Even as licensed “dollar vans” all but vanish from city streets, unregulated commuter carriers remain obstacles to MTA buses in parts of Brooklyn and Queens.
The number of Taxi and Limousine Commission–affiliated commuter vans in service has shrunk by 93% since 2015, TLC data shows, with just 39 such vehicles still licensed to operate as of this week — down from 215 a decade ago.
But MTA officials and union representatives for the agency’s bus operators say the official dollar van downturn has given way to a boom in unlicensed commuter vans that clog bus stops and bus lanes, further slowing buses that poke along at an average citywide speed of 8.1 mph.
“You have to stop short of the bus stop or in the middle of the street, because the dollar vans are everywhere,” said JP Patafio, a Transport Workers Union Local 100 vice president who represents MTA bus operators in Brooklyn. “They’re like piranhas, they’re trying to feed off transit service.”
There is no official count on how many unlicensed commuter vans are on city streets, typically picking up passengers for $2 a ride. But Leroy Morrison, president of the New York Commuter Van Association, told THE CITY that the number of rogue vans has surged because of prohibitive insurance costs topping $30,000 a year.
Morrison, whose group represents licensed commuter van drivers, added that carriers with out-of-state license plates or a single plate vastly outnumber those that go by the book.
“There’s a load of them, we can’t count them, man,” he said. “These guys are like cowboys riding without saddles.”
The latest flare-up in the long-running turf battle between buses and dollar vans came at the transit agency’s December board meeting, when MTA board member Norman Brown pointed out how bus service is being “rolled over” by off-the-books transportation providers.
“Sometimes there’s not even a license plate on them,” Brown told THE CITY. “And nobody does anything about it.”
Janno Lieber, the MTA’s chairperson and CEO, said that the issue of dollar vans in the paths of buses has “fallen by the wayside,” in part, because “it is political.”
City Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers (D-Queens) last year introduced legislation that would allow licensed commuter vans to pick up street hails. The proposal, which is currently paused, faced backlash from unions that represent bus operators.
”We have made it very clear in meetings that ATU will not support any such legislation,” Luis Alzate, president and business agent for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1056, which represents bus drivers in Queens, told THE CITY. “We do not support any endeavors that will have van service on bus routes.”
After the vans went unregulated for years, in the 1990s the city and drivers struck a deal under which city-licensed dollar vans are supposed to only carry passengers who have lined up rides in advance, while avoiding MTA bus stops.
The head of the transit agency said that’s not how things are working.
“Let’s understand what dollar vans are — they’re people who are frequently operating vehicles that are not properly inspected, that don’t have proper insurance and who knows who’s driving them,” Lieber said. “They skim our customers, they just go right along our route and take people and charge them less and they’re getting a less safe, ununionized, less-insured ride.”
‘It Gets Crowded Here’
The contest for space comes as insurance rates have depleted the ranks of licensed commuter van drivers, with many now operating off the books. Under the state’s new Commuter Van Stabilization Program, eligible applicants can secure up to $40,000 in grant money to help offset the cost of annual insurance policies.
But enforcement against unlicensed vans remains a challenge.
While more than 1,000 MTA buses on 34 routes citywide are now equipped with cameras that can flag illegally stationed motorists, transit officials concede that keeping vehicles out of space marked for buses is tricky.
“It is a difficult thing to prevent,” Richard Hajduk, manager of the MTA’s Queens Bus Network Redesign, said at the December meeting. “They are largely breaking the law in many cases.”
MTA buses with cameras can now issue summonses that carry fines ranging from $50 to $250 for repeat offenders, but the agency could not provide exact numbers on how many commuter vans have been penalized. Under prevailing traffic law, any vehicle with at least 15 seats is considered a bus and cannot be ticketed for parking in a bus lane.
According to NYPD statistics, through November 2024, police issued 2,414 violations related to bus lanes, but the numbers do not specify how many were slapped on commuter vans.
The TLC reported in the latest Commuter Van Safety Study to the City Council last summer that it issued five summonses for traffic safety violations in 2023 to licensed van owners and drivers. Unlicensed operators received 70 violations, according to TLC, and four vans were seized.
“We regularly conduct joint-enforcement operations with NYPD and the Sheriff’s Office to remove unsafe vehicles from the road,” said Jason Kersten, the TLC’s press secretary. “At the same time, we’re working with insurers and state officials on efforts to lower rates so that more vans can return to safe and legal operation.”
Along the stretches favored by dollar van operators, it’s not unusual to spot commuter carriers with a single license plate (illegal in New York) or lacking TLC tags.
Near Utica Avenue and Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, dollar van drivers waiting for customers are fixtures in or near bus stops along the B46 route, sometimes forcing bus riders to board in the middle of the road.
“I sometimes have to step into the street,” a 72-year-old woman who declined to give her name told THE CITY while waiting for a B46. “It gets crowded here.”
The competition for space can be fierce, with commuter van drivers tooting their horns as they scope out potential customers.
“We’re working, too!” snapped a dollar van driver who declined to give his name while stationed in a Utica Avenue bus stop with two other vans. “Why should we have to move?”
In Queens, near the Jamaica Center-Parsons/Archer transit hub, commuter vans too small to be considered buses regularly drift into the Archer Avenue busway, where the city Transportation Department installed concrete barriers to limit access to non-authorized vehicles.
“They don’t abide by the rules of the road, they constantly pull over at bus stops, they constantly block the buses in,” said Alzate, of ATU Local 1056. “That’s something that was happening by legal and illegal van services.”
The vans themselves have to contend with scofflaw drivers: Off of the Archer Avenue busway, spaces marked “COMMUTER VAN STOP” by DOT are instead occupied by private vehicles.
But for commuters who rely on what The New Yorker labeled the city’s shadow transit system, the vans provide a key service.
Stepping out of an unmarked van at Flatbush and Nostrand avenues in Brooklyn, Michael Montgomery said he sometimes opts for dollar vans over waiting on a bus.
“It’s convenient, it’s affordable and it’s the cheapest way to travel,” he said. “And they’re everywhere.”
Morrison, of the commuter van association, said putting more vehicles back on the books would be good for drivers and riders.
“Everywhere, in different states, you have commuter vans — you have them in Jersey, you have them in Florida — and they’re legit,” he said. “Look how big New York City is and you can’t find licensed commuter vans on the street.
“That’s a problem.”
