MTA Long Island Bus (properly, the Metropolitan Suburban Bus Authority (MSBA)) is the name of the subdivision of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority that provides bus service throughout Nassau County and some stops along the western border of Suffolk County and the eastern border of Queens in New York City.

There are current plans to merge MTA Long Island Bus with MTA New York City Transit's bus operations and some private bus companies to form MTA Bus.[1]

History

Founded in 1973 under the name Metropolitan Suburban Bus Authority by the combination of ten privately-chartered bus companies, including Mid-Island Transit, Bee-Line, Inc., Jerusalem Av Bus Co, Schenck Transit Lines, and Utility Bus Lines, the system now consists of 417 buses running 54 routes covering 995 miles.

According to MTA figures, 104,604 people use Long Island Bus to commute around Nassau County, and many continue their trip into New York City by utilizing the system's five connections to the MTA New York City subway system or the 46 connections to the MTA Long Island Rail Road.

The bus system serves seven major shopping malls in Nassau and western Suffolk (including Green Acres Shopping Mall in Valley Stream, Roosevelt Field Shopping Mall in Garden City, Broadway Mall in Hicksville, Sunrise Mall in Massapequa, and Walt Whitman Mall in Huntington). It also serves numerous colleges such as Nassau Community College, New York Institute of Technology (Old Westbury Campus), and Hofstra, as well as the popular summer destination Jones Beach, theaters, parks, and government agencies.

Environment

Long Island Bus began replacing its diesel bus fleet in 1991 with buses operating on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) technology.

Now, clean-air buses outnumber diesel buses by more than 3 to 1, and combined with the efforts of the New York City Transit division of the MTA, New York has the cleanest public transportation system in the United States outside of California.

External links

• Metropolitan Transportation Authority