Jeanmarie Evelly / City Limits

An express bus stop in lower Manhattan.

City Limits contributor Angely Mercado and deputy editor Jeanmarie Evelly were named winners of the Association for Women in Communications’ 2019 Clarion Award for Online Journalism: Special Feature Section for their work on the series “Can Buses Be Better?,” which launched in March 2018.

While the subway system is undeniably important, and absolutely in crisis, the discussion about transit in the city in 2017 and 2018 often ignored the bus system, which plays a critical role, especially in outer-borough, low-income neighborhoods. Older New Yorkers and people with disabilities rely on the system in a particular way. Ridership data suggests bus riders, on average, are more likely to be Black or Brown and have lower incomes than the average subway rider.

City Limits’ series mapped out the importance of buses, the flaws in the system and potential fixes for it.

This is City Limits’ second Clarion Award. The first was in 2016 for our investigation of immigration courts, “On the Border of Justice.”