Times Square on a NYC Bus Tour: Which Stop to Use, the TKTS Red Steps, the Ball and How Long to Hop Off

People say "the Times Square stop" as if there were one, but the Downtown Loop has two within a few blocks of each other. Hoptripo, an independent guide that checked Big Bus's stop list on October 5, 2026, numbers them in order from the start of the loop: Stop 1 is M&M's World and Stop 2 is One Times Square. Which one you choose depends on what you came for.

Stop 1, M&M's World, sits at 7th Avenue and West 48th Street. Hoptripo lists the TKTS booth and the red steps at 47th Street, the Broadway theatres and M&M's World itself within a short walk, with Radio City Music Hall 5 minutes east. The 49 St subway (N, R, W) is 1 minute away and the 50 St station (1 train) is 3 minutes away. It's also the loop's starting point, so it's the stop where you'll be handed a map and where the first bus of the day leaves.

Stop 2, One Times Square, is the one to use if you want the middle of the action. Hoptripo lists One Times Square, where the New Year's Eve ball drops, Madame Tussauds and the 42nd Street theatres nearby, with Bryant Park 5 minutes east. The Times Sq-42 St station is right at the stop, with the 1, 2, 3, 7, N, Q, R and W trains and the S shuttle to Grand Central. In Hoptripo's table of how close the bus gets to major sights, Times Square is 2 minutes from Stop 2.

Stop positions move with construction, street events and parades, so check the operator's live map on the day you ride. Our guide to where to board NYC hop-on hop-off buses explains how the Midtown boarding points feed the rest of the loop.

The Times Square Alliance's history page explains that the district used to be called Longacre Square. The New York Times's owner, Adolph Ochs, lobbied the city to rename it for his paper, and the Times Tower, now One Times Square, anchored a tiny triangle where 7th Avenue, Broadway and 42nd Street meet. The tower's opening was celebrated with an all-day street festival and fireworks in 1904, the first New Year's Eve party in the square. The Alliance notes that the fireworks were banned two years later, and the ball was introduced instead.

The look you see from the bus is much newer. NYC's Department of Transportation announced in August 2009 that construction was done on the Green Light for Midtown pilot, which rerouted traffic from Broadway between 47th and 42nd Streets and reconnected 7th Avenue through the square. Across Times Square and Herald Square, DOT said the new plazas added more than two and a half acres of public space, furnished with tables and chairs, planters and painted pavement. In February 2010 the city announced the plazas would be made permanent, citing a 63 percent drop in injuries to motorists and passengers and a 35 percent drop in pedestrian injuries in the project area.

That history changes how you use the stop. Because Broadway is closed to cars here, you can step off the bus and walk straight up the middle of the street, with the big billboards on both sides and room to stand still for a photo. The bus itself runs on the avenues around the plaza, not through it.

The ball is the reason a lot of visitors want to see the building. The Alliance says the first ball dropped in 1907 for the 1908 celebration: a five-foot iron-and-wood sphere weighing 700 pounds, fitted with one hundred 25-watt bulbs and built by metalworker Jacob Starr. It has been lowered every year since except 1942 and 1943, when wartime dimouts of the city's lights suspended it. The Alliance says the ninth ball, the Constellation Ball, debuted in November 2025 and is 12.5 feet in diameter, weighs 12,350 pounds and has 5,280 crystals and LED light pucks. It also says an earlier permanent Big Ball weighing nearly six tons was designed as a year-round attraction above the square, so the tower is worth looking up at on any day of the year.

On New Year's Eve itself, the Alliance describes hundreds of thousands of people gathering around the tower and waiting for hours in the cold for the ball to begin its descent at 11:59 p.m. That is not a night for a hop-on hop-off ride. Streets around the square fill with crowds and barricades, and bus service on special-event days can change, so check the operator's notices rather than assuming a normal schedule. If you want the lights without the crowds, see our guide to NYC holiday lights bus tours and our guide to night bus tours.

From Stop 2, you can see the tower from the street but not go to the roof. Hoptripo lists Madame Tussauds and the 42nd Street theatres nearby as attractions you can walk into; we don't quote admission prices for them here, so check their own sites.

The red steps are the landmark most visitors photograph. TDF, the nonprofit that runs TKTS, says its booth "under the red steps" opened in Father Duffy Square on October 16, 2008, and describes TKTS as having been in Times Square for more than 50 years. NYC Parks says the square was named for Father Francis Duffy, a priest and military chaplain, in 1939; his statue (dedicated in 1937) and a statue of George M. Cohan (dedicated in 1959) stand at its edges. The steps are free to sit on, and the view back down Broadway and 7th Avenue is the best place to watch the square without being in the flow of foot traffic.

The booth sells discount tickets to Broadway and Off-Broadway shows for same-day performances and next-day matinees, up to 50 percent off according to TDF. Every ticket carries an $8 per-ticket service charge, there's a limit of six tickets per person, and all TKTS locations accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, cash and TKTS eGift cards, though a handful of Off-Broadway shows are cash only. Which shows are listed changes daily and TDF posts a live board on its site, so we don't list titles here.

The detail that matters for bus riders is the Fast Pass. TDF's TKTS Live page states that Big Bus Tours is an official partner of TKTS Times Square and that all riders are invited to use the Fast Pass lane by showing a Big Bus Tours ticket stub to a Patron Services Representative, with blackout dates applying. If you buy a Big Bus ticket, keep the stub, and ask at the booth about blackout dates before relying on it.

Hours matter more than most people expect. TDF lists the Times Square booth's regular hours as 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday and Friday, and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Its Thanksgiving week schedule (checked November 3, 2026) shows 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday, November 26, and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday, November 29. On Monday, Tuesday and Friday a morning bus tour finishes before the booth even opens, so plan to come back after 3 p.m. or take a different day.

This walk starts and ends at Stop 2, One Times Square, and it never leaves the pedestrian plazas and avenue sidewalks, so it works in any weather short of a downpour.

Start by looking up at the One Times Square tower, then walk north on the Broadway plaza. You'll pass the 43rd and 44th Street blocks, where DOT's 2009 pilot placed red tables and chairs in the middle of the street, and then the theatres around 45th and 46th Streets. At 47th Street you reach the red steps and the TKTS booth. Climb to the top for the view back south toward the tower, then check the board to see whether TKTS has anything you want to see that night.

For the return, cross to 7th Avenue and walk south. This side gives you the Broadway marquees and a different view of the billboards, and the pavement is less crowded than the plaza. If you want a drink or a snack, M&M's World is one block from Stop 1 at 48th Street; we leave restaurant names out because they change.

If you are in a hurry, simply ride past. The upper deck gives you the tower, the red steps and the billboards on the way in or out of the loop, and you can decide on the second pass whether it's worth getting off.

Big Bus's service information, as we cited in our SoHo guide on November 1, 2026 (the page was blocking automated access when we rechecked on November 3, so confirm on the day), says the Downtown Loop leaves Stop 1 at 9 a.m., buses run every 30 minutes, a full circuit takes about 90 minutes and the last full circuit leaves at 4:30 p.m. Times Square is both the start and the end of that circuit, which makes it the easiest place to board and the most crowded.

There are two good ways to use it. The first is to board early, ride the full loop once to see the whole downtown route, and then get off at Stop 2 on the way back for the walk above, when the 90-minute circuit has already given you a feel for the city. The second is to start at Stop 1 and hop off at Stop 2 right away if Times Square is the main reason you came, then pick up the loop for the Empire State Building, the Flatiron District and SoHo, which Hoptripo lists as Stops 3, 4 and 5.

If you want a theatre ticket the same night, plan the bus day around TKTS hours: the booth opens at 3 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday and Friday and at 11 a.m. on the other days. A late-afternoon return to Times Square can cover both the red steps and a ticket purchase. Rockefeller Center and Top of the Rock are about 7 minutes' walk from Stop 1 according to Hoptripo, so they pair well with a Stop 1 start, and our Top of the Rock guide covers timing.

Buses are scheduled, not guaranteed. Midtown traffic and street closures can delay them, and Times Square is one of the most disrupted areas when events are on. Our one-day NYC bus tour itinerary shows how to budget a full loop day, and our guide to buying NYC bus tour tickets safely explains how to avoid the street sellers who pitch tickets around the square.