JubaionBx12+SBS

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.

...and as was stated by BobPanda, personal responsibility somewhere along the line plays a part in it all....

 

The MTA aren't saints here whatsoever, but at the same time, to facilitate this culture of using the convenient trump card of blaming the MTA every single time for having been late, doesn't do much of anyone justice in the longrun either..... Just as easy as you say having people leave earlier is some sort of absolving (or deflection) of the MTA's faults in this regard, I could just as easily say that expecting a service to try to cater to the needs of millions of people concurrently like clockwork, without planning for/expecting some delay or hiccup along the way, is plain old unrealistic.... To expect a supplier to ship a package & have it be sent to you on the same day you made the order (regardless of where it's shipping from) or something, would be exceptional, but again, not all that unrealistic....

 

Your 1st point [a] or whatever... Well hell, this agency is looking for any avenue to trim costs, so to have the scenario of them using an increasing amt. of people leaving earlier as one of the reasons for doing so, doesn't make them any more noble or forthright.... That whole mindset of cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, is bad for public transit & it's no wonder you have people at an increasing rate in this city of wanting nothing to do with the buses & trains..... It isn't about justifying anything.

 

As to your 2nd point, of course it's not just about getting somewhere & that's it.... I'm not sure where (or why) a parallel of [leaving earlier] and [timeliness being a lessened factor] are being drawn here.... Be there as it may, "right place at the right time" isn't a one size fits all concept.... If I have to be at work by 7 in the morning (with a commute that entails leaving the center of Brooklyn, heading to Mineola), I'm quite sure that doesn't mean SHIT to you - leaving from your neck of the woods in the Bronx, heading to wherever you are by whatever time in the morning....

 

This varies from manager to manager, but there is a train of thought/unwritten rule that goes

"Being 10 minutes early is being on time, Being on time is late, Being late is not acceptable"

 

There are too many that are content with getting to where they have to be, AT the time they're supposed to be there.... That is not the MTA's fault.... Goes back to personal responsibility, no matter how you slice it.

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.

Oh yeah, let's just kill off all of the feeder routes in the Bronx.

 

While we're at it we should phase out the Bx21 and the Bx29 too, because they too are overutilized feeder routes. /sarcasm

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 . 

I tend to hone in on the routes that supposedly had significant gains/losses, routes whose usage supposedly remained almost, or literally exactly the same as the previous year (like the Bx10, Bx13, & B36 ), and just by how much the express routes supposedly continue to bleed out every year (only the x21 (expected) & the Qm16 saw gains last year)....

 

The narrative is that buses in this city are losing ridership in droves, so when it comes to the locals, I look at the routes that supposedly saw gains & by how much...... I wish they had the show separate figures for the SBS routes & their local un-counterparts; but that would amount to even more fudging.....

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 normally not out and about at 11pm, but I was coming back from the Yankee game earlier and I noticed a crowded Bx12 SBS heading eastbound. I can understand a packed bus heading westbound with people leaving Bay Plaza as the mall closes, but someone needs to explain to me how that happens on an eastbound trip that hadn't even reached Jerome at that point...

 

Did I mention the mall closes at 10pm? Where the hell are these people even going?

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.

Something else that I find annoying with these SBS schedules... The lack of time points... No time points at any subway station is just stupid.

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 neev

 

r had much luck with the M24 after PM rush ... to much traffic. Morning traffic seem to never be as bad as evening traffic, it it seem to be a city wide issue. 

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. 

1. So on one hand, you're going to talk about how your boss only knows a couple of lines in her neighborhood, and people come up asking for directions with a phone in their hand and all that, but yet you're going to berate him for not riding the Bx19?

 

2. Really? Try telling that to riders on the M79, M86, M50, M23, M8, M21, M22, Bx33, Bx6, and Bx12 (and the aforementioned Bx19).

 

 

In other words, there might be demand for say, 20 buses per hour on the central part of a certain corridor (so you can run 10 locals per hour and 10 limiteds, or 5 locals per hour and 15 limiteds, etc).

 

 

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. 

His point is actually a good one. The has a habit of reducing local bus service when there's limited stop service or SBS service. Everyone will go for the limited stop or SBS service because it has been pitched as being FASTER, even if it isn't much faster than the local in some cases. People just think about the bus making fewer stops and that automatically for them equals FASTER service (so they think). The likes it too because they want to reduce costs as much as possible, and so they are perfectly happy cutting local bus service and forcing people to use SBS service. I mean really if you've been at a local bus stop like I have and have seen have many limited stop buses pass by, you eventually see what's going on and go with the program.

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.

What do you mean what could you have done? Left local service the way it was on these routes, for starters.... Intense demand for SBS is  simply not true, as the concept of SBS was unprecedented.... Who actually clamors for a service that is a failed form of another service? You have to be kidding me with that.....

 

What I would like an answer to is, why does SBS come with this absolute/guaranteed drawback of less local service - if SBS is so god damn great.... When you have to force a new... anything, onto people, something isn't quite right..... Let it stand on its own merits if the service is truly worth what the MTA wants its riders to believe that it's worth.....

 

Even if service levels of local service remained the same, the revoking of a service that makes a limited amount of stops along a portion of a route is not an advantage... Limiting people options like that is not an advantage.... For what you're saying, we may as well not even have LTD service OR SBS on any route - for the sake of having local buses running along some routing, to themselves.....

 

This isn't about hard sleeping or any of that... It's about pointing out one of the many things that's plaguing bus service in this city as it is.....

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. 

While there is a concern over the fact that local service has gotten worse on routes with SBS, my question is what would (really could) you do to have worked against that? On the Bx12 and M15 I can't see what you do to push the intense demand for SBS service over to locals outside of worsening SBS service and in the case of the B44 and 46 the locals were given an advantage with the 44 local having New York Av to itself heading north and the 46 local covering the Broadway section of the route. In spite of that local service on the Brooklyn routes got significantly worse.

I can't speak to what's happening with the Q20 but the Q44 has comparable headways to the Q20 and a higher tendency to bunch so I'm pretty sure on Main St itself you don't have much of a disparity between Q20 and Q44 usage. My gripe with the Q44 is that it's headways are too high (8 min PM Rush is not acceptable for a route carrying the numbers the Q44 gets) and it would benefit the corridor and Bronx-Queens travelers if the Q44 was more frequent so I would advocate adding Q44 service and subtracting from the Q20 if necessary. See here, there really isn't a disparity between SBS and local service and I would seek to "improve" things by creating one. These heavy hitting corridors are just a different animal as far as bus travel is concerned so I wouldn't sleep too hard on how the locals have been operated (except for the B46, that move was just plain dumb).

I just looked at the route.  I could see it being SBS in the future. It ends literally right where the Bronx Zoo, Fordham University and Botanical Garden are located.  Talk about a triple whammy. 

and Bx19 buses are most crowded along 149th Street. What a great triple whammy. 

At what point will BusTime recognize that Pelham Pkwy/Stillwell Av is now a Bx12 SBS stop and has been for months now? 

The M101 is due for a restructuring but I see some problems. As far as the split in Harlem is concerned, a transfer between the M100 and M102 would accomplish exactly what splitting the M101 does. What happens along Amsterdam north of 163 becomes the issue but then you could easily run the Northern half of the M101 on coverage headways while adding service to the M100. Vice versa could happen on Lex where the M102 could become the LTD along Lexington and the M101 is reduced to a role worse than the M103. 

Merely shortening the route wouldn't do enough good since you would kind of need to have it's southern terminal in Midtown and that's where the real traffic headache is. If you didn't have the standalone portion of Amsterdam I would just get rid of the route entirely and boost M100 and 102 service in it's place. The concern here is you are placing a transfer along a trip that currently is a one-seater and the MTA will not boost M100 and 102 service enough to fill for the horse the M101 has been carrying 25-30k per weekday. 

There's no win-win with the M101 to be honest. 

Just looking at the schedules for the M101 vs M100 would suggest there should not much of a disparity in service between them. What I think happens is that since the M101 is longer (and thus has more buses out on road for it) when the swarm of bunched M101's are running together along 125th and Amsterdam it looks like the headways are better than the M100. Personally i've seen Soutbound M101's frequently paired together in the late evening along Amsterdam. The pair will usually include a 96th St short turn along with a East Village bound bus. 

Let me clear my throat...

- I feel the Bx6 is being set up the way it is solely because of the antiquity of the payment system. This a route that has seen little to no push for LTD service to be implemented but now that we're adding bus lanes and payment machines into the equation we need a LTD variant Bx6? The MTA looked at the Bx6 and saw that the ridership numbers could call for off-board payment and knew that putting machines at every stop would be unfeasible. So they went and picked the busiest stops to give machines to and now that you have that it only makes sense to have a variant of the route only make those stops. In a world with a 21st century payment method the Bx6 would not be running Limited stop service.

- The B82 Coney Island situation was taken straight out of the B46 'let the local cover the full route' playbook.  That playbook is not working out well on the B46 so either there's gross incompetence at play or likely subterfuge. The elephant in the room here that I'm concerned with the B82 deals with frequencies and service span. The service span for the current B82 Limited ends early in the PM Rush for Westbound trips along most of the route with local service running every 8-10 minutes following the last LTD trip. Running both a LTD and a local variant without drastically increasing the number of buses dedicated to the route would be a huge loss vs existing service. The B82 is one of those routes where it's a low headway route for only the daytime hours on weekdays and the SBS/Local setup should be reserved for routes that are low headway routes pretty much all day every day. How do you provide service an appropriate level to both an SBS and local variant of the B82 without overserving the route?

- As far as LIC is concerned the problem with bus travel there is that most of the commercial demand to LIC is satisfied by the subway. Something that I think could work would be a route that combines the Q101 and Q103. The northern terminal would be shared with the Q101 (or could be LGA or Rikers) and the southern terminal would be shared with the Q103. My thought process is that linking the condos along the waterfront and the industrial area surrounding 21st to the vibrancy of Steinway Street could be a winner in terms of getting spurring transit usage beyond the subway in LIC. The route would take (from south to north) Vernon - 44 Rd - 21st - 36 Av - Steinway - Ditmars - 49 St (Northbound), Hazen (Southbound)

I want to see how these frequencies are going to be split between the Bx6 local and Select. Also will the short turns in Hunts Point stay or will all SBS runs go the full distance?