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

[Via Garibaldi 8]

1 minute ago, bobtehpanda said:

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.

Yeah, but I'm sure people HATE bench seating.  I'm not sure why people keep trying to push bench seating on here either.  It sucks.  Have you ever observed where people sit at on 40 footers and artics?  It isn't by coincidence.  

[bobtehpanda]

Just now, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Yeah, but I'm sure people HATE bench seating.  I'm not sure why people keep trying to push bench seating on here either.  It sucks.  Have you ever observed where people sit at on 40 footers and artics?  It isn't by coincidence.  

Honestly, IMO bench seating is not the worst, it's that LIRR layout with people facing each other.

I mostly push it because, well, the current layout *also* has issues, and we need to do anything that will speed up the boarding process and dwell times while increasing capacity. A good portion of bus dwell time is people queueing up to leave at very busy stops.

I mean, if we really wanted to satisfy riders, every seat would be a recliner and we'd have drinks service, but this is not the Hampton Jitney and we can't have everything.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

8 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

Honestly, IMO bench seating is not the worst, it's that LIRR layout with people facing each other.

I mostly push it because, well, the current layout *also* has issues, and we need to do anything that will speed up the boarding process and dwell times while increasing capacity. A good portion of bus dwell time is people queueing up to leave at very busy stops.

I mean, if we really wanted to satisfy riders, every seat would be a recliner and we'd have drinks service, but this is not the Hampton Jitney and we can't have everything.

I'm not saying that.  I'm saying you're not necessarily increasing capacity with such a set up because people simply won't sit in certain seats. I already see this on buses I take.  You still have people crowding in parts of the buses where there are areas to stand and the areas with the least amount of standing room remain empty for obvious reasons. I just think the real solution is artics and apparently the thinks this as well.  They allow for people to stand in certain areas (as they should) and you have room for people to sit and so on.  The low floor 40 footers buses should just eliminate some seats entirely, but don't go with that stupid bench style seating.  What you're describing isn't LIRR seating either, at least not with the newer trains.  I envision the seating that the Fish Bowls had. I remember those buses as a kid and hated them.  People are weird and some like to gawk.  It's rude to stare at people like that in general, but even ruder when you don't know them.  Bench seating just exacerbates a level of weirdness with everyone facing each other.

[aemoreira81]

There are two possible locations for short-turns.

1. Tysens Lane

2. Hylan Boulevard and Richmond Avenue

 

That said, any real relief plan is going to require bigger buses for the S79, as during the rush hour and maybe even middays and Saturdays, service on Richmond Avenue would be reduced and one would still need to keep up with crowds. I would propose two service patterns:

1. S79 full route

2. S79 Richmond and Hylan last stop (first pickup to Brooklyn at Winchester Avenue).

Moving the S79 to Charleston Depot to accommodate artics, as well as increasing the speed limiters on the SI local bus fleet from 40 mph to 45 mph, should be considered as well,

[checkmatechamp13]

6 hours ago, aemoreira81 said:

There are two possible locations for short-turns.

1. Tysens Lane

2. Hylan Boulevard and Richmond Avenue

That said, any real relief plan is going to require bigger buses for the S79, as during the rush hour and maybe even middays and Saturdays, service on Richmond Avenue would be reduced and one would still need to keep up with crowds. I would propose two service patterns:

1. S79 full route

2. S79 Richmond and Hylan last stop (first pickup to Brooklyn at Winchester Avenue).

Moving the S79 to Charleston Depot to accommodate artics, as well as increasing the speed limiters on the SI local bus fleet from 40 mph to 45 mph, should be considered as well,

Ugh, these off-peak artic discussions...

Anyway, Tysens is the better short-turn location of the two, and I don't even have to think twice about that. There's a reason why the X2/3/9 terminate where they do. There's a lot of dead mileage once you get south of New Dorp. The emptiest part of the route (from experience) is between the Eltingville SIR station and Tysens Lane. Not to say buses don't get crowded there, because there's people using it to get from the East Shore to the SI Mall and ETC, both for transfers and as destinations in and of themselves (well the ETC would be for the park-and-ride and residential/shopping area near it).

In any case, since the busiest point is generally crossing the VZN Bridge, additional S93 sercice, and an S83 counterpart would go a long way, and honestly might mitigate the need for short-turns on the S79.

I will say that better dispatching is needed when there are delays on the bridge. What happens is that when there's delays in the early/middle rush hour, all peak direction buses get bunched up and the bunching continues on the reverse-peak trips, and in the late AM rush/early midday, there's gaps in Brooklyn-bound service. I saw a 35 minute gap on BusTime, which was thankfully filled by 2 S53s hitting Hylan & Clove and 2 S93s hitting Narrows and Hylan before the pair of S79s got there (even though both of those routes had their own issues). Actually, the S53/93 were worse off because those pairs of buses were the first for their own gaps. 

[SevenEleven]

For now, they've added 2 extra runs to the 79. They do 3 trips altogether out of 86th between 4 and 6pm. It's a start. 

[Dan1]

9 hours ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

Ugh, these off-peak artic discussions...

Anyway, Tysens is the better short-turn location of the two, and I don't even have to think twice about that. There's a reason why the X2/3/9 terminate where they do. There's a lot of dead mileage once you get south of New Dorp. The emptiest part of the route (from experience) is between the Eltingville SIR station and Tysens Lane. Not to say buses don't get crowded there, because there's people using it to get from the East Shore to the SI Mall and ETC, both for transfers and as destinations in and of themselves (well the ETC would be for the park-and-ride and residential/shopping area near it).

In any case, since the busiest point is generally crossing the VZN Bridge, additional S93 sercice, and an S83 counterpart would go a long way, and honestly might mitigate the need for short-turns on the S79.

I will say that better dispatching is needed when there are delays on the bridge. What happens is that when there's delays in the early/middle rush hour, all peak direction buses get bunched up and the bunching continues on the reverse-peak trips, and in the late AM rush/early midday, there's gaps in Brooklyn-bound service. I saw a 35 minute gap on BusTime, which was thankfully filled by 2 S53s hitting Hylan & Clove and 2 S93s hitting Narrows and Hylan before the pair of S79s got there (even though both of those routes had their own issues). Actually, the S53/93 were worse off because those pairs of buses were the first for their own gaps. 

The new shopping center being built at Hylan Blvd & Ebbitts Ave could end up being a destination in and of itself. I don't know what the final configuration of the shopping center will look like but maybe the developer will allow MTA buses to use the center's internal roads.

http://www.theboulevardstatenisland.com/