The Bronx has been called a food desert, a transportation desert, and at bus stops across the borough, it’s starting to feel like an actual desert.
In collaboration with NASA’s DEVELOP Environmental Justice team, Transportation Alternatives, a NYC public transportation advocacy group, mapped all the bus stops in NYC and published data on the 100 hottest. More than half of these 100 stops are in the Bronx, including the seven hottest that are all along Webster Avenue.
According to the report, the hottest bus stops are in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods. It also identifies three routes that require immediate intervention: the Bx6 and Bx33 in the Bronx, and the B46 in Brooklyn. The hottest bus stops clock in at about 14 degrees hotter than their coolest counterparts. Common traits shared among them were a lack of bus shelters and a lack of trees and green spaces nearby. Of the 15,000 bus stops mapped citywide, only 20% had shelters.
Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson weighed in on the findings.
“This is not just a statistic; it’s a stark reminder of how the heat island effect disproportionately impacts communities of color,” she said, adding that community districts 1 through 6, which range from the southern most part of the Bronx up to Little Italy, have the highest levels of heat vulnerability due to low canopy coverage. “As we experience increasingly intense summers, it’s crucial that we invest in infrastructure that keeps our residents safe from extreme temperatures.”
The Bronx Times visited some of the stops listed as particularly hot and spoke to riders.
On Thursday afternoon, Arthur Kitchen, 62, waited for the westbound Bx33 at 138th Street and St. Ann’s Avenue when the sun was beaming a strong 88 degrees onto the concrete below. When asked about the heat, he pointed to the bus shelter across the street and said, “It needs one of those.”
In addition to standing in the humid heat, Kitchen said he had waited for the bus for close to 25 minutes, which, according to reports, is not uncommon with Bronx buses. He also did not have any cash to buy himself a bottle of water, he told the Bronx Times.

The Bx33 goes along 135th Street in Harlem and into the east end of Port Morris in the Bronx. Often, according to riders, there are only two buses on the route and usually never more than three during peak traveling hours, resulting in incredibly long wait times and leaving them sweltering in the sun.
City officials say they are addressing the shortage of bus shelters.
“Having an increase of bus shelters in our city is a top priority for Mayor Adams, for myself, and everyone at DOT and City Hall,” Ydanis Rodriguez, commissioner for NYC Department of Transportation, told the Bronx Times.
Rodriguez added that JCDecaux, the company that provides shelters at bus stops across the city, negotiated a new contract with the DOT that will bring more than 300 shelters across NYC. However, it is not clear where those shelters will be or when they will be constructed.
“But also, we have benches and we want to be sure that as much as possible, if there are no bus shelters, they should have benches,” Rodriguez said.
And while bus stops should have benches, according to Rodriguez, there are many that don’t. For instance, at the eastbound stop of the BX19 on 149th Street and the Grand Concourse, the bus stop has a bench, shaded by the towering Hostos Community College campus. But on the westbound side, riders are exposed to the intense rays with nowhere to rest, except for a small perch bench which allows one to lean, but not sit.
In fact, when the Bronx Times asked several people who were waiting at unsheltered bus stops about the heat and showed them the report, many raised other concerns.
“The heat is kind of fine, I’m used to it,” said Kiki, a student of KIPP NYC, who was wearing a school sweater while waiting for the Bx19 along the Grand Concourse with her friend Sarah. She did mention, however, “it’s too crowded.”
After waiting about 15 minutes at 149th Street, the bus arrived filled with riders, which resulted in some packing themselves into the bus like sardines, while others opted to wait for the next bus, which was about five minutes behind. The following bus was less crowded, but not by much.
“We pay our fare, but then there’s nowhere to sit,” said Wanda Ozoria, who waited a total of 20 minutes for the bus during rush hour on a recent Wednesday.
Ozoria is from the Dominican Republic and when asked to compare the heat of NYC to that of the small, Caribbean island, known for its year-long summers, she mentioned the humidity here is worse. Perhaps because the island flourishes with greenery at every turn while NYC replaces parks with heat-trapping infrastructure.
“That’s New York City, what can we say?” Aaron Perez exclaimed as he threw his hands up in the air in a sign of surrender. Perez was over the heat and the crowds and just wanted to get home.
Reach ET Rodriguez at etrodriguez317@gmail.com. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes