Faster how?? 42nd street has some of the worst traffic in the city and traffic in the city is becoming worse, so I don't see how having more buses clog up 42nd street will make their commutes any faster than what it is now. Are you hard of reading or what?? The article clearly stated that the reason they STOPPED running NJ buses on NYC streets in Midtown was because there was too much traffic. I work in Midtown and use 42nd street daily, and quite frankly there are plenty of days when you are better off walking than taking a bus. As for your last comment yes, legally it IS a NJ problem because they would have to get permission from NY to run those buses here.
Maybe you're the one who's hard of reading because I already mentioned how the buses would be faster: They wouldn't have to wait for a bay at the Port Authority Bus Terminal: They'd just drop off/pick up on the street.
And it doesn't matter if it's an NJ problem. If commuters waste a ton of time because the bus terminal was overcrowded, that's a NY problem as well, like it or not.
Aside from that, who says they have to use 42nd Street? Can't they use one of the nearby streets in the area (43rd Street, 44th Street, etc)
I'm well aware of the few buses that stop Downtown, but as you said Downtown and Midtown are very different animals and that is why I don't support this. The amount of buses that terminate or stop Downtown is a drop in the bucket compared to the Port Authority. The M42 is always one of the slowest buses in the system, so how can one support dumping more buses on an already overcrowded 42nd street makes no sense. I have used the M42 when running errands and going back to my office and quite frankly if it wasn't for the hill there by 3rd Avenue, I would just walk back because it can take 20 minutes to go just a few blocks. The best alternative would be to build that garage or provide more train capacity to carry more folks in and have some express buses just stop at those locations.
That, and not all of the routes would have to go along the street. You could have say, 80% of the buses going into the PA Bus Terminal, and the remaining 20% drop off on the street.Not all of the routes would have to go along the street. You could have say, 80% of the buses going into the PA Bus Terminal, and the remaining 20% drop off on the street. It would relieve a lot of congestion at the bus terminal while not having as much of an impact on traffic.
As for the train capacity, they planned to have ARC, but their governor killed that plan.
Well it seems like they want a cheap solution but they want us to pay for it by having our streets more clogged like we don't have traffic problems already. They can't afford the tubes, can't afford the garage (apparently regardless to where it is built), but yet it is our problem?? The DOT should step in here and shut this whole discussion down. We stopped them from running buses in Midtown precisely because there was way too much congestion, so they need to come up with another solution because that one doesn't fly IMO. You'll have more people screaming for congestion pricing here and tourists discouraged from coming to Midtown if they can't get around efficiently, hurting our economy in the long run.
I thought you said you supported congestion pricing.
