Interested Rider

It seems that once the Verrazano Bridge was completed in 1964, the problems with the lack of garage space started in earnest along with a lot of other problems that persist to this very day. When Castleton was completed in 1950 (the same year as Ulmer Park, I might add), there was another garage on Victory Boulevard at Jersey Street which was given over to the Sanitation Department in the 1950's. The problem with Castleton is that it was built over Bodine Creek which led to problems up the wazoo as every time the creek flooded, there went Castleton, To give members an idea of how bad it was, I was in the process of moving to my present location between November 6-9, 1977 and we had 8 inches or rain in that period and the buses filled up and wen around the block and die as the water penetrated the fuel tanks in the garage. They finally fixed it later which means another couple of years with this problem. After the bridge was completed in November 1964, thet TA was caught in a vise as once the bridge opened so did the home building begin at a record pace. The route system was based on the 1930's and there were no plans for either garages or changes in routes until the MTA in the 1970's finally got a $500,000 grant to change the number sequence for the routes, make changes to the route structure and finally got permission to build Yukon at that time. This came about after Borough President Connor finally pawned off Pouch Terminal on the MTA after vetoing every express route for more than one year and at the same time unloaded his ex-wife in the process. So now the MTA had Pouch and the MTA started to add more express routes after the 9X was established in December 1968*. By the time Yukon was built, it was already overcrowded as the MTA had to play catch up as the express routes grew quite rapidly as new homes meant new riders that wanted express service to Manhttan. Pouch would eventually close and there was a need for a third depot which was talked about when I started working on Staten Island in April 1987 and was finally completed after I retired in September 2010 which is about 23 years from talk to completion. So from the late 1970's, the MTA was adding express routes (and later local rotues) but did not have the garage space to put the buses. There were parking lots near Castleton on Richmond Terrace and some buses would be parked on the street by the garage after being serviced. Now they have Meredith which helps a bit but if Yukon or Castleton needs any sort of major rehabilitation work that will further strain the system. As long as the MTA is playing catch up which it has been doing for over 50 years,then the problems will persist may years into the future. * I know about the 8X which was established at the same time, the S/7 took over the S/105 (Clove Road) route and extended it to Brooklyn. The 8X was a one trip thing in the morning and afternoon similar to what was done to keep a franchise route and would not fall into the definition of what is an express route today. The 9X started off with new looks 8922 -8933 and within a year the higher number local buses from 8879 -8921 were converted to express service. I rode 8921 in its first weeks on the S/6 (now S/66) in the fall of 1969 and soon afterwards, it was converted to express service. the 8X would eventually disappear many years later.

When it comes to providing correct information to the riding public over the years when it involves bus route changes, the MTA is the absolute worst by far. How many times during the day have i read posts that were totally inaccurate concerning the streets and replacing streets with avenues and vice versa. It seems that to be working in that department, you must have zero knowledge of New York City streets and the differences in street names from borough to borough. There are exceptions in that department and they I will praise as you always know when they are working as the information is always accurate. Unfortunately the so called media will not complement those in the department that provide correct information as for the most part, most of the media are just as ignorant of New York City streets as the ones who provide the incorrect information. If the media just like the MTA would do their job and call out the agency for providing incorrect information, then maybe something will be done and those providing incorrect information would be retrained and/or replaced,. I am not holding my breath that this will happen as the MTA is a bureaucracy and it will always protect its own.

I have a very simple question to ask; Who writes these posts at the MTA that are sent out to the public? It is posts like the last one that has me scratching my head as does anyone proofread what is sent out to the public for this one has me saying Huh! What happened to 36th Street Queens where the M could be sent via the F Line to the Q Line and reversed at Canal Street on the Broadway Line? ' It is the same thing with the bus posts and it has been going on for years with the same mistakes so it is obvious that they don't care about the information that is disseminated to the public as there has not been any change in years.

The first part of the comments given below are in response to an open letter that I wrote to Brooklyn Bus asking what was really a series of questions as to why bus routes in Brooklyn were not changed on a large scale until his proposals were implemented in November 1978. Listed below is his response and my response follows afterwards. As I just excerpted some of his response, it should be noted that. the complete text of both my letter and his response can be found on p. 451 of this thread. Yes, this November will be 39 years. Let me fill you in on some background you may not know to answer some of your questions. You ask why it took so long to implement the changes. The simple reason is there never has been anyone other than myself who is qualified at NYCT to understand the way people use buses and why they don't use buses. It is not as simple as looking at data with the answers popping out at you. You need to first have some theories. Then you can use the data to study if your ideas are good or not. Although I know Brooklyn well, my knowledge in the other boroughs is limited. But I can still apply what I know happens in Brooklyn to routes in the other boroughs. I can tell you for sure that B35 via Church knows more about passenger and route usage around the city than the entire MTA combined. That is not to say the MTA is incompetent. When there were bus dispatchers for each route, they were all the experts on their particular route. But the MTA never had the mechanisms in place to harness all that knowledge and put it in one place so that multiple routes could be studied at the same time like I did. When I wrote my Masters Thesis in 1972, I simply proposed combining the B1 and B34 as well as extending it to Shore Road and separate 13 Av and Fort Hamilton Parkway routes. It just seemed obvious to me. I also combined the B40 and B78, ended the duplication between the B75 and the F train by extending the B57 to Smith 9th and combining the 9th Street portion with the B77. I also proposed combining the old B47 with the old B62 as well as many other changes which the MTA finally made over the following 45 years. I also proposed extending the B9 to Bergen Beach to takeover the B41 Bergen Beach branch which the MTA is now considering as part of their proposed B41 SBS. In other words, just because many changes are obvious to you and me and others, they are not obvious to the "experts" at the MTA which also lacks the desire to improve bus routes. Now when I was doing my study from 1974 to 1978, after collecting data, I thought of a better idea than simply combining the B1 and B34 because I also wanted to straighten the B36 and get rid of the useless B21. That's when I thought up the existing B1. In 1977 when we were describing the ideas to the community boards, they told us they were asking for a single 86 Street route since the early 1960s and no one was listening. I didn't know that when I came to them with a similar proposal. The MTA stalled us for two years and still refused to name any changes until they were sued by the Natural Resources Defense Council. So no changes would have ever been made if not for that lawsuit. That's what it took although the community had been requesting the changes for 15 years. In 1978, I also proposed extending the R7 to 86 Street, the B68 to Coney Island, and the B5 to Coney Island. (They might have also been in my masters thesis too.) Those changes also were made many years later. My response begins here: There is a reason that I have been posting your response on the many threads involving bus service as a reference as it is the key to understanding how bus routing developed since the city takeover of the BMT in 1940 (The IRT was exclusively an elevated and subway system). Coming from a person that was on the inside, your comments in response to mine were quite refreshing as it finally presents a clear picture of why we have the problems with the bus system throughout the city today and why it is almost impossible to have routes changed based on changes in ridership. What has left me totally speechless was that the data was readily available but no one knew how to interpret it. Between the daily information provided by employees including dispatcher reports, fare box revenue and transfers used, the information was there but it just had to be "mined" as this was the age when computers were in their infancy and data had to be checked by hand. There was data which gave information on developing neighborhoods throughout the city, new facilities such as schools and hospitals being built but yet what I find totally incredulous was that there was no one who could interpret the data but knowing how a bureaucracy works, I am not surprised at all. It was like someone said, just let it remain the same as it was when it was a trolley route or a shuttle route (for instance like the B/1,B/21, B/2, B/31, B/77 et.. al.) and change it when it was forced upon us such as the one way streets in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Based on what wrote in your response, if and when data was examined, it was based on one route, not on a group of routes which is the way the data should have been analyzed as one route change impacts on one or more routes when a change was/is implemented. This gave me an answer as to why it took a virtual act of the almighty to have bus routes changed as you did in November 1978 and why the necessary changes that should have followed what you did have taken another 20 -30 years or more to be implemented. This is what happens "when there is a rigid bureaucratic structure that not only resists change but will do anything in its power to destroy anyone on the inside who dares to propose changes to them. The organization will strike back and that person will be subject to some punishment until he/she either retires or is forced out of the agency". (Quotes mine). This is how the government operates today and why "our complaints about bus service (I hate to say it) will be ignored.no matter how meritorious and justified they are and will only be implemented when the MTA is forced to do so" (Again quotes mine) As I wrote in my statement, they knew what was going on in the various communities and the need for route extensions and new routes but yet they did nothing. Here are just some examples which provides additional evidence to support your observations. Take the B/6 as it ran no further than Ralph Avenue on its east end and while the western portion of Canarsie was being built up in the late 1950's, it took them many years just to extend the B/6 to Rockaway Parkway. If I add, I was living in East New York in the mid 1950's when the Linden and Boulevard Houses opened up., they only had bus service on Linden Boulevard and nothing south of there. The only way to take the New Lots train (as we called it) was to cross Linden Boulevard, a virtual speedway and walk two more blocks to the station. When did the TA finally place a bus on Wortman or Cozine Avenues? It must have been ten years later or more.. It was 60 years ago next month that George Gershwin JHS opened to serve students from these two developments as all the schools in the area including PS 158 had some of their students participate in the celebration in June 1957 and then look at when the TA finally provided bus service to the community.The B/44 extension from Avenue U to Knapp Street did not begin operation until many years after the neighborhood was totally built up is another one that took what seemed to take forever even though it should have been in place as the Sheepshead-Nostrand houses were completed in the early 1950's. While I did not repost your statement here about the B/21, your reference from 1946 reminded me of the year that I spent at Kingsborough Community College from 1967 -1968 and the B/21. The B/21 was a U shaped route that served the beaches, Sheepshead Bay and Coney Island Hospital. It carried very few passengers and it had a headway of approximately 12 minutes during the day. When classes let out at Kingsborough, virtually no one took the B/21 but yet everyone took the B/1 as it connected to the B/49 at Shore Boulevard and Emmons Avenue even though the B/1 headway was 20 minutes or longer. The fact that it lasted another ten years still surprises me no end and that the B/49 was finally extended to the Beach sometime later after the college opened does not surprise me either. An aside as I had a B/1 driver that liked to pull out early so I decided to make a point. Every day for about five consecutive days that I rode his bus, I gave him a dollar bill to change as it was before exact change went into effect . He finally asked me why i was giving him a dollar bill and I told him, it was because he was leaving early. He got the message loud and clear as not only did he leave on time, he picked off the route as fast as he could do so. What really caught my attention was the proposed extension of the B/1 to 86th Street - 4th Avenue being implemented as part of the November 1978 changes instead of waiting until June 2010. I will be posting comments on your suggestion elsewhere on the forum for the R/7 extension to 86th Street and 4th Avenue at that time instead of waiting almost 20 years to do it. This caught my attention as I remember that i had to take the B/63 to either the B/4 or the B/1 from the R/7 on my way home and based on the time of arrival at either the parkway or the avenue, I would take either one to transfer to the B/36 in front of Coney Island Hospital where you put your life into your hands crossing there (you still do). At that time when the B/1 running over the B/34 route had the Bay Ridge Avenue ridership that it does not have now, so it may have been the best move at that time not to implement it at least in November 1978. What should have happened though was the B/1/34 combination should have been watched very carefully especially as the ridership continued to drop on the B/34 portion on Bay Ridge Avenue.and that a change should have been made way before the 2010 implementation. I appreciate your refreshingly honest response to my Monday morning quarterbacking (as they say after a football game) and while I plan to do a response concerning the R/7 move on another thread as well as to further delve into the problems of the crazy bus system, I thank you for providing a great response to the comments that i expressed on this thread. What the two of us have written here applies to all governmental agencies today and while some are less bureaucratic than others, the lesson here is that change has to come from the outside as it will not come from the agency itself despite all the hot air that is generated today by the people who have helped to create the problem in the first place..

The schedule box just listed every 17 minutes with no specific times and this has been going on for years on the B/44 as I reported it to the MTA many years ago as the Kings Highway SBS stop southbound did not have the actual times for either the Avenue U or Knapp Street runs. The answer that I received was that it was the DOT's fault. Oh really! Who provides the information to the DOT? the MTA of course! So again the thought is to cast off responsibility which has become commonplace in a society where the first thing whenever a problem is raised is to blame the messenger for bringing up a problem that should have been resolved before the pole was put up here in the first place. The question remains "when is the next B/44 local and SBS bus coming?" Not everybody wants to or has the new technology that may provide the information needed. Since it is "alleged" that everyone has a device of some kind so that they can track the buses, those who have it forget that there will always be people who will not have it for one reason or another.and that is their prerogative. It is, however, just as important to provide information to those individuals as it is to those who have the technology..

Thanks to the various posters on this thread for giving me an idea of what is going on here so that I can explain it to riders who are looking at the pole and asking when is the next B/44 is coming when all the buses that are listed are the B/36 to Avenue U. I point out that the reason that the B/44 is not listed is the bus is not moving and B/44 buses (like B/36) are listed only when they are moving, not waiting at Knapp Street to begin the run. The reactions that I receive are for the most part are similar to mine which is "when is the next B/44 coming"? To wit, if a person does not have an electronic device to check on the information is "you are out of luck!".

Brooklyn Bus: It will be 40 years since your changes to the Brooklyn routes took place and in looking back, this former critic is asking as to why took the MTA so long for them to implement it. For those who are not of our generation, the original B/1 ran from 25th Avenue to Manhattan Beach via 86th Street, Avenue X, East 14th Street (return via East 13th Street) Sheepshead Bay Road, Emmons Avenue, West End Avenue and finally Oriental Boulevard. It ran every 20 minutes and 60 minutes at night. It was basically just a feeder route to other routes that were part of the system. The B/34 was a sight improvement over the trolley route that it replaced with a 7 minute headway. when it lost the Staten Island ferry connection, the passenger loads dropped as it (like the B/9) provided connecting service to other routes. The routes should have been combined way back in the 1950's (as I said, I am doing some Monday Morning quarterbacking) as the shopping near the Sea Beach 86th Street Station was next to nothing and the combining of the B/1 and B/34 in the late 1950's and early 1960's would have helped the residents of that part of Gravesend.. This is why I highly recommend the Bernard Linder articles on the bus system as it seems that for the B/1 & B/34 it would have been an opportune time for it to be done. Oh! Do I remember the S/7 and the many trips that I took on that route with every type of equipment from the Macks to the Orions over the Verrazano Bridge. Again in looking back, it seems that it for the route to be extended to 86th Street took what seems to be an eternity even though it was the most logical place to terminate it when the Verrazano Bridge opened in November 1964. I spent a total of almost 29 years (on and off 1968 -1970, 1975 - 1979, 1987 - 2010) commuting to/from Staten Island back to Brooklyn and I am amazed that, it took about 30 years just to get the S/7 moved from 95th Street. The original route had the route going down 94th Street,3rd Avenue to 95th Street and 4th Avenue to stand on the side of the library. That did not last as when I began taking the S/7 in September 1968, the S /7 stop was in front of the library and the bus route was via 4th Avenue, Marine Avenue, Fort Hamilton Parkway to 92nd Street. where it remained until it was finally extended to 86th Street. I presume that you included the 86th Street move in the Staten Island study that was done in the late 1970's which changed the bus routes and the route numbers..If anything look at the service patterns in the Fort Hamilton/Bay Ridge area today as it indicates a history of missed opportunities and then an attempt to catch up with a sudden swath of changes over the last 20 years. Bay Ridge has always had narrow streets and this impacted (and still impacts) upon bus service as there are very few streets that can handle buses and parking without impacting upon schedules. Let's be honest, this is the reality of the situation and why there will continue to have problems in that area. Brooklyn Bus, everyone who writes on this forum, knows your qualifications and they know mine as each of us comes to this forum from a different perspective, so there is no need to restate it here. What I ask all those is that who read and write on this forum take that into consideration when reading what we write as a rider and Brooklyn Bus as a planner.

My point here remains and that is the pole is good if a person is taking the B/36 to Avenue U and is virtually useless for those riders that need the B/44 local and SBS as it only posts when there is a bus running. Forget the one where the DOT has the MTA information which just has every x number of minutes and does not have the exact times so unless the B/44 is on the road from Knapp Street, If a person does not have technology with them, (and there are people who don't have it with them) there is no way for a rider to know when the B/44 local or SBS is coming..even though there may be a bus waiting to pull out from Knapp Street.The key here is that if the bus is waiting, it should be posted as it gives the rider a better idea when the bus is coming out even if it is 15 or more minutes later.

I think that Brooklyn Bus is missing the point concerning the B/64 not having any complaints as the route ran very close to schedule and this was even when the Ulmer Park legend worked the route many, many years ago. It was not a long route having an approximate running time of 30 minutes from one end to the other. The schedule was not bad at all with decent headways during the day and it provided good service.The route was my bridge route from the B/3 to the Staten Island routes and I preferred it over the N/R change at 59th Street as it was faster and more dependable. Both the drivers and the riders cared about the route and the one time that there was a driver that played games, he got the message loud and clear and never picked the route again. When you have at least three business districts, two major runs under elevated structures and a one lane in each direction under one of them, the route will be subject to delays and sometimes a lot longer than it should be for buses that operate on schedule. When the bus driver takes out his bus for its first run, he has no idea of what the traffic will be so he may be on schedule one day, far off schedule the next, near schedule the next and on and on. With the B/1 you got to expect it just like the occasional truck that fails to read the sign about the height requirement and has to be backed out from the location that delays the route.The last time I took the B/1 was last year was from the Public School in Manhattan Beach to Lincoln High School and it was a total disaster as it took well over 1/2 hour to cover that distance.

There is an approximately 17 minute headway on the B/44 south of Avenue U during the non-rush hours during the week and this includes both the local and SBS services. It is longer on the weekends. So for all intensive purposes as I stated, the ubiquitous pole that has been placed is virtually useless to any rider except during the rush hours. Thank you Via Garibaldi 8 for trying to explain to me the unexplainable which is what is going here.

So the reality is that a person waiting at the Avenue X stop will have no idea about how long he/she will be waiting for a B/44 at the stop as nothing is posted until the bus leaves Knapp Street. Isn't that what posted schedules are for? The problem is that when the posted schedule is listed as every x number of minutes with no specific times, how does one know when the next bus is coming?. So what the MTA is saying to the rider quite emphatically is if you do not see the B/44 posted on the sign, then the rider is better off walking the three blocks to Avenue U where the rider has a 50:50 chance of catching a B/44 bus.

So therefore based on the previous statement, the B/36 will always be posted on the pole as it is in motion but the riders will not know when the next B/44 local or SBS will arrive unless it is in motion. This means that if I want to know if there is a B/44 waiting at Knapp Street that is scheduled to be pulling out in five minutes from there (for example), I will not know that there is a B/44 bus coming in 11 minutes because it is not in motion but then suddenly five minutes after I looked at the pole, I find that there will be a B/44 in 6 minutes.Based on what was posted the information on the pole is reliable for the B/36 as all B/36 buses are in motion but is clueless for the B/44 which may not be in motion. So how do I know when the next B/44 is going to arrive after I just missed one and none of the B/44 buses are in motion from Knapp Street?. So what is the purpose of the pole if I am waiting for the B/44 but all it has is the next bus information for the B/36? So based on what is posted on the pole and i see nothing for the B/44, I am better off walking the three blocks to Avenue U where I have a better chance at finding a B/44 bus of any type!

I have a question concerning the select bus poles (the big things that list the next bus to arrive) and how they work. There is one such lighted pole located on the east side of Nostrand Avenue and Avenue X for the B/44 Local and SBS. This pole lists the B/36 to Avenue U even if will arrive over 40 minutes later all the time, however, it does not list either the B/44 local or the B/44 SBS until the bus is about 6 minutes away from the stop. It does not list any information about a B/44 bus 10 minutes behind (for example) that is coming while the B/36 has multiple listings. Where does the sign activation for the B/44 take place? At Knapp Street or Emmons and Nostrand Avenues? When there is nothing posted does it mean that there are no B/44 buses of either type on their way to the Avenue X stop at that particular time? For the record there is no pole on the west side of Nostrand Avenue at Avenue X so I cannot compare the information that is posted.

This is in response to checkmate champ and his statements about the S/79: 1) My reference to the S/79 having a 6:30 AM weekday run to Hylan and Richmond was way before the date of 2012 that he wrote and everyone knows I had retired in 2010 so the reference i was making was to when the S/79 first started running to Brooklyn in the early 1990's and was eliminated a couple of years afterwards as the trip was extended to the Staten Island Mall The bus made a return trip to Brooklyn leaving at about 7:45 AM (I do not have the printed schedules possibly someone who does will verify the information). 2) The B/64 and the S/79 shared the same stop on 86th Street and 4th Avenue long before his date of 2009. In fact I think it was about ten years (give or take a couple) as the S/79 would begin turning down 5th Avenue from 86th Street (later Fort Hamilton Parkway) to 92nd Street.. When I came down with the B/64 just after the parkway, I watched to see if the S/79 made the turn from 4th Avenue onto 86th Street so I knew where to make my transfer to the S/79 If I missed the S/79, I would take the B/64 to the S/53 to make the connection with the S/74. 3) I remember the S/79 & S/53 sharing the west side of 4th Avenue at 86th Street and that was in the 1990's as when I took either the S/53 or S/79 in the afternoon, the bus made the turn from Fort Hamilton Parkway into 86th Street. I transferred at 86th Street to either the B/64 or the B/70. The year that I remember was 1996 as the B/70 was using the 9300 RTS Coaches when the MTA sent buses to Atlanta for the Olympics. 4) I have posted it time and time again as someone has to update the Bernard Linder articles on the bus system that appeared in Motor Coach Age from the late 1960's through the early 1970's (two of last histories: MABSTOA 10 years later or the Avenue B and East Broadway). Transit history is one of the most neglected areas and the history involving the routes since the late 1960's has been neglected so it is very hard to find out correct dates of operation unless a person has direct access to the source material.

The reason that the B/64 did not have complaints when it ran to 4th Avenue or you hear any complaints now when it goes to Shore Road can be summed up in the following::" the elevated structures and the business districts which co-exist on a considerable portion of the B/1 route".. Bath Avenue does not have the elevated structure and it does not have a large business district except around Bay Parkway and 18th Avenue. The route is thus able to keep to a schedule as the only time Bath Avenue gets busy is when the Belt Parkway is tied up.and at Bay Parkway due to the long light there. Bay Ridge Avenue is one lane in each direction but since 65th Street is four blocks away, traffic will go there.. The 86th Street shopping center and the fact that the street is virtually one lane in each direction from Stillwell to New Utrecht Avenues is where a lot of time is lost as well as Brighton Beach Avenue Shopping Center where there are more lanes but has the same problems.As far as the B/1 having problems on that section of 86th Street, I can go back to when the route was the B/34 and i took the route during the summers of 1967 - 1969. and I remember the route having the same problems. So it seems that nothing has changed except that if I have to take the B/1 which is quite seldom, I avoid it at all costs.

I see that 87th Street has gotten even worse from the time that the B/64 was running on that street. It always had disruptions even at 6 AM with the trucks and I am going back 15 -20 years. I used to dread taking the B/64 and having to transfer to either the S/7 (S/53) or to the S/79. There was a period where the B/64 ran directly on 86th Street for a short time during the 2000 - 2010 period to 3rd Avenue due to some project that has long been forgotten. As far as the extension to Shore Road, this should have happened many years ago when the B/64 was terminating at 4th Avenue and the S/79 terminated at the B/64 stop on 4th Avenue. When the terminal of the S/79.was changed to Brooklyn, the ridership took up like a rocket. I did not start taking the route until the 6:30 AM bus which was terminating at Richmond and Hylan began going to the mall. Then it became my bus of choice (along with a lot of other riders) and the headways started to decrease. When I transferred from the S/79 to the B/64 in the late afternoon, it got to the point where there was no room at the terminal for any additional buses so they discharged riders before the terminal. The optimum time to extend the B/1 to Shore Road should have been when the B/1 and the B/64 switched terminals in June 2010. The only reason that I think it did not happen at that time was the presumption that B/1 riders preferred transferring to the S/79 or did not want to cross the street to access the subway. As far as I am concerned, I wonder why it has taken the TA so long to send all B/1 buses to Shore Road (leave 87th street for the trucks) as obviously it has gotten far worse since I retired at the end of September 2010 and the schedules are not what they are today.

Pardon me as I feel that a clarification of my comments concerning a statement that I write here is needed. Whenever I write a statement that may be challenged as I wrote involving the B/64, I give the citation and where it can be found along with any additional information as to which local library has the material. The B/64 extension to Shore Road was in the early 1960's and it was changed to 4th Avenue after a couple of years (mid 1950's). The source is from the article on Brooklyn Buses written by Bernard Linder in Motor Coach Age in the late 1960's or early 1970's.back pages where Mr. Linder listed every route that ran in the borough, its date of conversion from streetcar (or otherwise) and all changes to the route since its inception. up to the time that the article was written. For those of you who are my fellow writers on this forum and are interested in further information on the subject, I suggest that you take the time to look for the articles that Mr. Linder published not only on Brooklyn but Queens or Staten island but his series on the private companies in Manhattan such 5th Avenue Coach, Surface Transit and his great article on MABSTOA ten years after its inception. All of his articles are quite comprehensive with route histories as well as complete equipment rosters and transfers of buses between companies., along with renumbers of the equipment .I used to have the articles but unfortunately they have been lost over many years. If you want to read the Brooklyn or Queens articles please visit the Long Island Division of the Queensborough .Public Library which has it along with other articles on the private bus lines in Queens. The main library on 42nd Street in Manhattan should have the articles on the 5th Avenue Coach and the other companies. All of the articles are Reference only and therefore available for reading in the library only. Some limited copy services are available at the libraries so that selected material such as route rosters could be copied at a charge set by the library. There is one problem with these articles as the material needs to be updated from the date of publication to the present and for those forum members who would like to do a project such as this which involves 45 -50 years of updating, I would suggest that you contact the Motor Bus Society to find out if any members are already doing the work. This is the one major part of transit history where a complete history is sorely needed.

Future ENY operator and I are in agreement as to what is happening at Ulmer Park and it seems to be something that has become quite noticeable over the last couple of years, There are now 4 from the 5000 series that are missing from the Ulmer Park roster 508(either 7 or 8, not sure) , 5121 and now 5102 and 5111. I know that I am not suffering from senility as I remember I saw 5111 in service just late last week on either the 3 or the 36. Future ENY operator is right as what is Ulmer Park going to do when it has some breakdowns and the buses are not available from other garages? I feel for those that have to ride on a daily basis as I would have been dreading taking the bus going to work..

Future ENY operator, you are right and from what I read on another thread, the issue with both of them is that the need repairs and it does not pay to fix them. You also raise another issue that concerns me more is what is happening to the 5000's is quite similar to what happened to the 9400 and 9600 series a couple of years ago in order to get first dibs on the 7000 series.

These two were on the b/36 late last week and this brings up the question, what will be replacing them?

Did anyone check the B Line information as the B is listed as going local from Prospect Park to Kings Highway southbound from 8 PM to 11 PM weekdays through August 24. Could I be wrong that the R-179's are being tested on the southbound express track and that is the reason?

Some comments on some of the suggestions concerning the Southern Brooklyn routes: The proposed extension of the B/1 to Shore Road is similar to the B/64 extension that existed soon after the B/64 was converted to bus. It lasted for a couple of years during the early 1950's (Source: Brooklyn Bus routes by Bernard Linder Motor Coach Age (Article is at the Brooklyn Public Library - Brooklyn Division and Queensborough Public Library- Long Island Division). That said, I feel that it should be considered now as it will help to alleviate traffic problems in the area as well as eliminate the need for the B/16 school specials that serve Fort Hamilton High School. The proposals involving the B/4 and B/36 do not take into consideration the riders that take the buses to the subway. By having the B/4 going straight on Bay Ridge Parkway will further erode the passenger base on that route as the riders will not want to walk two blocks to the subway station on 77th Street. It is the same thing at the other end where the B/4 and B/36 route operate and if we add the avoidance of Coney Island Hospital (which is a major traffic generator,for both routes), the routes become useless and become candidates for the cut and eliminate penny saver crowd in their palatial offices. Access to the hospital is a necessity and by diverting bus service from the hospital, it creates a problem for residents on both ends of the B/36 route who pushed for this route change almost 40 years ago. In other words leave it alone.

I checked the MTA website about two minutes later and it stated that B & Q trains were running local. What was the rush in putting out the statement that B service was discontinued as putting out the correct information could not have waited five minutes more?

Here we go again with the B train being discontinued. Whenever I have to be in the city and the B train is running, I avoid it at all cost as if there is a problem anywhere that the B train provides service, the B train stops running.

If the B/45 returns to East New York Avenue, it will be a partial return of the B/45 trolley bus route which went up East New York Avenue but then went straight along Liberty Avenue to Pennsylvania Avenue (which became part of the B/40). Wednesday is the anniversary of the end of all trolley bus service in our city as on July 26, 1960, the last Trolley bus pulled into the garage and it ended.