Local officials urge MTA to add rush-hour buses to S79 route

[Around the Horn]

Seems like they were *this* close to requesting artics in their letter... I'm curious to see where they'll get the buses from.

Quote

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Local elected officials have penned a letter to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), requesting additional buses on the S79 route during rush hour.

"We are writing to express our deep concern regarding the lack of adequate service on the very busy S79 bus route during rush hour," the letter begins.

The S79 runs from the Staten Island Mall to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, via the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and is currently the only Select Bus Service route on Staten Island.

Select Bus Service refers to specific bus routes in New York City that use vehicle-segregated, camera-enforced bus lanes, among other things, to increase speed and reliability on long, busy corridors. 

"There is great demand for the service, and dozens of commuters are left waiting at the final stops before crossing the bridge because there isn't enough room on the bus to accommodate them," the letter continues. 

"In order to minimize wait times and limit lines, we are requesting that additional buses be added to this route during the morning and afternoon rushes to meet the high demand," the letter states.

The letter was signed by: Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis; Assemblyman Steven Matteo; Assemblyman Joseph Borelli; State Assemblyman Michael Cusick; State Assemblyman Ron Castorina; Borough President James Oddo; Congressman Daniel Donovan; State Sen. Andrew Lanza, and State Sen. Diane Savino.

The MTA has acknowledged the officials' request and noted that the S79 recently received a service increase in January 2017 due to increased ridership.

"We received the letter and are reviewing it and will respond directly to the authors," said an MTA spokesperson. 

http://www.silive.com/news/2017/12/malliotakis_pens_letter_to_mta.html

[checkmatechamp13]

To a certain extent, if an S83 were created, that would add capacity along Narrows Road, heading to/from Brooklyn. The only thing is that especially heading Brooklyn-bound, the S79 route is definitely faster (I often see backups along 86th between 5th & 4th, and it doesn't help that the buses have to wait for gaps in oncoming traffic to make a left turn at the end of that). What I've been doing lately any time I catch the eastbound S53/93 (which is usually in the PM rush nowadays) is get off at 92nd & FHP and just walk to the  train at 4th Avenue & 93rd Street (which is the other entrance to the 95th Street station).

I spoke to somebody who brought this up at a community board meeting, and she gave a recent example where a bus passed by Fingerboard in the left lane at 7:15AM with a "Next Bus Please" sign (and SBS markings, so it wasn't an S93), and the next bus picked up people at 7:23AM (8 minute gap). At the other end of the route, buses are leaving the SI Mall every 4 minutes from 5:53AM to 6:41AM, but even the schedule shows that the earlier buses take less time to finish the route than the later buses (so there's a few gaps of 6-9 minutes at the other end for those corresponding buses). Traffic and ridership is heavy, so those little gaps (both the scheduled ones, plus what naturally occurs on the road) can add up to cause bunching. So there was almost definitely some bunching within the following say, 20 minutes.

 

[Gotham Bus Co.]

On 12/1/2017 at 11:50 PM, Around the Horn said:

Seems like they were *this* close to requesting artics in their letter... I'm curious to see where they'll get the buses from.

 

The same elected officials who want additional rush hour service should also have to specify which other routes should be cut to free up those buses. 

[B35 via Church]

I forget the guy's name, but it was someone back in the day that used to go on these nonsensical rants (it was before NYCTF started up) on RD & SC that defiantly wanted the S79 eliminated for more S78 service.... To go from that character's rants, to having the route being sped up the way it has, to even more service being suggested during the rush (after said improvements to the route) is something....

How much rush hour service should be added to the S79 though?

[Around the Horn]

2 hours ago, Gotham Bus Co. said:

 

The same elected officials who want additional rush hour service should also have to specify which other routes should be cut to free up those buses. 

Ah, continuing with the fiction that a route must be cut to add service on another route I see... Surprise, the recent service additions prove that wrong... again.

[RtrainBlues]

Perhaps they should focus on fare enforcement, but I guess that wouldn't be "politically correct".  Buses that pass thru Tompkinsville, Stapleton, etc have heavy fare beating (some insert a Metrocard that has no money and others just arrogantly walk past the driver without even attempting to pay the fare). 

One S78 driver found a good way to deal with these individuals - he simply keeps the bus stopped without saying a word (no matter how long it takes) until the individual gets off the bus.

[checkmatechamp13]

4 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

I forget the guy's name, but it was someone back in the day that used to go on these nonsensical rants (it was before NYCTF started up) on RD & SC that defiantly wanted the S79 eliminated for more S78 service.... To go from that character's rants, to having the route being sped up the way it has, to even more service being suggested during the rush (after said improvements to the route) is something....

How much rush hour service should be added to the S79 though?

In a messed up sort of way, I can see that guy's logic (the S79 started off as a branch of the S78 towards the SI Mall and them they branched it on the other end towards Brooklyn and gave it a separate number). Of course, the guy fails to understand the concept of induced demand. Like you said, one turn can make the difference between the success and failure of a route (and in this case, the S79 makes two crucial turns on either end of Hylan that the S78 doesn't make)

In any case, buses already leave the SI Mall every 4-5 minutes during the AM rush, and I think it's every 6 minutes from Bay Ridge in the PM rush. I think the overall frequency might be alright but it's case of bunching. The S79 is still missing bus lanes in parts of New Dorp, and with the overall length and ridership of the route, some level of bunching is inevitable. The complaints have mostly been from people around Narrows Road, but I'm not sure how far down the overcrowding starts. Maybe short turns would work or simply more service on Narrow's Road.

Also interestingly enough I've heard complaints about southbound AM buses on Hylan being overcrowded towards the schools in Midland Beach and New Dorp. A few people mentioned locals were overcrowded when the S79 was first created (since people hadn't found out about the S79 skipping stops yet) but now somebody mentioned both are overcrowded. Not sure if it's bunching or an actual lack of service.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Those S79 buses are just too damn little to handle the crowds, and I speak from experience. Why can't they add a few artics to address the overcrowding?

[Around the Horn]

10 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Those S79 buses are just too damn little to handle the crowds, and I speak from experience. Why can't they add a few artics to address the overcrowding?

I'd have to agree with you re: artics...

the two big reasons I've heard are a lack of depot space for them at Yukon and that riders don't want artics because they usually result in a frequency cut

 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

19 minutes ago, Around the Horn said:

I'd have to agree with you re: artics...

the two big reasons I've heard are a lack of depot space for them at Yukon and that riders don't want artics because they usually result in a frequency cut

 

Yeah well at 4-5 minute headways , I don't see too many other solutions. The line has been successful and it's fast, so people are using it. That's the short-term solution. Long-term they need to implement the S83 that I proposed years ago at an board meeting. Some of those S79 riders are S53 riders that want a faster commute. Cut out that meandering by South Beach and you save a nice bit of time right there.

[B35 via Church]

1 hour ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

In a messed up sort of way, I can see that guy's logic (the S79 started off as a branch of the S78 towards the SI Mall and them they branched it on the other end towards Brooklyn and gave it a separate number). Of course, the guy fails to understand the concept of induced demand. Like you said, one turn can make the difference between the success and failure of a route (and in this case, the S79 makes two crucial turns on either end of Hylan that the S78 doesn't make)

In any case, buses already leave the SI Mall every 4-5 minutes during the AM rush, and I think it's every 6 minutes from Bay Ridge in the PM rush. I think the overall frequency might be alright but it's case of bunching. The S79 is still missing bus lanes in parts of New Dorp, and with the overall length and ridership of the route, some level of bunching is inevitable. The complaints have mostly been from people around Narrows Road, but I'm not sure how far down the overcrowding starts. Maybe short turns would work or simply more service on Narrow's Road.

Also interestingly enough I've heard complaints about southbound AM buses on Hylan being overcrowded towards the schools in Midland Beach and New Dorp. A few people mentioned locals were overcrowded when the S79 was first created (since people hadn't found out about the S79 skipping stops yet) but now somebody mentioned both are overcrowded. Not sure if it's bunching or an actual lack of service.

That's exactly why I asked, because I remember (almost a decade ago) when the S79 used to run double that frequency during the rush (8-10).... So I'm sitting here like, didn't the route see increases (even before it got the SBS treatment), and esp. afterwards.... How much service do they want/are they expecting..... I'm inclined to believe bunching is the culprit with the S79 & a lack of service on the S78.... I have thought about short turning a couple S79's (during the rush) down in New Dorp or Oakwood (if those 2 stops would make a difference).... Those folks (along Hylan) are simply not getting S79 level service on the S78....

38 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Some of those S79 riders are S53 riders that want a faster commute......

There is clearly interchangeability going on.... You see less of it now, being that they no longer terminate on the same side of the street, but it's still occurring.... Hell, I do it myself & I'm not even an SI resident.....

[Via Garibaldi 8]

27 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

That's exactly why I asked, because I remember (almost a decade ago) when the S79 used to run double that frequency during the rush (8-10).... So I'm sitting here like, didn't the route see increases (even before it got the SBS treatment), and esp. afterwards.... How much service do they want/are they expecting..... I'm inclined to believe bunching is the culprit with the S79 & a lack of service on the S78.... I have thought about short turning a couple S79's (during the rush) down in New Dorp or Oakwood (if those 2 stops would make a difference).... Those folks (along Hylan) are simply not getting S79 level service on the S78....

There is clearly interchangeability going on.... You see less of it now, being that they no longer terminate on the same side of the street, but it's still occurring.... Hell, I do it myself & I'm not even an SI resident.....

Dare I say it, but they should also evaluate how many people are using the S79 to the mall. It wouldn't be a bad idea to have some buses go non-stop to the mall and make those buses artics assuming you can fill up a bus. I'm willing to bet you could. That would take some of the strain off of the other S79 buses, and yes the S78 runs like garbage so everyone is jumping on the S79. How in the hell does a bus with 20-30 minute headways still bunch? That was the question I would ask myself when seeing such instances along Hylan Blvd. Now they've improved the frequencies during parts of the day, but it's still pretty pathetic especially now with it serving that mall.

[JubaionBx12+SBS]

The S79 has good headways during rush hour but otherwise headways aren't so good and I would not even think about artics there. I'll let the folks with experience in Staten Island speak to what the crowding situation is like and what should be done on that end.

[Deucey]

5 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Dare I say it, but they should also evaluate how many people are using the S79 to the mall. It wouldn't be a bad idea to have some buses go non-stop to the mall and make those buses artics assuming you can fill up a bus. I'm willing to bet you could. That would take some of the strain off of the other S79 buses, and yes the S78 runs like garbage so everyone is jumping on the S79. How in the hell does a bus with 20-30 minute headways still bunch? That was the question I would ask myself when seeing such instances along Hylan Blvd. Now they've improved the frequencies during parts of the day, but it's still pretty pathetic especially now with it serving that mall.

All the times I took S79 to/from Bay Ridge to SI Mall, and even now when I'm waiting for the S44 at Target, I never see more than five people on the S79 going to the mall.

Oddly, I see a good amount of people getting on S79 the the mall going to Hylan or Bay Ridge, so that may affect why there aren't short turns.

As to whether that makes sense given how leaving 86th St practically every S79 is SRO or crushloaded, I'll leave that to you guys.

[checkmatechamp13]

6 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Dare I say it, but they should also evaluate how many people are using the S79 to the mall. It wouldn't be a bad idea to have some buses go non-stop to the mall and make those buses artics assuming you can fill up a bus. I'm willing to bet you could. That would take some of the strain off of the other S79 buses, and yes the S78 runs like garbage so everyone is jumping on the S79. How in the hell does a bus with 20-30 minute headways still bunch? That was the question I would ask myself when seeing such instances along Hylan Blvd. Now they've improved the frequencies during parts of the day, but it's still pretty pathetic especially now with it serving that mall.

If any bus goes directly from Bay Ridge to the SI Mall, it should be via Richmond Avenue and the SI Expressway so they can take advantage of the HOV lane (which does move most of the time). A lot quicker than running up Hylan (which is more roundabout and also doesn't have bus lanes in the busiest section).

But in any case, you wouldn't get enough riders to fill up artics every 5 minutes from that route, I'll say that much right now. Maybe fill up some standard buses every 10 minutes with riders heading north from the SI Mall (similar to the S93 in the traditional eastbound AM peak and westbound PM peak) but it won't do much to take crowding off the S79. 

5 hours ago, JubaionBx12+SBS said:

The S79 has good headways during rush hour but otherwise headways aren't so good and I would not even think about artics there. I'll let the folks with experience in Staten Island speak to what the crowding situation is like and what should be done on that end.

1

You hit it right on the head. It's not the peak headways that I'm worried about. I could reasonably see using artics during rush hour. But off-peak, when the buses run every 10-12 minutes that won't work. Then you're talking 12-15 minute headways assuming the buses run on-time. If they made an agreement to keep off-peak headways the same then I would be more accepting of artics. FWIW, their standard says something like the current headways can't be below 6 minutes off-peak (which would become 8-10 minute headways with artics) so if they followed the intention of those standards, it would be alright.

19 minutes ago, Deucey said:

All the times I took S79 to/from Bay Ridge to SI Mall, and even now when I'm waiting for the S44 at Target, I never see more than five people on the S79 going to the mall.

Oddly, I see a good amount of people getting on S79 the the mall going to Hylan or Bay Ridge, so that may affect why there aren't short turns.

As to whether that makes sense given how leaving 86th St practically every S79 is SRO or crushloaded, I'll leave that to you guys.

2

To the mall itself, I always see plenty of people on-board the bus. It's once it passes Macy's that you end up with a handful of people on-board (school hours in the reverse-peak direction I would imagine it would be a bit different, but that's not where most of the overcrowding is, and most of those students are from within SI anyway). 

[S78 via Hylan]

What I’ve seen people do at 86 St/4 Av is form a line for the next bus even there is one picking up passengers before it gets full. 

[Gotham Bus Co.]

18 hours ago, Around the Horn said:

Ah, continuing with the fiction that a route must be cut to add service on another route I see... Surprise, the recent service additions prove that wrong... again.

During the peak of the peak, the total number of buses in service is fixed because of the shortage of physical buses. (And no, buses cannot be simply purchased off-the-shelf like toasters.)

[Via Garibaldi 8]

You can add artics here and there as needed, but adding more buses to a line that runs every 4-5 minutes during peak times doesn't solve anything IMO. I would also consider SBS machines at 86th and 4th. Get people on the bus and in and out fast. You could do that at the SI Mall too. The rest of the line I wouldn't bother with.

[Around the Horn]

4 hours ago, Gotham Bus Co. said:

During the peak of the peak, the total number of buses in service is fixed because of the shortage of physical buses. (And no, buses cannot be simply purchased off-the-shelf like toasters.)

All you need to do is tack on like 20 buses to the order thats coming in 3 months. Problem solved 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

16 minutes ago, Around the Horn said:

All you need to do is tack on like 20 buses to the order thats coming in 3 months. Problem solved 

I actually agree with Gotham.  You say add 20 buses on to the order as if those buses are cheap.  Each bus is what? $500,000 each or so.  That's not exactly a small amount of money.

[MysteriousBtrain]

19 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I actually agree with Gotham.  You say add 20 buses on to the order as if those buses are cheap.  Each bus is what? $500,000 each or so.  That's not exactly a small amount of money.

Compared to everything else the MTA pays? Honestly yeah it may not be affordable for now, but it can be done in a few years if they wanted to.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

6 minutes ago, MysteriousBtrain said:

Compared to everything else the MTA pays? Honestly yeah it may not be affordable for now, but it can be done in a few years if they wanted to.

What we're talking about is service enhancements.  Adding a few artics or rather replacing some of the 40 footers with artics is a lot cheaper than buying 20 buses, not to mention paying for additional drivers.  You could probably have say 5 of them transferred to Yukon.  You don't add more buses, just have a few longer ones replace the 40 footers and you obviously pay the driver of the artic a little more, but that's still much cheaper than what the alternatives are. They already do this on some lines anyway.  Service isn't cut.  It's maintained as is.  

I totally get the concerns about cutting service and I agree.  The  needs to start thinking along of lines of not packing everyone in, but rather operating service where people can get on comfortably; in other words, they need to adjust their loading guidelines to something more reasonable.  Most of the buses during rush hour are packed, forget about standing room, and that definitely deters people from riding.  I don't mind standing, but I do mind having people banging into me and all on top of me.  Not a pleasant ride at all.

[bobtehpanda]

On 12/4/2017 at 8:40 AM, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

What we're talking about is service enhancements.  Adding a few artics or rather replacing some of the 40 footers with artics is a lot cheaper than buying 20 buses, not to mention paying for additional drivers.  You could probably have say 5 of them transferred to Yukon.  You don't add more buses, just have a few longer ones replace the 40 footers and you obviously pay the driver of the artic a little more, but that's still much cheaper than what the alternatives are. They already do this on some lines anyway.  Service isn't cut.  It's maintained as is.  

I totally get the concerns about cutting service and I agree.  The  needs to start thinking along of lines of not packing everyone in, but rather operating service where people can get on comfortably; in other words, they need to adjust their loading guidelines to something more reasonable.  Most of the buses during rush hour are packed, forget about standing room, and that definitely deters people from riding.  I don't mind standing, but I do mind having people banging into me and all on top of me.  Not a pleasant ride at all.

It certainly doesn't help that the MTA doesn't seem like it's ever explored alternate seating arrangements for the buses. 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

2 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

It certainly doesn't help that the MTA doesn't seem like it's ever explored alternate seating arrangements for the buses. 

I think any other arrangement would mean fewer seats and people would yell. They do seem to have a different seat configuration on the newer artics, and I'm not sure if that means fewer seats or not, but I think it works better. On the crosstown SBS buses people like to stand, so at least they have an area for that, but they could go further.

[bobtehpanda]

6 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I think any other arrangement would mean fewer seats and people would yell. They do seem to have a different seat configuration on the newer artics, and I'm not sure if that means fewer seats or not, but I think it works better. On the crosstown SBS buses people like to stand, so at least they have an area for that, but they could go further.

I'm sure people would yell about the lack of seating, but if you phrased the question as "would you rather stand on the bus or have two buses pass you up", they would be more amenable.

I don't even think you would need to remove all that many seats; the way I'd do it would be to make all the seats on the door side to be two seaters (minus the handicapped area) but convert the other side to bench seating. The main problem right now is that there isn't really enough room to both stand on the bus, particularly near doorways, and walk past people already standing like you can on a train. You'd remove like five seats, tops, but greatly increase the amount of people that could circulate within the bus.