New York City's slowest bus can't even outpace flowing lava, according to two commuter groups.
The M79 bus, which travels across Manhattan from East End Avenue to the 79th Street Boat Basin between 79th and 81st streets, won the Straphangers Campaign's "Pokey" award as the city's slowest bus, according to the Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives.
The line travels at a glacial speed, hitting an average speed of just 3.2 mph. That's half the speed of the fastest recorded lava flow from a Hawaiian volcano, the groups say.
"I'd think twice before trying to evacuate from an erupting volcano in an M79 bus," said Gene Russianoff, an attorney for the Straphangers Campaign. "Fleeing on foot would be faster, with an average human walking speed of about 3.5 mph."
It's not the only bus that would struggle to escape lava flow. More than a dozen other bus routes in Manhattan clocked in at less than 6 mph.
The B41 route in Brooklyn, the Bx19 in the Bronx, the Q58 in Queens and the S48 on Staten Island were the slowest buses in the other boroughs.
Another Manhattan bus, the M15, won the "Schleppie" award as the city's least reliable route, with nearly 33 percent of buses arriving with big gaps between service or bunched together.
Local
The M15 route carries 54,310 riders on an average weekday and had the highest ridership of any of the city's 192 local bus routes in 2013.
