JubaionBx12+SBS

Just a quick question: I've seen a couple of signs up one at 59th and the other at 51st on the Lex. They each mention some repair work being done at those stations but in bold they had put the number of customers which would benefit from these projects and the numbers seemed a bit high. The 59th/Lex station work was supposed to benefit something like 141,000 customers, and 51st 96,000. Those numbers are significantly higher than the ridership numbers given in their stats for each station. I wonder if the additional foot traffic generated from transfers were added in to get these numbers given that's the only sense I could make of it. In that case (even if those numbers are estimates) the transfer traffic that doesn't enter or leave the station itself should be added into each station's numbers when they are updated. Either that or the numbers the MTA provides are severely underreported.

What time of day was it? Just asking because if said buses made it to White Plains Rd at around 6:30 PM I may have caught them. The "local" bus you mentioned unloaded at the SBS stop at White Plains so I was shocked and wondering to myself whether it was an SBS bus using the local program or a local bus that just didn't want to pick up any riders at WPR. I feel the Bx12 could use a separate Friday schedule since the route seems to run a lot less reliably on Fridays than the other weekdays. I've seen it done in some places where routes have a Mon-Thurs schedule and a separate one for Fridays if necessary. I was also asked to take a survey and it asked me something about express buses. With express buses and commuter trains as well all that needs to be done is to drop costs (per passenger costs that is). The simplest way to do that is to make them appealing to the masses (i.e. people currently using local buses and subways). How we do that is something that can be debated but it has to be done some way some how.

So much to say here and I don't want to abuse the multiquote so I'll just type paragraphs and if you believe I am "quoting" you I probably am. First, all the points made about express buses avoid the whole idea of using artics on them. If the service works well for the riders why should they care if the bus that shows up is a Prevost or XD60? What's so wrong with using buses with a high seating capacity (so express buses get a seat) but can also be used on local routes as well? You could have a scenario where on the X28 if artics were being used the buses that have to deadhead back to UP can instead head over to Bensonhurst and run as a B6. Those type of interline possibilities are what exists in cost efficient systems. I would like to hear a good reason why the buses used on these express routes must be buses separate from the local fleet. Second, the entire bus system (local and express) has issues with buses running on time. What does that have to do with making express buses most cost efficient? Also, how would someone know if a bus he/she doesn't use is running on time or not? Either riders make their decisions to use a particular mode of transit before considering it's reliability (which weakens the argument about riders prioritizing timeliness) or timeliness matters so much to riders they won't care if the bus that shows up on their express route also gets used on local routes. Thirdly, I made a post recently about what should be done with student commuting. Suburban districts can provide their own transport because there are less kids to transport. A district with only 3-4 high schools doesn't have to deal with the issues of one that has much more. Where is the DOE going to get the money for each individual high school and middle school to provide busing for kids who might not live in the same borough as the school? The Bx12 and 39 today almost had me laughing. Riders waiting for the southbound 39 at around 7:25 pm had built up a crowd at Pelham Pkwy/WPR. 4063 shows up and it's nearly crushloaded. 1 traffic light behind was an empty artic and I was wondering why riders were getting on a small, crowded 40 ft bus instead of a 60 ft bus with plenty of seats. On the Bx12 SBS end there were wide gaps galore this evening. I waited it out to see how long it would take but I ended up missing a bus bunch at 7:22 heading eastbound at WPR. After that no bus showed up until 7:36. 4 more buses quickly followed from what I was able to observe along the ride. 5 buses ended up heading into Bay Plaza within a 3 minute span around 8 pm. I checked BusTime while walking home and the next eastbound bus was shown approaching Fordham Rd/3 Av. I wanted to laugh looking at that shit. Westbound service wasn't much better either. There was a nearly 15 minute wide gap along Pelham Pkwy and the buses that followed were mostly crowded. One of them was signed as a Sedgwick Av short turn (why aren't those in the schedule?) and while walking home one of the westbound buses that passed was signed up as a University Av short turn (odd enough it was #5313 which I got off of a few minutes earlier). I remember seeing one of those in my Truman days (2010) but since when is University used for SBS short turns?

If I'm looking at express buses for the perspective of an express bus rider then VG8 makes a lot of sense but I'm looking at it from the perspective of a transit operator, in this case the MTA. If I'm going to use buses that are different from local buses thus adding capital and maintenance expenses, get reduced labor effiency since the bulk of the service is peak hour and peak direction only and drivers don't get paid per trip and see the ridership returns we have with most of our express routes then there's nothing for me to belive other than money is being thrown away. The last group of people who should be having money thrown away to serve them are folks who could afford to drive or use commuter trains. If the express bus fare was say $12.50 a trip would you still use it Garibaldi? That fare is more in line with what it costs per rider to operate express buses on a decent route like the Bxm7 or 9. At $6.50 a trip express bus riders get away with murder from what I see. I wouldn't go out of my way to make the service premium from local buses unless ridership is at a premium. Tens of thousands of residents live in the areas served by express buses so as far as I'm concerned ridership levels on these express routes are not at a premium. X1 ridership levels should be average for a premium express bus service not top of the heap. Given the situation we have its better to have an express bus service that is synergized with local buses (many of which cost less than the $2.75 fare per rider) for the purposes of cost savings since paying far more per rider than I'm getting back on a service used by middle class and higher earning folks is ridiculous.

I feel that we need to have a serious look at the way express buses are operated in this city because I feel they are severely underperforming their potential. My major points of issue is that they stand out too much from local buses in ways that I feel discourage ridership. One, why do the express routes have to use coach buses with large cushioned seats? That alone is a huge cost efficiency problem given that the fleet is not integrated with local fleet and the service then commands a higher fare that many riders may not deem to be worth it. There are two ways I would go about this. One would be to contract the express buses to a separate operator if it absolutely necessary that they must offer a premium ride using motorcoaches. The other would be to use articulated buses (the same models that local buses use) on express routes and in the process reduce the fare to something like $4 or 4.25. Those artics can be used on local bus runs during hours the express routes run at low frequencies which allows for a fleet synergy that makes overall operations more cost efficient. There's no reason a agency tasked with transporting millions of people each day should be subsidizing coach bus rides that only a small minority of riders will be willing to pay a premium for. The way I see it is that if riders can tell a visual difference between an express bus and a local bus there is a problem. If maximizing express bus usage (which is incredibly low in comparison to local buses and the populations of their outer borough neighborhoods) comes at the frustration of the current users then screw them. Money that could used to better local bus service ends up going towards routes that can't even get 3,000 riders a day. Ridiculous if you ask me.

To answer your question it wouldn't be any different from an adult farebeater abusing their card since the cards would be the same ones being used by regular commuters. The students would be buying their unlimited cards if they chose them so that reduces the likelihood of abuse plus if they reapply for a Pay Per Ride too early because they've been using their card for a whole host of leisure trips then they'll be forced to buy unlimiteds, have only 10 rides to use on the next PPR for the month or go without a card period. There's a huge difference between having to buy or request a Metrocard from the school versus getting handed 3 free trips every school day. I'm throwing the option to buy cards in there because many students are not as broke as we're led to believe and would pay for unlimited transportation if discounted. Also I am glad that your zoned school experience was positive but a toxic culture exist within many of those schools that doesn't exist in specialized schools, charter schools and private schools to name a few. I wouldn't blame students for not wanting to go to many of the schools that were bad enough to need metal detectors. The students in them are at a level where a slightly above average student looks like the smartest kid on earth which sells that student short above all. The classes are dumbed down to the point where even a "challenging" AP class is less rigorous then nearly all the classes at a better school. Kids who want to learn and succeed at top colleges in the future shouldn't have to be put through that. That's why we have school choice which is not a waste of taxpayer money.

I feel Garibaldi is horribly misguided when it comes to the schoolkid comments. First of all school choice is flat out better then sending everyone to their zoned school. Explain to me why Boston, Chicago and many other places have school choice for high schools if just sending students to the neighborhood school worked so well. Even in that case there aren't schools on every other block and some students may live far enough from their zoned school to feel compelled to take the train or bus. You also have specialized schools which offer some of the top academics in the country which means students from all over the city that make it in will commute to them. Should those schools have to foot the bill for their own transit service that would be a mess given the huge variance in origin points for the students? I feel the best idea is to have a system where schools buy regular metrocards in bulk and make students apply for the different card options at their school. They would get Pay-Per-Rides at a given amount (likely the max to reduce reapplications) for no fee but then students can buy weekly or monthly unlimited cards off their school at a discounted rate. Something like $20 for a weekly or $80 for a monthly.

I saw a couple of CS Orion V buses on the Bx23 this morning one of which I was riding on. Are there some loaners going on or will Orion V be coming back to Eastchester?

With the Q44 SBS coming up i'm interested in seeing what the headways are going to look like and what they decide to do with the short turns to Flushing. Also, I learned that it's possible to have Q50 buses packed on weekends and the Bx5 extension seems to have done little if anything to help crowding on the Bx12 coming out of Bay Plaza on weekends.

1. In a past thread there was a discussion about the possibility of Bx5 Bay Plaza service becoming full time. I have to say that at the moment that there is a case to made for such full time service. The last time I was at Pelham Bay I saw a crowd of at least 50 people waiting for eastbound Bx12 SBS service. With a crowd that large there was definitely a wide gap that needed to be closed meaning when the bus finally came it was a sardine can that didn't have room for 50 waiting passengers. When the bus leaves there happens to be a good 10 passengers still waiting there given that there wasn't a bus bunch which usually follows wide gaps. Instead of those people who already had to let a bus pass waiting for another crowded bus to show up, they could have had been picked up by a less crowded Bx5 to get to Bay Plaza. The Bx5 running to Bay Plaza on weekdays would be helpful for crowds that are inconvenienced by the Bx12. 2. The Bx31 was acting up a little this afternoon. How is it that at slightly after noon with minimal traffic on Eastchester Road you have Bx31 buses (which have a 12 minute headway at the time) running bunched heading south?

The Bx12 was all kinds of strange this afternoon. First, traffic was pretty messy heading westbound. I was jogging along Pelham Parkway between Eastchester and White Plains and in the process I beat not one, not two but three Select buses. Two of those buses didn't even come in the picture until I passed Williamsbridge so they had a massive headstart on my 6 mph average speed. Then we had a couple of eastbound select trips signed to end at Pelham Bay. On the surface this looks like good dispatching given the situation I described but the delays heading westbound cleared up before the short-turns would have been helpful and delays started to come in eastbound around the time those trips would have made it into Co-op. All that did was shift the riderbase most affected by the delays from the riders along Pelham Parkway to the riders waiting for buses in Co-op City. So we had sardine packed buses leaving Bay Plaza at around 7:30 pm.

There's some serious bunching on the Bx12 local right now with 4 westbound buses approaching Pelham Pkwy/WPR. There's a fifth bus not far behind having just left Pelham/Williamsbridge.

It's not advertised but it's not difficult to find. I went looking at their Select Bus Service link under buses to see if there were any updates on the Q44 and B46. I ended up finding the machine outages. It's linked on the page above links of the current SBS routes.

Just in case you haven't found out yet on the Select Bus Service section of the MTA website they now post long term machine outages so folks are aware which stops are out of working machines. To save you the trouble of checking yourself the M15 is out Northbound at Allen/Grand and Southbound at 34th, the M34a S/E bound at 23rd/2nd and B44 at Nostrand/Ave U northbound.

If that were me I would have just started walking. I happen to have the opposite luck with the Bx26 though. Buses run once every 9-10 minutes during the PM Rush but when I ride the thing buses are showing up as soon as I get to the stop. Plus the ride is sweet. Buses aren't jampacked, Allerton is a smooth run and the bus drops me off closer to my house than the Bx12 does.

So I can assume the Bx12 will be running the updated program soon as well. I was on it yesterday evening and did not see any buses using it. In other news I saw a crack on the front door of 5324 and it looked as if someone threw something at it. Couldn't get a picture but it looked weird to see a front door with messed up glass. Given the SBS videos that have been posted I leave you with one a fellow YouTuber (Kingsbridgeviewer382) has posted of the Bx12. No new programs here but there is some bunching and maybe some new ridership (who knows). Apparently the front door of these buses is the new hangout spot.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ancient-subway-trains-won-replaced-2022-article-1.2323289 It looks like the R32 and R42 will still be at it for a while. What is it with the R32 and dodging retirement because it seems to be getting quite lucky in doing so.

My Rush Hour looks something like this... AM- from Pelham Bay Park to 125th St transferring to the to some express stop depeding on where exactly i'm heading. The trains are usually crowded and quite slow at times. Sometimes Rush Hour doesn't seem like the proper name for the period. A bus preceeds this trip which will be either the Bx12/23/Q50. The bus trip rarely exceeds 5 minutes and the Q50 which only shows up first for me about 30% of the time is the most crowded of the bunch where I get on. PM- I don't have one particular commute pattern I rely on for the PM Rush but if I had to give a bus route I use most frequently it would be the Bx12 Select. I find the ride to be rather quick which goes against the commonly held narrative regarding the route but other than that there's nothing much that stands out in particular about it that hasn't been mentioned in various posts here. My biggest worry with this route and nearly all modes of transit in this city are wait times. It's possible to have gaps in SBS service of 20+ minutes during the mid afternoon when service is scheduled every 5-6 minutes. To be honest I have a similar opinion of the Bx28/38 which I also use except I find the Gun Hill traffic between WPR and Bainbridge to be more of a nuisance than Fordham.

I'm getting tired of trains crawling in the Bronx on evening runs uptown. Yesterday I was on a that took nearly 50 minutes just to complete the Bronx portion of the trip. This was without a sick passenger, stalled train or any incident that would back up service. I've also been on plenty of trains that have been held for several minutes sometimes more than once north of Westchester Sq. What on earth has service (mainly the Pelham express trips) constantly backed up in the Bronx? I'm getting tired of the and given the is the only other line I'm proximate to this is a problem.

I find that the NYC subway suffers way too many delays for a world class subway system. Today alone I got burned by a couple. I take the a lot from GunHill Road to Grand Central where I xfer to the to get to 23rd. This afternoon that's the gameplan but at Grand Concourse what was up to that point a smooth ride on the ends up becoming a ride because my train was re-routed down the West Side. When I get on the that trains crawls to 125th and at 86th announces that it's terminating there due to a sick passenger further down the line. I ended up getting on the to finish my trip but I was totally unprepared to have 20 minutes added to my trip mid-trip. Sick passengers need the help they can get but events like the above are a little too common in our subway system and given that sick passengers are not the most common cause of delays it goes to show that just the slightest problem can royally screw subway service. This is part of the reason I disagree with folks who claim we need more subway lines. The current ones have a lot of room for improvement.

My Bx12 ride was quick this evening. Got on the bus (an XD60 for anyone that cares) at Fordham/Walton at 8:38 p.m. and got off at Baychester Av in Co-op at 9:04 p.m. Basically I traveled most of the route in less than half an hour, pretty sweet. Fordham Road traffic is brought up a lot around here but as far as i'm concerned lack of speed is the least of the problems with the Bx12 SBS. I have noticed another problem with the route and it's something that has from my eyes been worsening in just the past year which is ridiculously long gaps in service. On the eastbound trip I described I noticed no Westbound SBS buses in between Grand Concourse and White Plains Road. As expected the bus that followed the gap was a sardine can (Pelham/WPR going west is not a great stop for a sardine packed bus to entering) but there were three locals running within the SBS gap. Neither of the locals were all that full in fact none were SRO in my observation. That had me wondering why the riders waiting for the Select just didn't use the local. I'm led to believe that there is a) a borderline irrational preference for SBS over the local along the core segment of the route or b) a lot more riders than people think are boarding before PBP working to dictate the loads along the route. Many times I take the 12 SBS just within the PBP-Co-op stretch and when I do heading east I can usually get a seat so my educated guess would be a.

I noticed a Westbound Bx12 Select running in service around 10:30 pm heading towards Pelham Bay. The last SBS trip going west is scheduled to start at 10 pm. I highly doubt the bus was running a whole half hour late (it wasn't carrying that many people, a late Bx12 would be packed) so I'm starting to wonder whether there's extra SBS trips being run late in the evening. It sure would be nice if that were the case but the schedule could make note of them and not have people think SBS ends at 10 pm coming out of Bay Plaza.

I've gone months without being stopped on the Bx12. Eagle Team sightings are uncommon but frequent enough to where riders should not chance taking free rides.

All I know is that there was a service alert saying the Eastbound stop at Lexington was relocated due to construction. It would make a lot more sense for it to be after the light since that's where passengers will get on coming off of uptown trains. For that reason I'll believe them at their word.

There's construction going on around the area therefore the Eastbound stop is relocated. There are machines facing the street and the sidewalk to ease payment.