It's time for bus riders to pay up.

The MTA is charging for bus rides again, requiring riders to board at the front door, where the fare box is located.

What You Need To Know

  • MTA has fit its fleet of buses with plexiglass panels and curtains to protect drivers

  • MTA is losing $200 million a week from declining ridership and tax revenues

  • The MTA and city launched a pilot of a busway on Jay Street, limiting traffic on the Downtown Brooklyn corridor

"I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty good,” said Binta Francis, a bus commuter. “It got me from point A to point B in a pretty good fashion, but we all gotta pay our fare.”

The MTA stopped collecting local bus fares on March 23, when it required all riders to board at the back door to protect bus drivers from the coronavirus.

In an effort to protect drivers now, the MTA has installed plexiglass panels and curtains around the driver's seats on all 5,800 buses.

Most riders were ready to pay again, though some were caught by surprise. 

"It was a shock, but I guess it's fair. Everything's going back to normal, kind of," a commuter said.

The new fare policy is not the only change in bus operations. 

The MTA and the city turned six blocks of Jay Street from Tillary to Livingston Streets into a busway, limiting through traffic to buses, trucks and cyclists only, weekdays from 7 A.M. to 7 P.M.

The MTA's transit chief said that traffic has returned to streets as the city reopened from coronavirus restrictions, slowing down buses.

The Jay Street busway will operate on on a trial basis.  

"If we can give buses the right of way to get through traffic, it’s so important, it makes everything work better," said Sarah Feinberg, interim president of NYC Transit. 

This all comes as the MTA faces its worst financial crisis in its history because of the pandemic. 

It is losing about $200 million a week from low ridership and slumping tax revenues.

Fare paying bus riders would give the MTA a much-needed financial boost.

The MTA said that if riders had paid the fare since March, the agency would have collected $159 million.