This line layer was created from the GTFS data feeds from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to represent New York City express bus routes. Express busses are long-distance coaches that take passengers from areas of the outer boroughs to midtown and downtown Manhattan and back, with limited stops. A python script was written to take the data files as input, process them and save them as a spatial layer in the local state plane coordinate reference system. Lines in this layer represent individual bus routes over a roadway for a specific direction; they were generalized from the GTFS format where lines depicted individual services. The direction of a bus route is indicated with a 0 (which means that the bus runs either northbound or eastbound) or a 1 (the bus runs either southbound or westbound). The unique ID is route_dir, which is a combination of the bus route id and its direction. This dataset is intended for researchers, policy makers, students, and educators for basic geographic analysis and mapping purposes. It was created by the GIS Lab at the Newman Library at Baruch College CUNY as part of the NYC Mass Transit Spatial Layers series, so that members of the public could have access to well-documented and readily-usable GIS layers of NYC mass transit features.
