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Which routes overwork their buses?


Amtrak7

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Inspired by the subway thread, I believe this concept of a thread would work better for buses. Buses in NYC are among the most overworked in the country, but which routes work the hardest?

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I'm taking in consideration the ridership of certain bus routes, as well as road conditions (Bronx and SI have it pretty bad when it comes to this). I'm not so familiar with the Bronx and Queens but I'll see what I can come up with.

 

Bronx: Bx12 +SBS (obvious reasons), Bx55, BxM7

Brooklyn: B6, B35, B41, B44, B46

Manhattan: M15 +SBS (again, obvious reasons), M2, M4, M5, M14, M16/34, M42

Queens: Q5/Q85, Q111/Q113, Q20A/B, Q44, Q50

Staten Island: S74 and S78 (longest bus routes in the city), S53, S93, S79, X1, X10

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I'm taking in consideration the ridership of certain bus routes, as well as road conditions (Bronx and SI have it pretty bad when it comes to this). I'm not so familiar with the Bronx and Queens but I'll see what I can come up with.

 

Bronx: Bx12 +SBS (obvious reasons), Bx55, BxM7

Brooklyn: B6, B35, B41, B44, B46

Manhattan: M15 +SBS (again, obvious reasons), M2, M4, M5, M14, M16/34, M42

Queens: Q5/Q85, Q111/Q113, Q20A/B, Q44, Q50

Staten Island: S74 and S78 (longest bus routes in the city), S53, S93, S79, X1, X10

 

The S93 is a really short run and doesn't carry nearly as much as the S53 or S79. I would say the S48 has it worse even though all of Forest Avenue was just repaved about 3 years ago. :) You can also add the X17 to that list. It is cut earlier but it should run longer to give folks who live around Richmond Avenue more service later on. The X17 is the reason why the X10 isn't as crowded, but if you were to combine the X17 and X10 in terms of ridership folks would see that the X10 is just as viable for more service later into the night as the X1 is.

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I'm not gonna list all the boroughs so I'll list overworked routes the best I can:

Brooklyn: (B3), (B6), (B36), (B44), (B46).

Queens: (Q5), (Q6) to some extent, (Q17), (Q20)A/B, (Q27), (Q30), (Q31), (Q43), (Q44), (Q46), (Q85).

Bronx: (Bx4), (Bx12), (Bx15), (Bx19), (Bx55).

Manhattan: (M1), (M2), (M4), (M15), (M16), (M34), (M42), (M66)/(M72)- sorta

 

That's all I've got.

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The S93 is a really short run and doesn't carry nearly as much as the S53 or S79. I would say the S48 has it worse even though all of Forest Avenue was just repaved about 3 years ago. :) You can also add the X17 to that list. It is cut earlier but it should run longer to give folks who live around Richmond Avenue more service later on. The X17 is the reason why the X10 isn't as crowded, but if you were to combine the X17 and X10 in terms of ridership folks would see that the X10 is just as viable for more service later into the night as the X1 is.

 

Makes sense. In addition, since school is technically out until August the S93 Limited is not going to be heavily used until then. Even though there will be summer classes in session the buses are basically going to be carrying air more than people for what it's worth.

 

I was on 8023 on the S93 on Wednesday and because it was the second to last day of finals the bus had plenty of open seats, and it's gonna be that way until August, even when summer classes are in session.

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Makes sense. In addition, since school is technically out until August the S93 Limited is not going to be heavily used until then. Even though there will be summer classes in session the buses are basically going to be carrying air more than people for what it's worth.

 

I was on 8023 on the S93 on Wednesday and because it was the second to last day of finals the bus had plenty of open seats, and it's gonna be that way until August, even when summer classes are in session.

 

 

Yeah, I've used the S93 several times when I wanted to get to the express bus quicker and that last bus has a handful on people on it.

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Bronx

 

Bx12 SBS

Bx15

Bx19- lots of wheelchair passengers, makes frequent stops, overcrowded

 

Manhattan

 

M4

M5

M14-busy crosstown route

M15 SBS-busiest route on Manhattan

M23- " "

M101

 

Brooklyn

 

B38

B41

B44

B46-busiest route in city, runs through rough areas

B62

 

Queens

 

Q6

Q17

Q44

Q46

QM5-one of the longest express bus routes, runs 7 days a week

 

Staten Island

 

X1

X10

X17

X22- runs rush hour only, but the longest express bus route and usually filled

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overwork their buses.... hmm....

 

as far as locals, you would think the ones with the lowest riderships, or the shorter distanced routes (i.e, B42, B74, etc) since it's usually the same bus going back & forth all day (or a higher % of same bus going back/forth all day).... which was part of the reason why the older LIB's kept breaking down....

 

 

.....unless I'm misunderstanding the question

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I'd stop to think the buses that are ran on the more longer distanced routes usually go back to the depot at a sooner rate.... that, or interlined w/ a shorter distanced route, which isn't too common (in NYC anyway)....

 

crowding (in general) is either a testament of how well used a particular route is, or a testament of how infrequent a particular route is....

 

the lower the headways, the more buses on a route (which is obvious).... but that doesn't automatically mean those buses are overworked (unless you're factoring in, having to pull the (added) weight of the bus when they get crowded)... but buses are built for carrying the crowds that they do.....

 

....or else, we could simply sit up here & list all the higher ridershipped routes w/ low headways in this thread... say they're overworked b/c of it, and be done with it....

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