIRG) Straphangers Campaign and the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA’s (PCAC) annual ceremony.
Needless to say, this is not necessarily a first-place title worth bragging about.
While the NYC Ferry service is creating new, faster routes and the A and L trains are increasing weekday service, the M42 is out and about, trudging along at a whopping 5.25 miles per hour. According to Healthline, the average jogger tracks somewhere between four and six miles per hour, so that might not leave commuters with much hope.
According to John McCarthy, chief of policy and external relations at the MTA, it’s not that the M42 doesn’t want to pick up the pace — it simply can’t.
“As much as I’d like to accept the award for the M42, it’s really not the bus’ fault,” he said in a statement, per amNewYork. “The bus wakes up in the morning, and it wants to provide great service, it wants to go fast. That’s what it’s equipped to do. The bus driver wants to drive it quickly. The problem is that things are in the way. It’s the street, it’s the road, it’s the vehicles blocking buses.”
But the M42 shouldn’t be so hard on itself: the Q8 took home this year’s Schleppie Award for being the most unreliable bus in the system, making riders wait nearly four minutes longer than expected between scheduled buses.
If you ask us, now might be a good time to consider walking — you’re bound to get to your destination quicker!