JubaionBx12+SBS

I took the exam but somehow (It would happen to me of course) I did not keep the orange record of answers paper. Is there a way I can find out what I scored just to get a sense of where I may land on the list before it gets released?

From what I've been able to gather the Bx6 +SBS will be running at 7-8 minute headways during rush hour and 10 minutes midday. The local will see 5-6 minute headways during rush hour. The last thing I suspected with the Bx6 was for the local to run more service than SBS. I hope these riders don't get their tickets as soon as they get to the stop and get pissed when a local shows up first and they want to get on.

The M101 needs to be eliminated with it's service being absorbed by the M100 and M102. M102 would see Limited Stop service along Lex/3rd and M103 service would increase as well. I've said on here before that only 2 routes need to run down 5th/Madison. Whichever two routes runs down the length of the corridor should have 2-3 minute peak headways each (this keeps BPH on the corridor in line with the 4 route set up) and one should cover local service while the other covers LTD service. The LTD route should be a full time limited. The other two routes should NOT run south of the '90s under any circumstance. My ideal situation would be to terminate them at 110th and 5th but that may not be a great turnaround point. I would pick the M1 and M4 (with the caveat that a significant number of peak M4 trips start/end at 135-B'Way) to serve the corridor but I am open to a case for the M2 or M3.

I've been trying out Google Assistant on my phone and everytime I ask it to pull up something involving the Bx12 bus (whether it be BusTime or the schedule) the top result always is for the Select bus. Even Silicon Valley is aware of the Bx12 ridership patterns.

I've read that the Eagle Team staff is being cut back and they will no longer patrol local routes because research shows it has been ineffective at curbing fare evasion. They would only enforce SBS routes. What is the truth behind this?

Have there been orders from upper management to run Gun Hill's XD60's exclusively on the Bx22? I highly doubt that the drivers that are picking these buses randomly are covering the Bx22 when they do it.

The new buses also go around for driver training and you want drivers on all routes familiar with the bus. I don't think these new buses are any special and I would hold off on new Bx12 buses until the next batch comes in. Let the other GH routes get in on something although some don't need artics.

If I wanted to see a schedule for the M train shuttle buses where would that be?

So it looks like the Bx12 Select is getting a revised summer schedule again this year. I checked the Transit app to see if their GFTS data for tomorrow's Bx12 indicated any changes and there were some. I have to be honest when I say, I fully approve of this year's summer schedule though. The service levels this summer vs Summer 2016 is something actually worth promoting if the MTA gave a crap about promoting anything. The only thing is service on our local buses is rarely as good as advertised on paper so hopefully the Bx12 doesn't let folks down.

I had a dream where I was checking the ridership stats next year and saw that the B82 was 10th in the city. Given the B82 is not a route I have any experience with that dream might have been some kind of omen.

I see where you and VG8 are coming from but this line of thought has been used in other topics where the discussion was far more focused on the increase in delays then here. Even here, the fact that personal responsibility of commuters is being brought up on a transit forum discussing a system used by millions is a giant smoke screen. Folks who lack personal responsibility will end up late to important functions regardless of what commute they take so I don't see how this even applies to what's going on with the MTA as a whole. I agree with you and VG8 in the sense that there are masses of commuters who don't take their commutes seriously enough but I feel that such an issue is much ado about nothing when millions of commuters have to be considered and all of them are seeing the effects in some way, shape or form of the worsening service.

Interesting little side discussion here. I can't help but echo sentiments made by checkmatechamp several times on here when folks try to deflect faults of the agency onto the commuter saying he/she should just leave earlier. There are two problems with this mentality... a) if it were adopted by the majority of commuters the agency could justify widening headways and increasing commute times. Both of those are bad for transit regardless of the mentality people have. b) The whole point of any logistical service is not just to get to the right place but to get to the right place at the right time. If when you buy an electronic online, the company goes to say that you should have other priorities besides electronics and then will take 6 months to deliver your gadget, that company won't be in business for long. The whole point of needing something involves a time constraint. Even commuters who don't last minute everything have a time constraint to get where they're going and it's the job of the transit agency to ensure that commuters can get where they are going within those constraints. Yes, you have people whose commute is a 15 minute ride on the and they feel too constrained to accomplish that in time. However, a well planned transit network should enable some rather lengthy trips and it shouldn't be the commuter's job who is already giving up an hour's worth of time each way (or more) to tack on even more because the system runs with a level of nonchalance where punctual is essentially a gibberish word.

I find it funny that we have a bus route that functions well serving 225th , Pelham Pkwy and Buhre when all three of those stations are used exclusively by folks who live within walking distance of them. In addition the daily ridership total at each station is low enough to suggest that masses aren't connecting from any bus. The Bx8 also ends at 10:20 pm on weekdays (decently used routes go to at least 12 am) and runs on half-hourly headways on weekends. That screams coverage route to me which means that when the next round of budget troubles come into place, the Bx8 could end up on the chopping block. My thought process is why not co-opt this and find a way to accommodate these commuters (who I surmise to be Evander and Lehman students for the most part) so we don't have to have a fight about saving a route that clearly is near the top of list of Bronx routes vulnerable to budget issues.

If the Bx8 actually fed anything there wouldn't be a problem. Bx8 is not a feeder route at all. VG8, The routes serving Throggs Neck (Bx8, 40/42) are problematic. The first is too long for it's own good and has hardly any market north of the and the second is not frequent enough to overcome it's bunching issues. I don't see where addressing the Bx8 and that disservice a drawn out coverage route does for the neighborhood would be leaving them without service. Any phasing out of the Bx8 would mean either new routes being drawn up or increases in frequency to nearby lines.

The most useful part of the Bx8 north of Westchester Sq is the connection with the Bx12. I'm actually amazed it pulls around 7k weekday riders. It's overutilized given it's usefulness and I would look for ways to eventually phase out the Bx8 since it's clear that most of these riders are riding to/from other bus routes.

The Bx31 seems to be a strange route in general and I think something needs to be done to increase it's usefulness south of Eastchester/Boston. I hardly see anyone waiting for southbound service at any stop south of Boston Road which is odd since northbound buses do pick up at Westchester Sq. The Northeast Bronx is lacking in North/South bus service and the Bx31 is it so it should be carrying a lot more than it does especially from Baychester and Pelham Gardens folks who seem to be shunning it. The Wakefield and Edenwald folks are holding this route down surprisingly enough.

- I would consider extending the Bx31 to Parkchester. How I would do it is run the Bx31 under Westchester Av after reaching Westchester Sq and have Bx4 buses follow the Bx4a routing between Parkchester and Westchester Sq. - If sending the Bx11 to Parkchester is going to be taken seriously then I wouldn't have the Bx36 terminating there as well. That's either going to have to run to Soundview or be cut back to West Farms Sq - During my brief stint living in Clasons Point, the Bx39 was always my go-to route over the Bx27. I was being driven to and from school so there were only a few places I went to by bus and the Bx39 served them much better than the Bx27. For the subway, I would rather get the at Parkchester than Morrison Av and for general shopping we either drove to Bay Plaza or went to the Pelham Pkwy/WPR business area. There was also the fact that the Bx27 passes through some seedy PJ's between Clasons Point and the .

If you look at the trend since 2010 that holds true for most Manhattan routes. The year to year losses may not look as bad but if you take those losses over several years you don't get a pretty picture. It's Manhattan routes that are the main laggards as far as declines are concerned and it's not surprising why.

I'm not shocked by this at all. If anything i'm trying to figure out when Bx12 SBS buses do not get crowded. On a different note, i'm highly disappointed that the MTA has not posted the 2016 ridership numbers. SEPTA, TTC, CTA, Metro LA and several others have posted 2016 ridership numbers online and the MTA is just sitting on theirs.

The schedules are headway based. Times are scheduled for terminals and the intermediate stops only see the headways posted on the Guide A Ride. The headway based scheduling allows flexibility for operators and dispatchers.

I've never had luck with the M24 either. It's almost like they provide no service on that thing.

I don't get the whole 'sky is falling' mentality regarding local service on corridors where the ridership is so high you're not going to even consider purging local service. Even if there is some ulterior motive on the part of the MTA it's not working to change commute patterns at all. - Q44 SBS is not pulling loads of riders away from the Q20 - Bx41 local and SBS buses are utilized almost exactly in lockstep with the way the Bx41 local and LTD were - More people took the B44 local than did the B44 SBS in the first year of SBS operation. Even based on the 2015 numbers SBS and local usage is nearly equal. - A bunch of other SBS branded routes are Manhattan crosstowns (there's some weird emphasis on attaching the SBS brand to those routes) and thus aren't relevant to this discussion. Even if the MTA wants SBS to be the star of the show as far as buses are concerned, riders are ultimately saying NO in nearly every case. Thus I am further stand in my lack of concern with local service on these corridors.

The bold is what my point of contention with B35 is based on. I get the sense from him that bus service gets worse on high ridership corridors if there is any shift from the former towards the latter. That's where I disagree with him. I feel that there is no one rule as to how service should be allocated between local and limited stop route variants. If passenger volumes indicate a massive demand for a select (pun intended) few stops on a route then something more towards the latter is what most effectively serves the passengers. The other disagreement stems for him believing that the SBS branding is being used to push routes from the former towards the latter at the detriment of commuters. The problem is that there is no evidence to show that frequencies shifted massively in favor of SBS service on any SBS corridors. The decline of the B44 and B46 locals has mostly to do with reliability which is an issue with nearly every route. Even with the Bx12 and M15 where you did see SBS service increase and local service decrease the ridership patterns before SBS were not showing a large market of people exclusively depending on local service. The liveliness of the Bx12 and M15 locals before SBS had a lot to do with those routes having service allocations in line with the former scenario you describe which lead lots of headway focused commuters to take local service in the event it showed before an LTD did. With those routes seeing service shift more towards the latter there is limited incentive to take a local bus unless you absolutely need to board/exit from a local stop. Lessening the incentive to take a local bus doesn't necessarily make service worse if the number of BPH on the corridor doesn't go down (which it hasn't on any SBS corridor) and the local buses are less crowded meaning those who fully need to take advantage of local service get more room on the bus. I do have a gripe in instances where the local service has become less reliable (which is what happened with the B44 and B46) and with the fact that Bx12 and M15 locals are too empty at times (there are too many riders who will let locals pass them to wait for SBS when there are wide gaps in service and you're better off getting on the first thing that shows). Outside of that the SBS concerns (there are legitimate concerns) should not for me be grounded in service levels vs locals but rather that reliability improvements have been minimal and the branding effort being a legit slap in the face for riders of non-SBS routes.

I'm going to end here because this really is futile at this point. If local service is to improve systemwide it is going to have to be operated a lot differently than it does now so I don't personally care how the pig lipstick (SBS) plays into this. We need to have average stop spacing of 4 blocks apart instead of the status quo 2 and we need all-door boarding systemwide when the Metrocard replacement comes on board. Those things alone would significantly affect local bus service for the better and right now aren't even thoughts.

I don't see where the fact that service levels on the Bx12 and M15 local weren't kept equal to their SBS counterparts is an example of something plaguing local bus service. In spite of the reduced service levels on the local both routes saw ridership increase after SBS was introduced. If you're moving more people with less local service I don't see where local service was anything outside of serving the niche market of folks not utilizing major stops. Having the niche market of local riders get equal service to LTD/SBS riders just for the heck of it is blatantly favoring them and predicated on a somewhat false assumption that LTD riders would be willing to eat the dwell time at local stops. If poor service levels on the Bx12 local is such an issue why are riders willing to stare at empty locals as if they weren't even there to then end up on a sardine can that will at best beat the local by a couple of minutes to their destination. Not taking a bus that would be able to serve you is not some protest of poor frequencies and would be an irrational one. The only rationale that makes sense is that since SBS runs at low headways throughout the day, riders are not willing to eat the dwell time of local stops (something they vastly overestimate) even in instances where there are gaps in SBS service and the local would get them to their destination faster. Local bus service in this city is a huge issue. Some of the SBS routes are just poor examples to use to point to that. If anything I find more of an issue with the SBS service on the Bx12 and M15 than with their local counterparts which more riders could choose to use.