JubaionBx12+SBS

Yesterday during PM rush hour I’m catching the Bx31 northbound at Pelham Parkway and four buses pull in together when the headway is 10 minutes. 😖

The Hanover signs on the 54xx LFSA's are straight up awful.

I've seen a report about the double decker X17J and based on the information given one of the trips took 2 hours and 36 minutes. Why on earth do we have routes that long? Also, that trip ended a minimum of 45 minutes late based on the scheduled X17J trips.

One thing I find very disappointing is that PM Rush Hour is scheduled from 4 to 7 pm yet around 6 pm everyday I see a bunch of buses Not In Service heading to their home depots (especially at GunHill). Why is that a significant amount of rush hour service ends before rush hour is finished leaving the back end of rush hour (6 to 7 pm) a rougher trip than the front end (4 to 5 pm)?

What schedule is the Bx12 +SBS running on today? Today didn't seem so bad at least compared to typical Bx12 +SBS standards. I'm not going to be happy when the kiddos are back to school and Bx12 local service has been cut once again.

Don't let the low rankings of Dyre Av stations fool you. The vast majority of those boardings are Southbound during the AM Rush when only 7 TPH are running on the Dyre. The from Dyre fills up very quickly. Most cars have 75-80 passengers on them entering East 180th (AM Rush only) which is way too much considering the crowding the will end up seeing further along the route. If only there were someway to run more than 7 TPH from Dyre Av in the morning the wouldn't be so bad. It's sad that folks who ride the the in mid-afternoon to head to Manhattan get more frequent service than a peak traveler.

Has the Bx41 SBS seen any action with 5468 and 5476 yet? Also, what will it take for the masses to learn that the Bx5 runs to Bay Plaza on weekends? It seems like a well kept secret given the ridership patterns from Bay Plaza to Pelham Bay.

It was terrible on Thursday. I saw LOCAL buses sardine packed in both directions and an SBS bus went off-route somehow as it made a left from WPR to pick up passengers heading east. For some reason something happens in the afternoon where buses go from running decently in the Morning to total crap. I think the B/O's get lazy and take long layovers on the Midday trips.

For local routes the B39, for express routes it's the QM3.

I mainly use the Bx12 SBS and during off peak hours the route is impressively quick. I've been on it where the bus made it from Bartow/Edson to Inwood in half an hour (this was in the morning on a Saturday). During rush hour when you get traffic all hell breaks loose as far as spacing is concerned. The headways are pretty good but could be better in response to overcrowding (3 minute headways during the AM rush and 4 mins during the PM rush is what the MTA should shoot for). The main thing that I and others post about when it comes to the Bx12 SBS is overcrowding resulting from high ridership and it's not just during rush hour. Given the huge crowding off-board payment is a big time saver (try having 30-40 people line up at nearly every stop to pay at the front). While SBS is an improvement for the routes it is run on, I feel it's a half-assed one that could have been shelved for more comprehensive ideas like systemwide all-door boarding, stop consolidation and countdown clock rollouts. The latter should be at every Bx12 +SBS stop yesterday but who am I kidding.

What has the 55-56xx D60HF's still not in the process of being replaced?

Most lines have been and generally are unreliable. Even our best lines are delayed close to one fifth of the time which is beyond unacceptable for a major subway system.

That is why the MTA likes articulated buses my friend.

How common is it on SBS routes for riders to crowd in the bus through one of the doors to the point said door can't close when there is room to board the bus through the other doors? When I'm on the bus it occurs on far too many occasions and it annoys me when 20-30 dwells become 50-60 second dwells on buses that are not fully loaded.

So I guess the MTA thinks every high ridership route should be SBS. Wouldn't all door boarding coming in a couple years render this off-board stuff a bunch of nonsense?

I've noticed that usage at the Pelham Pkwy/Stillwell Av stop has increased notably over the past few months. I'm having a hard time pinning a source though.

What's the last minute? With the Bx12 I don't get my ticket until I can see the bus approaching the stop i'm getting on at. I have yet to miss a bus getting a ticket with the bus 1 minute or less away. On a side note, a third ticket machine should be added to the Fordham Plaza stop in both directions.

If you're aware of the demographic that attends Yankees games regularly, you'll see that hardly anyone takes the Bx6 to go to Yankees games.

Starting the game at 7PM like most games would have been perfectly fine. Plus, big games like playoff games are better off as night games to attract the primetime TV audience.

I hope whoever the idiots are that decided to start tomorrow's Yankees game at 4 pm let the MTA in on this. There's NO way service on the and during the 3-4 pm hour will handle all those stadium travelers plus the after-school crowd.

Most routes were just running terribly this afternoon based on the BusTime observations I made. Every route had at least one instance of bunching and the low headway routes commonly had at least one cluster of 3-4 buses right behind each other. The Bx12SBS was a pretty bad offender with buses clustering up around 7:30 am heading west and staying bunched pretty much all day after.

I believe that Shondrae was being sarcastic. As in the MTA would say 'oh well, leave earlier' as a response to being asked how service should be improved.

While you are correct about school patterns it doesn't really address checkmate's point and i'm inclined to agree with him as well. First, routes with multiple schools along them are likely high ridership routes which are running on low headways around school dismissal times anyway. Second, schoolkids who utilize low headway routes are likely to be more liberal with their after-school plans leading to the difference in patterns you notice. It could very well be that the same number of schoolkids are using the bus each day but on some days the demand is more spread out than others given school activities and whatever hangout plans the kids make. The freedom low headway service provides is flat out better for the kids so it's not a big deal if you don't have a crush of students boarding buses 5 minutes after the last school bell. Third, the Bx12 is the busiest route in the city, and thus an exception to whatever ridership pattern rules you'll generally find. There are far more schoolkids taking the Bx12 then can be explained by just the schools in proximity to it. It is absolutely true that the MTA is stingy around school dismissal times but only riders on mid and high headway routes would notice that. A route like the B16 is case and point. The adult ridership is not all that great but the route is notorious for after school crowding. To my post, all of those things do work hand in hand but even then you shouldn't be getting the amount of bunching and gaps you have on weekends and late evening hours. When routes with 20 minute headways are bunching on corridors with little traffic on Saturday evenings you can't even blame that on variability in driver speeds. Also, one thing to consider is that the more bunching you have the larger the odds are of buses on high ridership routes carrying light which leads the driving public to look at the buses as wasteful and seek less of them on the roads.

I like how most of the discussion in these bad bus service rants turns to traffic when the MTA has shown time and time again that traffic is not necessary to make a mockery of bus service. There are routes that bunch on 30 minute headways, there are routes that bunch at 10 pm on a Saturday (cough, cough... Bx31) with minimal traffic at that. What's the excuse for all the terrible service when traffic isn't clogging the streets? The only possible answer is that there's a deliberate sabotage of bus operations taking place. The conversation I want to have is focused on what the end goal(s) of such sabotage would be and how do we get the MTA to accomplish those without screwing over passengers.