“We know it’s the right thing to do, and now we really want to push on and make this plan a reality and get people back on the buses,” Mr. Byford said at an M.T.A. board meeting in Lower Manhattan.

Transit advocates and board members — a notoriously difficult group to impress — quickly praised the bus plan. Jaqi Cohen, the campaign coordinator for the Straphangers Campaign, an advocacy group, called it “one of the biggest wins for our city’s 2.5 million daily bus riders in more than half a century.”

New York City’s buses are the slowest among major cities in the world, with buses in Manhattan moving at just 5.7 miles per hour on average, according to the authority. A modernization plan for the subway, which carries about six million riders each day, will be released in May.

The region is also struggling to respond to a broader transit crisis, with frequent problems on commuter railroads and bus lines. On Monday, Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey announced that New Jersey Transit would hire 40 new bus drivers as part of his proposed state budget.

“For all the discussion on rail, it’s buses that make the show go in urban centers and urban communities,” Mr. Murphy said at a news conference in Newark, with a shiny New Jersey Transit bus parked behind the podium.