Photo: Sylvia Otte

Starting Friday, February 27th, Lower Manhattan residents, workers, and visitors have free wheels taking them more places. The Downtown Connection jitney, a free shuttle service run by the Downtown Alliance, is being expanded eastward on Warren Street to City Hall, then will loop back to Battery Park City via westbound Murray Street to resume its regular route.

The extension, and the addition of a new bus to the fleet, is expected to increase the Connection’s ridership, which exceeded 800,000 passengers in 2008. With this route expansion, the shuttle will intersect with every subway line in Lower Manhattan, and provide new access to the Civic Center area, as well as to the new shops on Warren at Greenwich Street. The free shuttle circuits every 10 minutes, and a real-time map of the bus locations are available online at downtownny.interfleet.com; more details are available here. You can also subscribe to LowerManhattan.info transit alerts here.