JubaionBx12+SBS

I once again have been observing occupancy counts on BusTime throughout the day and as usual I take a keen eye to the 55xx buses on the Bx12 SBS. Today, I observed some of the worst crowding I've seen yet doing this. I'm talking from noon all the way through to now there were a bunch of sardine cans going along the route with many of them hitting 90+ passengers at various points of the route. I've made several posts recently in the random thoughts thread about the crowding on the route and each time the situation was more severe than before. I know that pre-covid this was one of (if not the) most utilized routes in the city but all across the board ridership is down significantly in the city. I would imagine that would mean that sardine cans even on the busiest routes would be few and far between. The Bx12 SBS looks to be filling up just as much as it was pre-covid which means there is a huge issue to be addressed. It's downright unhealthy to have a route where sardine can loads are more likely than getting a seat during most of the day. I personally think the overcrowding on this route is one of the biggest issues in the Bronx bus network and all feasible measures should be taken to resolve it. I want to post this topic to get the discussion started on what options are on the table and how they can be implemented.

I had a chance to utilize the Bx12 today and the crowding I witnessed was insane. I was at Fordham Plaza around 5:20 pm today and there had to be at least 100 people waiting for Westbound Bx12 service. Eventually, a packed local bus and two sardine can SBS buses show up to get these people on something. On the Eastbound side (which is where I was going) things weren't so great either. A local is boarding passengers as soon as I arrive. It appeared to have open seats but those were gone immediately upon departure. About 1 minute later a select bus was due. Based on the info BusTime was relaying it was #5531 with 60 passengers on board. I'm thinking things are going to go smoothly for me. The bus does arrive but with significantly more than the 60 people BusTime said were on it. I end up letting the bus pass since I didn't want to fight with people to get space on board. So now that I have to wait for the next select bus to come in I observe some more and a few minutes later (definitely 5 or less) another local is approaching. This one happens to be SRO already and a decent crowd of people had formed to board it. So it ends up leaving with about 70-75 people which is a pretty heavy load for Bx12 local standards. 2 minutes after this the select bus I end up taking arrives and just like the other ones it's packed to the rafters. Along my trip I spot more sardine can select buses heading west and I'm wondering what on earth am I witnessing. When I experience commutes like this and also look at the occupancy counts that gets relayed on BusTime it validates a point I've tried to state for a while that the Bx12 (particularly the select) isn't just one of many high ridership routes that will experience overcrowding. It is an extreme outlier in terms of the duration and intensity of the crowding that no other route this side of the Mississippi can match. I've done enough fooling around with BusTime to determine that the Bx12 SBS dwarfs the rest of the city in terms of trips seeing 95+ passenger crush loads and what you'll see is that these crushloads can develop at any point along the route. I've observed a triple digit occupancy count between every single set of stops on the route at least once within the past few months. Also, these trips that get sardine packed don't just empty out after a couple of stops. Most of them are holding that crushload for most of the route length. It got me thinking that the only remedy to this would be to railstitute the corridor which is something I was against for a long time.

I am by no means looking to introduce a Bx12 relief route. I am proposing an extension of the planned Bx29 and just managed to post one scenario under which it would be utilized. There are quite a few people who board buses on Pelham Pkwy for Eastbound service and in the event the Bx12 goes MIA (which does happen a bit) Bx29 becomes the eastbound service for these folks to use. I was mainly looking to add to the route so it can serve more than just City Island alone and Pelham Parkway makes sense to me as a fit. The routes presence along Pelham Parkway would put one seat access to City Island within reach of more commuters which I'm expecting to increase usage to the area and the additional connections to the and would basically put the neighborhood on the grid officially. My goal for the route is for it to have the same ridership levels and headway that it gets serving section 5 of Co-op City and there are enough people that will either bail on MIA Bx12 buses or take a one seat ride to City Island that a Bx29 terminating at WPR would be just as good as it was pre-covid. Imagine today for example, you were waiting at Pelham Parkway/Williamsbridge Road for Eastbound bus service. If you were doing that around 1:20 pm, the next Bx12 SBS was going to greet you with 91 passengers on board. I'm imagining if there was a Bx29 bus in the picture it wouldn't be carrying air. There are at least hundreds of people along Pelham Parkway that either find themselves in a Bx12 service gap or see a sardine can SBS as their first bus. Those are the only people that the Bx29 needs to be carrying for the route to be viable.

I have two things that I want to opine on. First, I am very disappointed with the decision to make the Bx29 a City Island only coverage route. I feel that in today's climate a route like that is only one step away from being a goner. I think that the Bx29 should either be kept as is or extended to Pelham Pkwy/White Plains Road. I like the idea of it serving Pelham Pkwy since it can maintain coverage route headway and still pull in some riders when there are gaps in Bx12 service. Pelham Parkway also has minimal traffic so the route wouldn't suffer delays doing this either. Second, based on the ridership patterns I'm observing there is latent demand for service to Bay Plaza from areas like Morris Park and Van Vest to name a few. I think a new route (let's number it Bx37) should be created to tap into some of this demand. It should start at Williamsbridge Road and Morris Park Av and head due south to the Westchester Sq station with that whole segment being non-stop. It should then follow the Bx31 northward to Eastchester Road and Gun Hill Road stopping only at Morris Park Av, Pelham Pkwy, Mace, Allerton and Gun Hill Road. It will then turn onto Gun Hill Road running non-stop to the Mall at Bay Plaza.

I've noticed some big inaccuracies in the passenger counts shown on BusTime for various routes. I saw one bus this afternoon pick up 30 people at it's terminal and when it leaves the terminal BusTime has '7 passengers on vehicle' displayed next to the bus #. Another case, I see a bus that's crushloaded pass me by. I pull up BusTime and display the stop this bus was approaching and it's passenger count is listed as 37. This had to be off by a minimum of 50 passengers which is surprising given a simple infared sensor should have hardly any error tolerance. On another note, it's bad enough that there are Bx12 +SBS buses getting short-turned as it is. What needs to stop happening is the driver of the short turn putting up the local destination signage. When that happens the bus shows up on BusTime as a local which it is not. I don't want riders of the local seeing buses on BusTime and trying to board them when said bus won't make the local stops.

I find it somewhat troubling that when bronx local buses are bought up, for whatever reason it may be, you always have fare evasion on the top of your mind. Had the post that I made referenced the M15 would you have been so quick to bring up a red herring like that? My guess would be no. There's a huge difference between a route being crowded (a whole bunch of routes across the city are) and what happens on the Bx12 +SBS on a day to day basis when the city isn't locked down. That huge difference is what I was trying to point out and possibly bring up some discussion on but I guess always being crowded settles the matter. Thanks for your contribution tonight.

I was once again stalking the Bx12 +SBS on BusTime to see passenger counts on the various buses and I tell you, you can't make up how slammed these buses are getting. As I type this at almost 9 p.m. there is a Westbound trip that is approaching Pelham Parkway/Stillwell with an SRO load. 60 passengers to be exact At a timestamp of 2:52 p.m. there was an Eastbound trip that left 207th/10th av with 107 passengers on board, a Westbound trip that left Fordham/Webster with 82 passengers on board and an Eastbound trip approaching the Baychester/I-95 exit stop with 65 passengers on board. Basically buses were crowded all along the route at the same time and it's not even rush hour. There was one bunch of buses in the afternoon before rush hour that left Fordham/Southern (Eastbound) with the following passenger counts; 80,47,29. The bus with 29 was the trail in the bunch along Fordham and leapfrogged to the lead position approaching Pelham Pkwy/WPR. The bus with 29 left White Plains Road with 71 passengers. The smooth sailing this trip had along Fordham ended real quick and in a hurry. Another pair of buses arrive bunched into Pelham Pkwy/WPR heading east this afternoon (before 4 pm so not pm rush yet). BOTH buses left the stop with in excess of 80 passengers. The passenger counts on the 2 buses entering WPR were 102 and 68 respectively. One trip running Westbound around 3 pm left the stop at Pelham Pkwy/Eastchester with 73 passengers on board. Luckily, this bus driver was somewhat quick and closed the gap in front of him otherwise the ridership patterns of the route at that time of day would have had that bus easily going over 100 passengers at the White Plains Road stop. At 4:06 pm a pair of Eastbound buses left 207th/10th av with the following passenger counts; 93, 78. This is all happening as the city is still recovering from a global pandemic that devastated transit ridership everywhere. If the Bx12 +Select in December 2021 is this busy, who knows what would be happening if the buses were being utilized at levels we were used to.

To be honest, post-covid I have used the express bus more so than local buses. I just don't like the cost inefficiency created by using a separate fleet of coach buses for what is primarily rush hour service. I support running articulated buses on express routes since they can be used on local routes as well. On the local bus end, I barely use the things. I have only taken the Bx12 +SBS and the Q50 within the past 2 years and I can count on one hand the amount of times I've used the latter. Now, you can come at me all you want but I am one of the motorists causing the surge in traffic we've seen in the city. In the summer of 2019 I bought my first vehicle and since the pandemic I've been driving as my primary commute method. The only time I don't drive these days are some days when I opt to use the subway to go to work to avoid traffic. The return trip is when I'm most likely to use a bus and as I said it's more likely to be an express bus (BxM7 or 10) than a local bus. I commute from LIC so I will get off the subway at either 5 Av/53rd or Lex/86 and walk to the express bus from those stops.

I was randomly checking BusTime throughout the day to see how crowded some of these buses are these days. It's nice that BusTime relays passenger counts these days. I focused on the SBS versions of the M15, Bx12 and B46 since I most expected to see high numbers on those. All three failed to disappoint there but what I saw on the Bx12 was a sight to behold. - I saw at least five (there were definitely more) buses over the course of the day that had at least 100 passengers on them at some point of the trip. - There was one midday trip running Westbound (it would have to be slightly after 2 pm) that had 28 passengers on board when it was approaching Pelham Pkwy/WPR. When it left that stop it had 80 passengers on board. This bus happened to be bunched behind another one as well so who knows what happened to that bus. - Midday ridership on this thing is ridiculous and actually competes with rush hour usage on other busy routes. There were a few trips carrying light loads being the trail end of a bunch but most of the midday trips were carrying at least 50 or better for a healthy chunk of the route. Given the 5-6 minute headway at the time there was easily more people being moved then even the peak of most routes in the upper echelon of our ridership rankings. - The ridership literally comes from anywhere and everywhere along the route. At various points in time you had buses leaving Inwood with over 90 passengers, buses holding 90+ passengers for the entire Fordham Road segment, one trip gained nearly 20 passengers heading eastbound from Pelham Pkwy/WPR where the typical pattern is to lose riders. You had Westbound buses that were SRO well before the murderers row of WPR and the Fordham Road stops and Eastbound buses not dropping below SRO load at all during their trips. - While AM Rush loads were strong on all 3 of the routes I mentioned, the midday and PM Bx12 +Select made the M15 and B46 look like child's play. There were 6 Bx12 SBS trips with a higher load than the busiest M15 on the road (based on the ones that show their loads on BusTime) at 5:15 pm today. The southbound B46 was making a fool of itself. 4 buses were in between Fulton and Eastern Parkway while another 5 were bunched between Winthrop and Church at the same time. As a regular Bx12 + SBS user before the pandemic I was very aware of how busy the buses got but to see data on BusTime showing that November 23, 2021 could have been a random Tuesday in the 2010's just goes to show that the route was being criminally under-served before the pandemic.

I've come to the conclusion that the numbers are straight bogus. I'm supposed to believe that over the course of the past few years, and especially in 2019, all of the Bronx heavy hitters have been dropping riders like flies which doesn't pass the eyeball test based on observations of the buses in service and makes no sense based on how in demand the corridors in question are. It's just not grounded in reality. Take the Bx12 which the MTA says had average weekday ridership of 48,703 in 2014. That number 5 years later dropped to 40,2xx (don't know the exact number off the top of my head but I did see the numbers at work last week). This is similar tanking to what has happened with the infamous B41 and M101 except the Bx12 is just a mild example when considering the Bronx as a whole. The Bx35 and Bx36 lost 10%+ just in 2019 based on these numbers. There's no way those routes are losing the massive numbers the stats would indicate especially since they don't have half the factors working against them as say a B41 or M101. I see that Manhattan usage has increased based on the numbers and to be honest that's even more suspicious. Combine that with subway usage going up from 2018 (and most subway trips originating in or destined for Manhattan) and it just entrenches the idea that our transit system is Manhattan centric. It's just a slap in the face to commuters who commute in the outer boroughs. Buses in Manhattan are generally slower and more likely to be replicated by a subway trip than buses in the outer boroughs so how in the world are these no longer tanking while the Bronx and Brooklyn is? The story just doesn't add up, until you look and see the major increases are coming from SBS routes (look at how the M14, 15, 23, 34, 79 and 86 did compared with the rest of Manhattan). It makes me think they envision Manhattan SBS as an extension of the subway so they are going make those routes look as good as possible. Routes like the B6, B46, B35 can replace the Bx12 in my first paragraph and it would still apply. It's just ridiculous that the heaviest routes in two major boroughs are losing riders at 10-20% clips over the last few years while the buses on them remain crowded at low headways and are just as necessary for commuters as they were in their hey day. Something tells me that the 2014 numbers more reflect the commuting patterns in 2019 than the 2019 numbers. I find it highly ironic that routes like the Q12, B35, B38, Bx35 and Bx36 all saw sizeable declines in 2019 and they are all recent (within the last two years) artic conversions. Not going to say the presence of artics and their accompanying factors has anything to do with these losses but it doesn't speak to the desire to increase artics across the fleet. In good news, at least for folks who care about the B82, that route has now joined the top 10 in ridership club for 2019. It replaces the (wait for it.....) B35 which has now fallen out. The B35 not in the top 10 is one of the most shocking (or likely bogus) things about these numbers. To show just how bad the MTA states our ridership losses to be every route in the top 10 in 2014 had over 10 million trips over the year. Now that 10 million annual trip landmark is limited to the top 5 in the numbers. There's definitely something to be said.

My hot takes on this are pretty similar to Alon Levy's so i'll post the blog post from Pedestrian Observations at the end here. There's one thing about these NYC borough redesigns that makes this a lot different then other redesign projects that are seen as recent planning successes (ala Houston). Hardly anyone took the bus in those places. You get a lot more freedom to implement changes when the group of people it's geared to aren't touching the current setup with a 10 foot pole. With, NYC you have to deal with a legacy system that is tremendously well utilized (even if at a declining rate). That means that changes now have to pass muster with the commuters who are using the current system and those people are going to compare all the changes to what is currently running. And this is where the MTA is stuck between a rock and a hard place. With usage of the current system (in all boroughs, not just queens) being as high as it is, there has to be the recognition that most of what's here is either a) uniquely benefitting many commuters and/or b) the best possible service that can be provided for some commuters under any network design. If you make wholesale changes to the degree that was done here in Queens you come off as ignoring the above and already pissing off the largest stakeholders in the project. Many of these same people though are the main ones who will complain about slow speeds, overcrowding an other nuisances with the bus that are leading to the decline in ridership that the MTA is aiming to resolve. You have to come into a network redesign project with the idea then that a) most routes in the current setup have some sort of operational problem that needs to be improved and/or b) there is money being left on the table in terms of potential trips the current system doesn't serve. It is nearly impossible to pull off a successful redesign with all four of those bolded assumptions in place. This is why I thought if any significant changes were made in the Queens project, it was going to be bashed on here. Most regular commuters and especially transitfans have adapted to the current system enough to where any major change is going to be seen as worse by default. Not making matters any better is the well earned reputation of the agency being an incompetent operator of buses in general. Who is to say that any potential opportunities introduced by new routes, or non-stop feeders would be met with the right frequencies and bus priority treatments to make them viable in real life. To end this with where I actually stand, I have two points to make. I do think the draft redesign looks better than the current system for reasons many in the "always follow best practices" school of transit planning would agree with. I will be posting a blog at the bottom of this which is a critique I agree with. I see stop consolidation on the major corridors, faster feeder service with the non-stop segments introduced on some routes and quite a few corridors where the MTA would continue it's SBS push which is the current day LTD so I'll live with it. Do I think this draft redesign should be implemented though? No, not in the slightest. It is way too much of a departure from the current model that does work for enough people to make significant changes a non-starter. There are too many people's lives that will be affected by this to afford getting anything wrong and for what I know international best practices could be "wrong" so I say scrap the whole thing. Since it won't be scrapped, I say godspeed to all those who will be voicing their complaints and speaking for the public on this. https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/12/31/queens-bus-redesign/

The Manhattan numbers look a little better than expected. M15 gained in 2018 and moves back into #1. Question is whether that is a blip and the tanking will resume in 2019 or the M15 is actually performing decently enough to keep it's ridership. The outer boroughs are continuing to hemorrhage usage in a major way. If we are to believe these numbers. The numbers would tell us that the B6, which held stable in the low 40k range throughout the past few years of Brooklyn losses, just suddenly joined the tanking club in 2018 with a nearly 11% loss. I don't have any field observations of this route but I just get a vibe that the numbers for this route are suspect. Now in the Bronx, my field observations of the Bx12 suggests that ridership is still through the roof but then I look at this and see an 8% loss in usage (just in 2018). I'm not trusting that calculation one iota. They wait for the year to just about end to show the previous years ridership and then show numbers that look like they were pulled out of their ass. If these numbers are being fudged it's sure not fudging to make the MTA look good because why would you have two of the anchors of the bus network showing lower numbers on the stats then they're getting in real life on the streets. Nothing to really say beyond that since these numbers can't really be taken seriously. Automatic Passenger Counters are a necessity on our buses and should be what all planning decisions from here on in should be based on. To put the collapse (it's a collapse at this point) of the bus system in perspective here are the routes that took losses of 10% or greater in 2018 alone (so the MTA says) by borough.... Brooklyn - B6, B7, B12 (damn has this route fallen off), B14, B25, B45, B52, B60 Bronx - Bx3, Bx5, Bx11, Bx15, Bx16, Bx17, Bx18, Bx19, Bx21, Bx27, Bx30, Bx33, Bx34, Bx35, Bx36, Bx39, Bx40/42, Bx41 Manhattan - M8, M22, M35 Queens - Q11, Q21, Q26 Staten Island - S54, S57, S76/86, S89 Just about every express bus route did well, even the SI numbers are pretty good since the routes were redesigned and renumbered during the year. Some Queens MTAB locals gained as well so if there is a bright spot somewhere there you have it.

- Co-op City is definitely going to be revised. While the goal here makes sense, the proposed implementation reeks of a baby walking before it crawled. Section 5 loses direct connections to anything other than the on top of the Bx30 being the sole route outside of the Bx23 for those in Sections 1 and 2. - Riverdale was the most vocal neighborhood in the public feedback (outside of Co-op) yet local bus service there was left untouched. The Bx10 staying untouched is weird given the streamlining that went on elsewhere on the map. I have a feeling that the express buses were the focal point of the commuters who were giving input from Riverdale. At least the Bx20 lives another day for those who find it useful. - I don't like the off peak BxM6/10 combo. Express buses off peak aren't exactly speed demons and this combo does add a good amount of off-highway mileage to the BxM10 which will make less appealing for folks riding from Baychester and Morris Park. - Most of the changes elsewhere make sense to me even if it's clear the goal was to streamline all around. I like what was done with the Bx40/42 in Throgs Neck and the re-route of the Bx40 along East 180th and Burnside is a pretty good idea to allow the Bx36 to take over Tremont and make that route more direct. The Bx36 is overdue for some sort of major change. - A lot of these changes work so well it's hard to tell they were made at first glance. I had to take two looks to see the Bx4A was shortened to Southern Blvd and that the Bx11 was extended to serve Parkchester. - The thing I want to see is how frequent these routes in Central and South Bronx end up being. The Bx36 is super frequent (on paper) due to the high ridership it has but some of that will get lost to the Bx40 and 11 in the redesign. The Bx36 will also gain some riders from those routes as well so it will be interesting to see how the BPH are allocated since that will be a huge factor in deciding who the winners and losers are with this revamp. - Although the infamous Bx12 SBS is not getting a routing change (none were necessary) it would have been nice to see them propose an increase in frequency. There's going to be improvements in frequency for a bunch of revised routes but not the busiest one at the moment which remains a constant rolling set of sardine cans. Goes to show they care more about making the new changes work then keeping the commuters of the established network happy. - I would end the Bx30 at Fordham Plaza heading south. Makes a lot more sense then Bronx Park East for extra connections plus you can truly cancel the demand for Bee-Line 60/61/62 within the Bronx since Fordham Plaza is the main origin/destination point for intra-Bronx riders on Bee Line. - Bx5 will see a major reduction in frequency post-revamp. That is a guarantee.

Are there any routes in mind when you bring this up?

The Bx12 +SBS I took on Friday Afternoon was weird in that it was empty at Fordham Plaza (probably because it ran light there) but packed heading into Co-op City. This was just after 6 pm. I can't wait to see how the Bronx bus redesign addresses this but this route gets inundated with passengers along the entire length of it which still to this day boggles my mind.