BrooklynBus

Don’t forget about what they did to 34 Avenue in Jackson Heights which is vigorously opposed. It was a great alternative when Northern was too heavy. So they cut the street with in half with bike lanes and planters that is mostly unused. So it’s no longer an alternative to Northern. Then they installed a bus lane to make traffic move even slower and added a bike lane removing parking. Then they removed every other bus stop increasing walking without placing a new route along a neighboring avenue to reduce walking distances. They increased walking distances so some are now 3/4 of a mile from the closest bus stop. If they would have installed a new bus route on 31 Avenue instead and moved some of the buses from Northern over there, more would be closer to a bus route making bus travel more desirable, not less, and they wouldn’t have needed bus lanes on Northern.

I can’t really disagree with what you said here. The main reason people choose to drive over mass transit, even with the difficulties that DOT causes, is that it is still quicker for many trips, they are assured of getting a seat, they have gear to carry, using the system requires too much walking, and the system isn’t set up to handle many regional trips. And yes we do not need more cars on the road. So what is the answer to encourage more use of mass transit? Regional bus routes to make more trips available by mass transit. The MTA is not doing that. Provide more seats and more frequent service. The MTA’s newest cars provide no more seats than a city bus which has also been reduced in the past 50 years, The MTA constantly cuts service. Make it easier to carry gear on buses. The MTA has made that more difficult on buses by placing barriers above the wheel covers to prevent you from leaving your groceries there. They are reducing the number of bus stops to increase walking distances, not reducing it. In other words, the MTA is doing everything possible to make it more difficult to use mass transit. Yes, they operate within a constrained budget, but they are not doing things that would be cost effective and require little money. They could reopen dozens of subway entrances closed in the 70s because of high crime and to reduce the number station agents needed. Those reasons are no longer valid to keep those entrances closed. They opened like six bathrooms. What about the hundreds of others that still remain closed. Paint is cheap, but virtually every station could use new paint on the ceiling. I was walking through the otherwise beautiful connection between the Sixth Avenue Line and the Flushing Line. The ceiling looked dirty and filthy. So why don’t they try harder to encourage mass transit use? Could it be that Transportation Alternatives which now has become a big MTA supporter funded by large corporations including Lyft which runs Citibike, actually have it in their best interests for less subway and bus usage? That is also in the MTA’s best interests, because fewer riders means a smaller deficit for them.

And why are more people driving? Because mass transit service is constantly being cut with fares rising. And DOT blatantly lies. They stated they only install bike lanes where the communities have requested them. Not true. They also install bus lanes where they are unnecessary, not helping bus riders, but only done to slow down traffic further, increase congestion, make driving more difficult and raise revenue. Yet with all this, more are driving. So what does that tell you?

Queens is due out in a few weeks. Personally, I believe Queens is too big to be implemented all at once if the plan is done correctly. It needs to be considered as three separate boroughs, Northeast, Southeast and Northwest. So now you are complaining too many cars are using HOV lanes? I thought car pooling was a good idea that we wanted to encourage? Maybe they are not using express buses is because they are so expensive or they don’t get a seat? It should be no more than twice the local fare with further discounts for regular commuters, and allow for a third transfer. Everyone should be guaranteed a seat for a premium fare. Also, the Van Wyck has had construction and reduced speeds for like ten years and probably another ten years. Totally ridiculous. Slow speed limits lower road capacity and that contributes to congestion. You are exactly correct.

I was talking about the section between Hamilton and Atlantic southbound where traffic has not increased in 50 years and it is moving much faster because a bottleneck was removed. Northbound, on this same stretch, the opposite occurred. A lane was eliminated under the promenade, so now that section northbound is a parking lot all the time. So when you introduce a bottleneck, you increase congestion, and when you eliminate a bottleneck, you decrease congestion. This has been proven. End of discussion. As far as the other things you talk about that more are using the BQE because they are shifting from mass transit, I doubt that is true. And as I explained adding lanes does not always induce vehicular usage. It can reduce congestion. NYC may be the most congested in the country, but it is NYCDOT policy that is causing that: eliminating parking and traffic lanes, out of sync signals, artificially low speed limits, less green time, unnecessary traffic channelization, turn restrictions that makes you go a half mile or more out of your way, unnecessary bus lanes or in effect when they are not necessary, etc.

That doesn’t hold true when you add lanes to remove a bottle neck. The right lane of the BQE southbound used to exit at Hamilton Ave. Because of that bottleneck, traffic always moved at 20 mph from 7 AM to 10 PM every day. When the bottleneck was removed by rebuilding the overpass to three lanes in 1975, it was only 20 mph during rush hours and at least 40 mph all other times. That was nearly 50 years ago and the traffic has not increased since then or the speeds slow down. So no, everyone did not rush out and buy cars when that third lane was added. It may hold true if you expand a 20 mile roadway from three lanes to four, or it may not.

I am not sure you are even correct. I recently had to take the bus to see a councilman. I knew the bus ride was only about 10 minutes, but I allowed 30 minutes because I knew I had a five minute walk at both ends and allowed the max wait (assuming no bunching) of 10 minutes. I got there on time or a few minutes early. Had I only considered the time on the bus, I would have been 20 minutes late

What about wait time? They don’t factor that in either?

And what is the difference as you see it between “total travel time” “passenger travel time” and “door to door” travel time? To me they are more or less all the same thing. The only term that’s different is the time spent on buses and trains which could or could not include wait time. That is the only ambiguity I see. The MTA is just wrong in instructing riders not to include walk time as part of total travel time, because it definitely is part of it.

What is ambiguous? Passenger travel time is the time it takes to get somewhere. That includes walking time, waiting time, ingress and egress time to get on and off the buses, etc. How else would you define door to door travel? I defined it in the article I wrote for Bklyner.com. Just because the MTA instructs you not to count your walk time to the bus in their on-line survey does not make that right. When you plan your trip, don’t you account for all those factors? If you only considered your time using buses and trains, you would always be late. Your time just on the buses or trains is a meaningless number, unless you are planning service levels.

Prior to 1969, the last stop of the B49 was Shore Blvd and Neptune Ave, just after the turn. The bus then went to Cass Place without passengers and made a U turn back on Shore Blvd. then it turned right on Emmons and pulled into its terminal halfway between the school and the pedestrian bridge. People going to the beach would like off at Lunch’s, like at least 50 people per bus and walk over the bridge to the beach. I did that as a teenager. Now everyone could have stayed on the bus to the last stop and get the B1 all the way to the beach. But no one ever did that because it was an extra fare. In 2001, I suggested to Paul Gaukowski who then was in charge of Brooklyn planning that they should make a short extension of the B83 to Gateway Mall via the Belt Parkway which had just opened. He told him they needed a permit from DOT to use the Belt Parkway after he gave me a strange look because it was obvious he didn’t know he needed a permit to do that. Then it took him three whole years just to study that obvious one mile extension before he did it exactly as I recommended. Then they started to use the Belt Parkway to get B1 buses from Ulmer Park to Kingsborough College and to Fourth Avenue not in service. It was so odd they didn’t know that, because I learned they needed a permit from the MTA back in 1975.

Regarding sabotaging local service, if the schedule shows to much limiteds relative to local service, then the answer is yes. I think a more likely reason is that the buses are just not running on schedule. People don’t realize how much bunching there is. My friend who uses the Q101 showed me once that bus time showed six buses on the line. They were running in two clumps of three buses each. The MTA has to pay more attention to situations like that, rather than being obsessed with removing bus stops. There is no doubt that some bus stops need consolidation, but it has to be done correctly. It is not enough to just consider the space between bus stops. You have to see where the parallel routes are, if there are any. If there are nearby parallel routes, there should be no problem in changing two block spacing to three blocks, accounting for major uses like schools, hospitals, etc. If there are no parallel routes, like on Northern Boulevard, the stops need to be every two blocks to keep the walking distance to the bus reasonable. Buses stopping every for blocks on Northern have increased the walk for some to 3/4 of a mile which is unreasonable. Just check Google maps and you can figure out maximum walks for yourself. Spacing between routes is one reason why bus stop spacing varies. Another is through accidents of history. Bus stops have not been looked at in over 50 years. It is long overdue, just as changing routes are. Some stops are too close just because routes have changed. For example, prior to 1978, the B49 ran straight on Ocean Avenue before I diverted it to serve Sheepshead Bay Station. It now runs on an Avenue Z. The B36 stopped at Avenue Z and E 19 Street, so they had the B49 stop there too. The old B49 stopped at the far side of Avenue Z on Ocean. So now when the B49 turns from Avenue Z to Ocean, it stops on the far side of E 19th and again about 100 feet later on Ocean Avenue after it makes the turn. Only the B36 should stop at E19 St. It is not necessary for the B49 to make both stops. I will give you another example. There is a stop at E 16 and Emmons westbound for the B4 and B49. The B49 stops again after it makes the turn onto Shore Road. When there were only bus stop signs with no route numbers indicated back in the 1960s, the B49 always skipped the stop at E 16. It was only for the B36 which stopped there at that time because the B49 would have to shift to the left to make the turn. When they added route numbers for the stops, someone looked at a map and wrongly assumed the B49 stopped there and signed it for both buses. So now the bus had to stop there. And since no one ever decided to correct that mistake, it has now been stopping there and shifting to the left to make a turn for over fifty years. Who knows how many similar situations there are like that in the city. So it is actually good the MTA is taking the opportunity to review all bus stops. But as I explained in the petition, they are not doing it correctly and removing far too many bus stops. About five percent need to be relocated or moved, not 33 percent. As I stated before, when I was Director of Planning, I moved two bus stops. I eliminated a B49 bus stop that was 200 feet from another one. Originally one stop was for the old B1 that ran to Sheepshead Bay and the other was the old B49 terminus on Emmons Avenue. In 1969 when the B49 was extended to Manhattan Beach it stopped at both stops until I removed the old terminal stop in 1981. No one complained and residents were grateful for six additional parking spaces which were again removed when it became a stop for the BM3. The other stop I moved was the B1 from Brighton 7 to Coney Island Avenue. I saw a notice that a new escalator was opening at Coney Island Avenue in five days. Why should someone walk a block from the bus stop to the escalator, I reasoned. So I promptly sent a letter to DOT asking they move the bus stop. The new stop was in place the first day of escalator operation. Had I not done that in 1981, most likely riders would be walking that extra half block today, over 40 years later, from Brighton 7th halfway to Coney Island Avenue.

Available means available. The car is either available or it isn’t available. End of discussion. No need to make it more complicated than it is. Do these one hour rentals deliver the car to your door and pick it up from your house? If not, what you are stating regarding shopping is not feasible. It would be cheaper just to have the food delivered. As I said, frequency can be increased. There is no guarantee it will be.

The MTA should care about travel time because they are in the business of serving the public and that’s what the public cares about the most. No one is asking for a shuttle service to their doorstep, so that is not a relevant comment. People are asking for reasonable distances to walk to and from the bus. A half mile or three quarters of a mile is not reasonable for local bus routes, which are the maximum distances after all the stops are eliminated. You say they are not interested in if you believe the trip is worth the journey. They should be interested in that because if it is not worth the journey, you won’t be on the bus. 1) No. the assumption is not everyone will first walk to the old stop and then the new stop. The assumption is that some will first walk to the old stop, the; the new stop. 2) Your first sentence is true. Your second sentence is also true provided they don’t miss a bus walking the xtra five minutes which could add six or up to 30 minutes to their trip. There is also no guarantee that the MTA will. Shorten the headway, after eliminating stops. Headways are based on ridership, and if ridership does not increase, the headways remain the same.

As I said, buses are not slow if you compare them to cars using local streets. Since Vision Zero, we no longer have arterials where cars were much faster than buses. Now it’s either the highway or local streets for cars. If you don’t compare the two, you can say both cars and buses are slow on local streets with buses being slightly slower because they make stops. It doesn’t matter how fast or slow a bus is, if someone has a car available they will always choose to drive over the bus no matter how fast it goes with the following exception. People will choose a bus over driving if parking at the destination is scarce or expensive, or they would rather not give up their parking space, fearing they won’t get another one when they get back. The reasons for driving are the ride is more comfortable, no transfer required, you always get a seat, and if you got gear, it’s much easier. Even if you could double the speed of buses which you won’t be able to do even if you eliminated all stops and it only stopped at the terminals, people would still drive if they were able to with the exception mentioned above. Getting people to switch from cars to local buses if they were faster is only wishful thinking. Express buses is another story. And you and the MTA keep forgetting, it’s not the speed of the bus that’s important, it’s your total travel time that matters.

And it is good that most making longer trips use the subway rather than the bus because it is cheaper to operate. The MTA shouldn’t be encouraging long bus trips when the subway is an alternative. And my proposal for a state law requiring non-emergency vehicles the right of way to buses leaving bus stops would save buses more time than removing all those bus stops without inconveniencing bus riders. Besides, it’s myth that buses are slow. They are only slightly slower than cars since the speed limit was reduced to 25 mph. Seven for buses in Brooklyn as compared to about ten for cars. Local buses in Queens are even faster, like about 9 mph on average.

Of course removing bus stops speeds up buses in some cases and Limited do move faster than locals. But where is your proof that Limited are more popular? Yes, they are more popular for longer trips, but most trips are short not long. The average local bus trip is only 2.3 miles. And as I’ve said many times before, the issue isn’t how fast buses travel, but how fast is your trip. They are not the same. Removing nine bus stops saves you two minutes @20 seconds per bus stop. But if half the riders walk three minutes longer at each end, the average trip is now one minute longer. The only one who saves money is the MTA. It is not being done for the good of the bus passenger.

Why didn’t this receive more publicity? If this guy wasn’t on TV telling the weather, we would have heard nothing about it. Any wonder why there is crime in the subways, when someone can be beaten because he said something when a senior’s hair was lit on fire, three of the eight are caught and none are even arrested? The police didn’t want to bother doing the paperwork when they know the DA will just let them go free anyway. This has to stop now. Share this post so more can see it, and maybe our useless mayor and governor will wake up And do something positive. https://youtu.be/UGZSQTrrFkY

More criticism of the Brooklyn Bus Network Redesign https://www.brooklynpaper.com/brannan-southern-brooklyn-mta-bus-redesign/ https://bklyner.com/bus-talk-connect-red-hook-to-manhattan/ https://www.drove.com/campaign/63cc1060b9846701601c2032?fbclid=IwAR1S-gJjlErQD7_573yEE-NKvFIJ6jPWghj96QQ72sj4xLISqsfBfinE8yU Also, MTA is planning to reduce the bus service in Coney Island and Brighton Beach. Friends of Asser Levy Park do not agree with the proposed draft and invite our community to participate in three workshops creating our own Community Proposal: MTA DRAFT. COMMUNITY VISION. We will be collecting the ideas in one draft to let MTA know WHAT WE NEED. It will be presented to MTA on February 21st during the meeting with the agency. First two workshops will take place in the Coney Island Library, meeting room #2, Saturday February 4 and 11, 2-3pm. Capacity is limited to 20 people. Please register to attend. We will discuss the area between Stillwell Ave and West 37th street. Third workshop will be covering the area from Stillwell Ave to Coney Island Ave. Tentatively it will be on Sunday, February 19th, we will post an update on time and place. Also, It is plainly obvious that the MTA does not want its passengers to know about or attend their virtual meetings about the Redesign since they won’t even post notices on the buses with the meeting schedule. So I asked them at yesterday’s meeting why? Their response was that prior to the first meeting, the digital screens (which aren’t even on all the buses) flashed the schedules. Therefore the assumption must be that all bus riders rode the buses that week or so and memorized the schedules, so printed notices were not necessary. How dumb does the MTA think its customers are? They just continue to insult our intelligence, and no one calls them out. Any wonder why hardly anyone attends these meetings with more reps from the MTA and DOT, than there are from the public?

Let’s support our Bed-Stuy neighbors protesting service elimination https://nextdoor.com/p/pKcQx4DFbGx-?utm_source=share&extras=NDc2MDIxNTE%3D&fbclid=IwAR1vRiB74kUJBACuE28uWzMcgNtrx-7JAHnNY_YX4lusfk2dro5IAbayac4 By eliminating one way service on two separate routes, they are in effect eliminating a north south bus route in Bed Stuy. According to the MTA they aren’t eliminating or removing bus stops either. They are just “consolidating” and “balancing” them. They just continue to mislead. This is what the petition says: Save Bus Access to Bed-Stuy & Crown Heights! Under the proposed Brooklyn Bus Route Redesign all bus service to Tompkins and Lewis Avenues will be eliminated. The plan calls to shift the southbound B43 from Tompkins to Marcus Garvey and the northbound B15 from Lewis to Throop, in effect eliminating one of the few North-South bus routes in Bed-Stuy by merging the two. Crown Heights residents and businesses will also be impacted by moving the B43 from Brooklyn to Albany Avenue. This proposed change will dramatically increase the distance needed to access public transportation and eliminate service to two important and up-and-coming commercial corridors. As residents, business owners, commuters, and consumers we demand the maintenance of bus service to Tompkins and Lewis Avenues. We do need to improve bus service in Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, and in Brooklyn, but eliminating routes for the mirage of decreased wait times is not the change we need. Please sign our petition, enter a comment in the MTA portal, and attend a Zoom meeting about the plan. (Bed-Stuy 1/17; Crown Heights 2/2; Crown Heights South 2/7. All from 6:30-8:30)

I just searched B49 and B68 on change.org and came up with nothing. I know CB 15 would be against the swap, but CB 13 surprised me.

Also, if someone is taking a bus and needs to transfer for the last quarter mile, given the choice, they would rather complete their trip by bus rather than changing for the subway for one stop.

How would you expect to get that done with the policy of no grade crossings? The only way to do it would be to run light rail south of Rockaway Parkway or Broadway Junction. and what about the construction south of Seaview since it was eliminated?

So you are saying the L should run on the surface to the pier?

Don’t understand what you are saying. How can the be extended back to the pier or your point about the 3rd Avenue El truncation? I know they wanted to replace the Franklin shuttle with a bus. A useful cheap extension of the New Lots Line to Spring Creek to serve Spring Creek Towers formerly Starrett City, proposed during the 70s never materialized. Why?