aemoreira81

On the Q100 to Rikers...perhaps it is time for the MTA to work with the Corrections Department to determine which trips need to serve Rikers? On Mondays and Tuesdays, there are no visits permitted. See here for more information: http://www.nyc.gov/html/doc/html/visit-an-inmate/visit-schedule.shtml On those days, I would have Q100 trips end at the Q101 terminus at 19 Avenue and Hazen Street. As for the Q100...what about adding a stop at 20 Avenue and Steinway Street full time?

They had been retired from about 2000, but I suspect that the O5s took most of them off the road before. These buses had V8 engines (8V71).

BusTime/BusTrek should have ended this. This is bad dispatching. Even if there is monitoring from a central station, the central station should contact the driver to see what the conditions are like and short-turn or put buses in place as needed. "Keep going" is not always the best option.

The 1000s were mainstays on the Q35---as 8-cylinder buses, they sounded deeper. They didn't disappear until the MTA took over Green Lines, and even 1012 survived until Varsity Bus closed. BTW, Avis at JFK ran 35-foot RTS-03s until 2003 (retrofitted with square backs); they were retired when AirTrain JFK opened. Hertz ran 40' slope-backs at JFK at well, but Gilligs had already replaced them when AirTrain JFK opened.

It seems like a more northerly route of what I had proposed in the past. However, I wonder if the route should just stay on Linden Boulevard if the Bay Ridge-JFK line takes a more southerly approach (in my proposal a few months ago, I had that route serving Gateway Center), I would also avoid Church Avenue at all cost. The other problem I see is that there isn't much room to terminate a route from the east at 86th and 4th, and the route may have to continue to Fort Hamilton High School to have a reasonable turnaround point. On the extension to Bay Ridge, I would add stops at Bay Ridge Parkway (for coverage), 62 Street (for the ), 50 Street (for Maimonides, serving another need), 44 Street (for the ), and 39 Street (for the B35). That said, not a bad proposal. Additionally, Brooklyn badly needs a true central crosstown route.

The B84 is supposed to be the neighborhood bus. However, all bets are off after next year, because the Brooklyn DDSO is supposed to close at the end of 2015, eliminating a need for the route to go that far east...unless it gets demolished and re-developed as a new residential tract. I never thought I would see the day when Spring Creek Basin would be anything but a big overgrown weed field. Vandalia Avenue (before it was closed between Schenck Avenue and Erskine Street---now between Gateway Drive and Elton Street, where the development currently ends) used to be a hotbed of illegal racing.

Gateway Mall gripe: Since the B83 was rerouted to the other side of the mall, the DOT forgot to put in a stop going back to East New York, meaning that one must get on at Home Depot and ride all the way around to JC Penney to get back...which adds almost 2 miles to a trip because of backtracking. In addition, the two stops, by JC Penney and by Home Depot (or near it) don't really cover the entire footprint of the mall in terms of adequate service. I would argue that a stop to Broadway Junction (near Home Depot) is needed for the B83, as well as one additional stop near the BJs for the B13, B83, and Q8.

Spring Creek Basin and East New York The B13, B83, B84, and Q8 currently all run past the Brooklyn DDSO in Spring Creek Basin. The B83 will have its terminus moved away from there in a few months, but the B13, B84, and Q8 will still run past it. The MTA has said that the B84's routing will remain the same. However, the Brooklyn DDSO past which all of these routes run is currently slated for closure by December 31, 2015, along with three other centers for people with developmental disabilities. Because of that, I see no need for any bus to run past the DDSO site en route to Gateway Center...and there would be no reason to not have the B84 take a more direct route to Gateway Mall. As such, I propose these changes, effective for winter pick 2016: Q8/B84: Change the route completely west of Euclid Avenue to give this route its own market west of Euclid Avenue. I would propose this routing: To Gateway Center: remain on Pitkin to Fountain, then: left on Fountain, right on Dumont, follow to New Lots Avenue, and left on Ashford Street. This route would then be combined with the B84, and run as follows: down Ashford Street to Cozine Avenue, left on Cozine, right on Elton Street, left on Vandalia Avenue, right on Erskine Street, right on Gateway Drive, to terminus. To Jamaica, the combined route would be: from Gateway North via Gateway Drive, left on Erskine, left on Vandalia, right on Elton, left on Cozine, right on Ashford, right on Hegeman, left on Cleveland, right on New Lots onto Dumont, left on Logan, right on Pitkin, to Jamaica. B13: Minor change in route to account for a deleted Q8 stop that does get ridership, and to catch more riders bidirectionally to reroute away from what would now be a zero-ridership zone: To Gateway Center: via Stanley Avenue, remain on Stanley to Fountain Avenue, left on Fountain, past Cozine, then a right on Vandalia, left on Erskine Street, into the mall To Wyckoff Medical Center: via Fountain Avenue, remain on Fountain to Wortman, right onto Euclid Avenue, right onto Stanley Avenue, and regular. In addition, the B13 would no longer pull directly into the Brooklyn GMF, but would continue to stop just outside of it on Stanley Avenue. One may ask why not keep the current B13 pattern to Gateway southbound past the DDSO site, and the answer is that with the DDSO closed permanently, it would be better to have bidirectional service through the residential area. In a non-revenue change, permission would be applied from the DOT to allow buses to use Shore Parkway east of Exit 15. This would have the Q8 use the Belt Parkway as its deadhead route; currently, buses have to double back to Linden Boulevard to deadhead. The Q8 to Gateway would get a bit longer, however, I see a cost savings here and a benefit to the customer owing to: 1. A more direct route from the neighborhood to New Lots and Gateway, bypassing the little-to-non-utilized stops on Flatlands Avenue (only Elton really gets any ridership) 2. New access from this area to the IND subway at Euclid Avenue. 3. Onward access to points east on the Q8 to Jamaica, Queens. The revised deadhead would reduce the Q8's run-on and run-off in moderate traffic to about 10-12 minutes or so, as except for right by JFK Depot and Gateway Mall, the run-on and run-off would be on a limited-access highway. Additionally, buses would not be idle as much with a combined Q8 and B84 as it is with the B84 today...an idle bus does not make money.

9114 has been repainted with a white back. I am not sure if this is also a case of this bus being taken out of retirement.

What would run to Coney Island via Cropsey Avenue? That is why I thought of it as the B82. In the past, I had proposed it as a B7 extension, but that would have incurred an extra cost. This saves money as I see it.

Caesar's Bay Shopping Center area. The B6 currently serves this mall on its southbound trip, and it houses several big-box tenants, including Babies'R'Us, Kohl's, Best Buy, and Modell's. However, customers going the other way must ride through the loop and change buses at the Ulmer Park Depot, or must cross the Belt Parkway to walk back to Cropsey Avenue, which might be a bit impractical with large shopping bags. As such, I would propose a minor route change that would affect the B82 short-turns mostly. My proposal would be as follows: 1. Westbound, after Bath Avenue, instead of turning left onto Cropsey Avenue, B82 short turns that currently operate to the Ulmer Park Depot wouid instead continue on Bay Parkway, stopping at Cropsey Avenue and then continuing to the last stop at the end of Bay Parkway, by the park, where buses would lay over.. 2. Eastbound, the first stop would be past the first parking lot entrance. An additional stop would be made at the near side of Cropsey Avenue. 3. Early evening trips leaving Spring Creek Towers after the last short-turn trip, but until the first departure between 9 PM and 9:15 PM (inclusive), and on Saturday AM trips starting with the first trip leaving Spring Creek Towers at or after 6:30 AM. would make a diversion to Caesar's Bay Shopping Center. (Some late Saturday AM, would be truncated to this mall to avoid over-serving Coney Island.) 4. Return trips departing Coney Island after the last short turn, but before 10 PM, on Saturday AMs after 8 AM, would also divert to Caesar's Bay. (Some Saturday AM trips would be truncated to Caesar's Bay.) These stops would no longer be served by diverted short turns: 1. Cropsey Avenue and Bay Parkway/Bay 31 Street 2. Cropsey Avenue and 23 Avenue 3. Cropsey Avenue and 24 Avenue 4. Bay 38 Street When the B82 Limited is running, the B82 Limited would serve these stops. I estimate that this would be cost-neutral or have a minimal cost decrease because of the slightly decreased distance in travel.

If there is a route that should go from Bay Ridge to Canarsie---I would argue that it should be a B8 variant that operates via Canarsie Plaza, running between the 86 Street station and the Rockaway Parkway station, since the shopping center is a bit underserved, (The proposed BRT route that would run to JFK airport would also likely start in Bay Ridge and it should serve the same two points on a more southerly route.) That would also help to relieve the B1 a bit. BTW, the real reason for cutting the B11 to Brooklyn College in 1990: it was so unreliable because the western portion of the route was often delayed. The B6 Canarsie-Midwood short turns are a legacy of that to this day.

Sans license plates.

The idea of the Tracey Towers was simply as a through routing for bypassing the Concourse...I would propose it still for select trips because most of the Concourse is dead insofar as express ridership is cocnerned. An alternate plan might have the route bypass Sedgwick, but have the bus use Fordham to University to Reservoir Avenue, to serve Lehman College before Norwood.

The BxM4 carries well on the northern end, but how well does it carry along the Concourse? If it were made a branch of the BxM3 via the Tracey Towers instead, would it perform better? (It would not serve the Concourse, but it would still serve Norwood and Woodlawn.)

Not sure that there would be a market for such. However, Springfield Boulevard is being extended to meet 147 Avenue directly (this should be finished next year). Now, just throwing this one out there---what about extending the Q77 to Rosedale and having the Q111 bound up to get to Green Acres? The area is so close to Green Acres, but so hard to reach by mass transit.

The lines may look close on a map, but they serve distinct corridors and do not duplicate each other, largely because of major differences in elevation and the Metro-North line that divides the neighborhoods. Other than the endpoints of those corridors (considering Melrose and Webster to be one street), which thus eliminates 149 Street and Fordham Road, the only street that crosses Grand Concourse, Webster Avenue, and Third Avenue uninterrupted is Tremont Avenue (which is also the only cross-borough street in the Bronx).

Under such a scenario, the Q25 would have short turns that terminate at the College Point Depot (by the theater and Toys'R'Us). I think that it may be time to give the Q34 its own unique market, and provide local service along Willets Point Boulevard. This route would be pretty straightforward: Flushing to Fort Totten via Mitchell Gardens and Willets Point Boulevard. The Q16 would also be simplified as it would have only one branch with better headways.

This would be a new route. The thinking is that people currently drive to Green Acres from this area who would probably take the bus if it did not mean doubling back through the Jamaica CBD.

The Q50's extension is really to free up space to get the Q58 to Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue. That additional stop by Kissena and Main could be eliminated, but that would be the layover zone for the Q50 instead of Roosevelt Avenue. I chose the Q50 because the bottom of its route is shared with the Q25 and Q34.

3505 is now repainted the new way.

Staying on the Flushing topic..I have an idea, and it's largely possible because the Q50 is now an ECH route. What about extending the Q50 southward to the Flushing library, making that the last stop)? The Q50 would then relay using Kissena Boulevard, Sanford Avenue (deleting about 4-6 parking spaces with an extended bus stop that would also serve as a layover, and Main Street, with the new flrst stop being at the Q34 loading zone. Then move the Q19/66 back to its spot along Main Street before it was relocated to Roosevelt Avenue, and relocate the Q58 to the Q19/66's loading zone. (The Q19, Q58, and Q66 would all share one layover zone). Now, for something separate---floating as a idea: Green Acres is obviously a major shopping area for eastern Queens and western Nassau County. However, from south of Conduit Avenue, it is not easy to reach by bus. I would wonder if a route would be useful that runs from the Far Rockaway Depot, via the neighborhood of the same name, then following the Q113 local route through the Five Towns, and then 147 Avenue, 243 Street, and Sunrise Highway to Green Acres. Currently, to get from this area to Green Acres, one must currently use the NICE n31/2 to the n1, but except for those in Far Rockaway along Beach 19/20 Streets, or near Central Avenue, it's not an option without another fare. The aim is to provide a direct connection from this area to Green Acres. What are your thoughts?

And remember, you're paying for them with your fares and tax dollars. The MTA needs both a copy editor and a grammar checker.

4533 - a former oddball - is now repainted the new way.

5149 - Grand Avenue.