B35 via Church

I don't disagree, but I'm trying to figure out his rationale here (especially when he mentions not necessarily saying that the Junction is a stub, which isn't the issue.... like, who exactly is thinking that anyway??).... In any event. I would be against doing that to the B103 for a number of reasons.... Outside of what you mention here, two of which are [grossly overserving the immediate area with the B5/6, B11, and all B103 service] & [an implied supporting of that proposed B81; or at the very least, further justifying having all B103's be cut from running Downtown]...

Is this supposed to be some way of avoiding the (would be) stark increase of buses at the Junction?

Not that I'm all that wild about route renumberings, but FWIW just to entertain the conversation, I'd use the 200's for express variants of NNJ routes.... e/g. the #151 would become the 261, the #190X would become the 290, the #148 becomes the 248, the #177 to become the 267, etc..... With routes that have multiple express variants (like the #165), the current suffixes would just be appended to the corresponding 2xx route number... So the #165p would be the 265p, the #165rf would be the 265rf, and so on & so forth....

I'd just have it run the current routing to/from PABT, but have it running nonstop from/to JSQ (meaning, serving it).... I'd say the worst thing you could do for such a route is having it take Tonnelle to 495; I can't advocate for anything having to put up with the Tonnelle Circle.... Regardless, while I don't so much mind the concept of a #119X, I'm simply not on board with this having #119's bypass JSQ bit.... This construction that's having buses currently bypassing JSQ for most of the day, should be just a temporary measure & not a permanent one... Quite honestly, I don't have a problem with the #126 running on either [Washington] or [Willow/Clinton]... The thing AFAIC is, that they run whatever number of #126 trips to Hamilton Park during the PM hours, as to not overburden Hoboken Terminal... During the AM rush, it's less of a problem because there's less trips starting at Hoboken Terminal; there's inbound trips that run from Hamilton Park, Clinton/1st, and Clinton/5th (I believe that other short turn starting point is)... What I'm ultimately getting at is, too many of the PM/outbound Willow/Clinton trips run to Hoboken Terminal.... Obviously not all of them, but I would have a sizable number of those PM Willow/Clinton trips stopping dead at Observer Hwy (and none of them running to Hamilton Park)... To sum it up, I don't think #126's should be running past Hoboken in any capacity... The #123 isn't nearly as busy as the #126 in general, so that would be the route I would have serving the immediate area around Hamilton Park during peak times (again, at a lesser clip than they of which they have #126's serving it)... Which just about perfectly segues into... There's a reason why I said "I can side with the general idea of running the #123 to Exchange Place".... - Not sure if I ever said it on the forum, but one of my ideas for the #123 was/is to run it to Newport Centre.... If I had to choose one of the immediate areas over the other, I'd much rather run it to the mall full time, over that of to Exchange Pl. from PABT... As for Hamilton Park, that would only be additional peak hour service (extracted from the current #126)... Maybe about 6-8 total peak trips max (3-4 peak AM + 3-4 peak PM); not nearly as much total trips to/from Hamilton Park like that of the current #126... Ultimate point being, I wouldn't run a service to Newport Centre via Hamilton Park; don't see it as necessary (full time service to/from Hamilton Park is grossly excessive), not to mention that would be a waste-of-a-time loop/backtrack..... - I wouldn't use an extended #123 to further erode the #86.... I say erode because generally speaking, from Union City (north or south of 495), I'd say there's more demand for Newport Centre than Exchange Place throughout more of the day.... So if you have all #86's running to Exchange Place, it'd be less useful IMO... At that point, you may as well eliminate the #86 & use some of its resources to increase #84 service (which I think should happen regardless), among other things... I say further because the route was once (more of) a variant of the #84 - which runs to Nungessers.... With the advent of the HBLR, they scaled the #86 back to Bergenline av. HBLR.... If the idea is to have a Union City - Exchange Pl. route, I'd just do away with the #86 altogether & expand the span of & extend the #82 route to Bergenline av HBLR.... From said HBLR station, it'd go JFK - Paterson Plank - Summit - current route to Exchange Place... Outside of bypassing JSQ, one reason the #82 even exists is to supply *some* level of direct service to Exchange Pl. from areas well west of Palisade....

As long as the amount of farebeating having been & being what it still is, coupled with some routes being fare free (temporary or otherwise), for me, these stats aren't even worth having discussions about anymore for me... I'm not even curious about what routes, or to what level those routes have rebounded (or however you wanna put it) from late 2019/early 2020, onward.....

Yeah, the #125 runs like crap, but length isn't the reason why I wouldn't bother running the #123 to JSQ... @BreeddekalbL's "random thought" there appears to be rather implicative of having the #123 take the place of the #119 running inside JSQ, which I can't concur with.... I'd kill two birds with 1 stone here, because I never cared for the #126 running past Hoboken to serve that pocket of Jersey City at/around Hamilton Park.... I can side with the general idea of running the #123 to Exchange Place, but during peak hours (peak direction), I'd divvy up trips between 1] short turning at Congress st. HBLR, 2] terminating at Hamilton Park (less total trips serving it than the current #126), and 3] terminating at Exchange Place - however, peak trips to/from Exchange place would be all 'X" trips (inbound trips would run straight to PABT after Congress st, outbound trips would have Congress st. be the first stop after leaving PABT).... All other times, no service to Hamilton Park, but I would still have a significant enough an amount of trips short turning at Congress st. HBLR.... You mean like the current #126 from Hoboken & the current #119 & #125 from JSQ?

For what? The #119 would go back inside JSQ.....

Hard disagree.... Subjecting the #119 to the helix & that stretch of 30th/31st st in Union City would loom that much more detrimental to the thing, compared to the way the route currently slogs south of Congress....

It's not better publicized because it's not for the general public... It's only for Mercer county residents.

I'm more of a proponent of microtransit being used within denser areas, as opposed to within semi-rural areas... In either case, as I not too long ago said in the SCT redesign thread, microtransit shouldn't be used to supplant public fixed routes (especially those that are under-performing, or otherwise below par).... Specifically to the 2 routes mentioned, well, as we both know, Bee Line themselves destroyed the #12... As for the #32, I honestly think fixing that route is an easy fix... Get rid of the portion west of Park Hill & have it circulate to/from MNRR Yonkers - something like this..... The #8 is all is needed for the portion of SW Yonkers, west of South Broadway....

I have no doubt about it..... Otherwise, SCT would've unapologetically cut the 10B/10C outright.... Public transit providers are (mis)using microtransit as a passive means to slowly cut bus service... The concept will be used as the scapegoat as to why to the "East Hampton Zone" & the "Southampton Zone" will end up failing.... It puts the (performance of the) 10B & the 10C off the hook. Not saying you're implicating this, but I still want to make the point.... To sum it up, microtransit is not the answer to a poorly utilized fixed route service... This is the trend (or craze, as BM5 puts it) that these public transit providers are resorting to & to me, at the very least, it's further aiding in giving microtransit a bad rep'...

The problem AFAIC isn't the general concept of microtransit (which is how the pro-microtransit folks construe the criticism) as much as it is microtransit being used by public transit providers to supplant fixed route services.... Let's just call it for what it is - it's done as a passive, gradual way of cutting bus service.... For discussion's sake I guess, I'll just leave this flowchart here from Jarrett Walker's blog for anyone to ponder where the 10B & 10C falls into this...

Feel sorry for the poor guy/girl..... I would've helped out with getting him/her back to PABT if I was on that bus.... Too many pax in those situations either get worried/panicky or start cursing out the b/o & it tends to piss me off....

In order to keep the scheme of only having n1's running [to Jamaica in the AM] & [from Jamaica in the PM], this is how they try to handle catering to n1 demand from Jamaica during the AM hours.... That's what has to be resorted to; As they can't have inbound AM n1 trips leave as n1's back to Hewlett, because almost all of them are interlined with AM n26 trips to Great Neck. As I see it, the issue with those old n15's to RFM via OCR was that the demand was grossly imbalanced/one-sided... Virtually nil during the AM hours, but enough to warrant service during the PM hours... If there's people at the Country Glen shopping center & those other shopping plaza's up along Glen Cove rd. in Carle Place making their way to the WB n22/24 to xfer for those Mineola n15's (instead of for the n40/41), I wouldn't know it... But what I do know is that there no noticeable amt. of people walking from those shopping centers to RFM, or people making their way to that stop across from the Carle Place diner to take the EB n22/24 or SB n27 the one stop to RFM....

...but yet the #163's that short turn at GSP Mall have no suffix; go figure.... It would be one thing if GSP mall was a part of the regular #163 route to Ridgewood Terminal, but it isn't..... JSQ, OTOH, was always a part of the #119 before the construction at JSQ, so to append a temporary suffix for that, **shrugs**....

....and as for the lowly utilized express bus routes?

Ever since they came out with the revision of the initial draft, I've stated (on here) that I thought the #11 should've ran to Smith Haven over the #5.... Specifically, I would do 2 things with the #11 at this point regarding that: Smithtown is overserved with the current #5 (30 min. headways)... Not only that, but it's a waste of time having it sit in traffic in Smithtown to have every trip (on weekdays) pick up/drop off almost nobody... The waste-of-timeness (so to speak) includes the backtrack from the NYS Office Bldg. to have it serve more of Smithtown (as in, via the North Complex & via Old Willets Path)... With that said, not only would I reduce service to hourly in Smithtown, I would have a branch of the #11 to Smith Haven running via rt. 111 after serving the NYS Office Bldg.... I see what's going on with the #58 to Brentwood & now I'm more than convinced that the #58 should be cut back to Smith Haven.... Not because that it doesn't do well, but because too sizeable a portion of pax. getting off at Brentwood are xferring to #7's or #11's... That, and quite frankly, I think it's ultimately more beneficial to have the #58 & the #62 be the (respective) Smith Haven - Riverhead routes & the #11 offering a 1-seat ride b/w Smith Haven & points south of Brentwood (towards Bay Shore), than the current setup with having the #58 be a Brentwood - Riverhead route & the #11 being one-half of a deliberate/all-day interlining scenario with a route I don't think should even exist in its totality in the first place (of course, I'm talking about the #17 here).... So I say all that to say, I'd have the other hourly branch of an #11 to Smith Haven bypassing Smithtown via the Smithtown Bypass I honestly don't care if each branch gets a separate route number or not, but the point is, I'd say it'd be well worth it for a Bay Shore - Smith Haven route hitting (the pulse point that is) Brentwood, and industrial & governmental (lol) Hauppauge in the process.... ---------------------- As far as the #5 is concerned, my outlook thus far on it, unfortunately, is rather low..... Even given the whole 3 routes doing Brentwood - Smith Haven & 3 routes doing Brentwood - Hauppauge bit, I would look into dismantling it before having it run up to Hauppauge from Babylon, to then run back down to LIRR Central Islip (never mind that I don't think anything should be terminating there to begin with)... Speaking of which, if it's anything that should perhaps take over parts of the #17 north of the main line, it's one of the #52 branches.... Have one of them continue westward along Motor Pkwy down Hawthorne or something....

I'm CTFU if they got the outbound #108 signed up as "NWK" in 3 big ass letters. But yeah, I brought up the "Eliz" BS in an earlier post in this thread, referencing having seen it on a #26... Just dumb all the way around... For whatever the reason, they're regressing in the designation signage category.

Lake Success (Nassau County). We were in a meeting (11 of us present, only 2 people felt it).... Interesting that the only 2 people that felt it were (standing) on the little podium we have.... The rest of us were sitting down.... I was one of the people sitting down.... I'd say there's about a 10-12 foot distance b/w the podium & those of us that were seated.

That's exactly the point of doing that.... and quiet is as kept, buses randomly (unofficially/wrongfully) have been doing that for ages. Especially during the PM rush hour on Fridays, I used to stay seeing M20's on the middle lane or left most lane (with waiting pax. getting screwed in the process).....

You think.... What, is more than that? That is exactly why I never bothered wasting time filing any sort of complaint or issue their way.... Canned ass responses piss me off to no end: I'd honestly rather be ignored than to be fed some automated response....

Figured it'd be something as silly as this....

Not with as many people being influenced by the fear mongering & the current state of the subway system, we don't....

Forget about it.... You & those that have your mindset are few & far between..... For as large an agency it is, the MTA, in this aspect, still represents a microcosm of the quality of customer service in this country, as a whole.... Some will tell you that quality customer service is completely dead... I won't go that far, but being perfectly honest, as the poor get poorer, the "quality" of the customer that's expecting exceptional customer service definitely does not help matters..... I have said in the past on here (and still believe it to this day) that there is an adversarial relationship between the MTA & the riding public...

Not that it takes away from the point, but #4 has to be referencing #5... Quite frankly, the educational level of the 2 poor souls they threw to the wolves is rather irrelevant to me (all things considered)... This debacle represents a new low the MTA has hit... Anyone would have to be a fool at this point to believe the MTA is still in it to provide optimal public transit for the NYC region... But of course, the kool-aid drinkers will still slurp-slurp & go AHhhHHhhh at this f***in' bullshit....