| Type | Non-Profit |
|---|---|
| Industry | Non-Profit & Activism |
| Founded | 1979 |
| Headquarters | NYC, New York, United States |
| Key people | Gene Russianoff |
| Website | Straphangers Campaign |
The Straphangers Campaign is a New York City-based transit interest group that critiques the operations and planning activities of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority and especially that agency's affiliate, New York City Transit, operator of the city's huge subway and bus system. The Campaign also conducts political advocacy to promote policies that it believes are in the interest of New York City's transit riders. The organization is part of the broader political group, NYPIRG (New York Public Interest Research Group).
The Straphangers Campaign's main spokesperson and staff attorney, Gene Russianoff, often represents the group's positions at public hearings and in the local press.[1] The group's New York City focus is sometimes in opposition to the interests of riders of suburban systems (such as the commuter railroads) when it perceives the needs of the latter to be in conflict with those of city residents.
On its website, the group claims credit for a number of local achievements, from helping to secure $30 billion dollars (USD) for transit repairs since 1981 to saving Philip's Saltwater Taffy in Coney Island from closure. The website also contains a discussion forum primarily concerned with the tri-state (NY-NJ-CT) area's transportation systems.
The group's name is derived from the colloquial term "straphanger" for transit riders who gripped the hanging leather straps to keep their balance while the vehicle was in motion.
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The Pokey Awards, a product of the Straphangers Campaign, tells the public which bus is the slowest in the city. They have been announced annually since 2002.
The Pokey Awards 2008 results, announced on November 12 (the slowest bus routes per borough):
| Borough in New York City | Bus Route | Average Miles Per Hour |
|---|---|---|
| Manhattan | M96 | 3.7 |
| Bronx | Bx19 | 5.3 |
| Staten Island | S42 | 11.4 |
| Brooklyn | B63 | 4.9 |
| Queens | Q56 | 6.1 |
The Straphangers Campaign also conducts annual surveys checking the performance of all subway lines. Key factors include timeliness, reliability (service breakdowns), seating availability, clarity of announcements, and cleanliness (dirtiness is colloquially called "schmutz"). A separate survey checks the performance of public pay telephones in subway stations.
New for 2006 is the bus "Unreliables Award" given to the bus lines that rated worst in "bunching," with major gaps in service (essentially, amount of deviation from posted timetables). The M1 bus in Manhattan "won", with 27.6% unreliability.