NYC is interesting as it has examples of everything. Dense urban, inner suburb-like service and a huge core.

Crawling busses are an issue all over the place. The easy way to spot it is when noticing stacked busses during peak periods.

These issues are really hard because they are fundamentally local and change is difficult and fraught with NIMBY bullshit. There is a strong inertia. My small city has a pretty good bus service that winnowed out surplus stops and added BRT. In the public hearing, one of the loud objectors to moving a bus stop 1000ft was that it would encourage inner-city youth to "rape and pillage" in the "good" neighborhood. We're literally talking two blocks away.