How A Lack of Overnight Service Continues To Isolate Communities in 2018

[Via Garibaldi 8]

How A Lack of Overnight Service Continues To Isolate Communities in 2018

Neighborhoods like City Island in the Bronx have been pressing the for 24/7 service for years.  They cite how the lack of service overnight leads to workers, residents and tourists alike to be left literally stranded, having to turn to other alternatives, sometimes deadly ones.  In 2015, a City Island restaurant worker was struck and killed riding her bike home in a hit and run. This prompted renewed calls from the community for overnight service from the . The responded by expanding service by one hour, but they still have refused to give the neighborhood 24/7 service, with the nearest subway some 3 miles away in Pelham Bay.  However, talks have continued between the agency and the community.

Since 2010, the has moved to eliminate or severely reduce overnight service to several communities that lack subway service or have limited or no alternatives at all. This is something that hasn't been studied to my knowledge, but it leads to the question of how much has the loss of overnight service affected overall bus ridership around the City, and why do we still have so many communities that are essentially inaccessible via public transit in 2018?  Several communities in Northeast Queens have been facing a similar issue.  It is something that must be considered during these upcoming Borough "Bus Redesigns". 

Source: https://www.bxtimes.com/stories/2018/17/17-bus-2018-04-27-bx.html

Source: https://www.bxtimes.com/stories/2017/19/18-bx29-2017-05-05-bx.html?utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=module&utm_source=similar&utm_content=intra

Source: https://www.bxtimes.com/stories/2016/5/05-bus-2016-01-29-bx.html?utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=module&utm_source=similar&utm_content=intra

 

 

[King Transit]

10 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

How A Lack of Overnight Service Continues To Isolate Communities in 2018

Neighborhoods like City Island in the Bronx have been pressing the for 24/7 service for years.  They cite how the lack of service overnight leads to workers, residents and tourists alike to be left literally stranded, having to turn to other alternatives, sometimes deadly ones.  In 2015, a City Island restaurant worker was struck and killed riding her bike home in a hit and run. This prompted renewed calls from the community for overnight service from the . The responded by expanding service by one hour, but they still have refused to give the neighborhood 24/7 service, with the nearest subway some 3 miles away in Pelham Bay.  However, talks have continued between the agency and the community.

Since 2010, the has moved to eliminate or severely reduce overnight service to several communities that lack subway service or have limited or no alternatives at all. This is something that hasn't been studied to my knowledge, but it leads to the question of how much has the loss of overnight service affected overall bus ridership around the City, and why do we still have so many communities that are essentially inaccessible via public transit in 2018?  Several communities in Northeast Queens have been facing a similar issue.  It is something that must be considered during these upcoming Borough "Bus Redesigns". 

Source: https://www.bxtimes.com/stories/2018/17/17-bus-2018-04-27-bx.html

Source: https://www.bxtimes.com/stories/2017/19/18-bx29-2017-05-05-bx.html?utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=module&utm_source=similar&utm_content=intra

Source: https://www.bxtimes.com/stories/2016/5/05-bus-2016-01-29-bx.html?utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=module&utm_source=similar&utm_content=intra

 

 

I knew these effects are the cause for those service cancellation . There's some routes that got cancelled ovn service due to budget cuts.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

3 minutes ago, King Transit said:

I knew these effects are the cause for those service cancellation . There's some routes that got cancelled ovn service due to budget cuts.

Well budget cuts were the cause eight years ago, but the fact that late night and overnight service continues to be targeted is alarming and in my opinion it is forcing people to use alternatives that they then stick with even when service is running.  If you have people having to get picked up from work or bike to work, then it's likely they will do the same getting to work. It's something that is noticeable for sure. Even before overnight service would start, you notice more people giving up on buses and calling cabs at night.

I can't understand why a line like the Bx29 can't run overnight given how short the route is. Instead the would rather not run anything leaving people to find their own way around. This is true also in places like Gerritsen Beach and several other areas in Queens, not to mention large swaths of Manhattan. If your subway isn't running and there's no bus, you're either going to be picked up or you're taking an Uber. The City has changed substantially in the last eight years. We've have population growth, and more and more people working odd hours, and yet there has been very little change to late night and overnight service.

[Deucey]

Dunno. I guess coming from a city where the buses effectively stopped at 9pm and, during the budget cuts, light rail stopped at 10pm, and then remembering how LA had 24 hour service within a 1mile walk of most Angelenos, I wanna be like "tough shit - eff NY exceptionalism."

But then when I think about how dependent I am on the yacht leaving Whitehall and how fortunate I am that when I am on an overnight ferry that S40 is there to keep me from walking up the mountain from St George - otherwise I'd pay ~$75 on a cab, I'm kinda willing to pay more in fare so fewer people are stranded and forced to take unnecessary risks or lose hard-earned money on black cars.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

46 minutes ago, Deucey said:

Dunno. I guess coming from a city where the buses effectively stopped at 9pm and, during the budget cuts, light rail stopped at 10pm, and then remembering how LA had 24 hour service within a 1mile walk of most Angelenos, I wanna be like "tough shit - eff NY exceptionalism."

But then when I think about how dependent I am on the yacht leaving Whitehall and how fortunate I am that when I am on an overnight ferry that S40 is there to keep me from walking up the mountain from St George - otherwise I'd pay ~$75 on a cab, I'm kinda willing to pay more in fare so fewer people are stranded and forced to take unnecessary risks or lose hard-earned money on black cars.

I just find it amazing that this trend has continued during a time when our economy is booming, population growth is booming and yet people can't get around the city effectively via public transit after a certain time of night. There is no question that such a set up dictates how people travel and where. I was checking out Uber fares for some upcoming meetings across the City, and I found the prices very appealing. I may very well skip public transit back to my office entirely and just take an Uber instead.

When I think about the cost of say $24.00 or less versus say $6.50 to commute from Queens or the Bronx back to my office with door to door service and a quick pick up, the choice is an obvious one. These meetings finish late at night so getting back to the office quickly is something that obviously interests me.

The other thing to consider is whether or not the City Council will move to curb the amount of cars from Uber, Lyft and the like and how that will impact ridership on the buses and subways late nights and overnight. Uber has argued curtailing the amount of vehicles on the road from them would mean longer waits and potentially higher prices, but some people seem to think that even if such a plan is implemented that the prices still won't be out of reach for many and think that congestion pricing is really the answer to address this ongoing loss of ridership both during peak and off-peak periods. There were two shows yesterday on Channel 25 that talked about the dire straits of public transportation here which I found intriguing. One was from the NY Times and the other from another show. I do know that subconsciously I move about Manhattan much differently than I did in the past and a lot of that is due to what transportation is and isn't available to me.

[Q43 Floral Park]

1 hour ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I can't understand why a line like the Bx29 can't run overnight given how short the route is.

I want to say they simply don't want to... Once they started running the Bx24 late nights, there was no reason not to kill 2 birds and interline them.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

4 minutes ago, Q43 Floral Park said:

I want to say they simply don't want to... Once they started running the Bx24 late nights, there was no reason not to kill 2 birds and interline them.

Oddly enough the overnight Bx24 has been a huge success. It serves the overnight workers at the newly opened Hutchinson Metro Center, taking them to the Pelham Bay subway station. Those trips take roughly around the same amount of time that a trip from City Island to the Pelham Bay subway station would take, so to say that the cost would be astronomical just isn't the case. Even in my neighborhood bus service at night is atrocious. You can wait easily over 20 minutes for a Bx7 or Bx10 after you take the train simply because of late, bunched or missing buses which is crazy given how late at night these problems occur.

[Deucey]

43 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I just find it amazing that this trend has continued during a time when our economy is booming, population growth is booming and yet people can't get around the city effectively via public transit after a certain time of night. 

I don't. Two minds on this: 

1) They're not expanding service in order to set aside funding to minimize cuts to the system's current operations when the next recession hits; or

2) They're not doing it simply because they'd rather spend money on other things like pay rises, expense accounts or pension funding catch-up.

But I'm being more devil's advocate than I'd normally be.

[Lil 57]

Same thing with Richmond Ave, why can't they run the S59 at nights? The area by the mall has to rely on cars since the nearest 24/7 bus is around 2 miles away.

Side Note: Do people ever use the X1 during late nights as a local bus to get from someplace among Richmond Ave to Hylan Blvd due to no overnight local bus service?

[Via Garibaldi 8]

30 minutes ago, Lil 57 said:

Same thing with Richmond Ave, why can't they run the S59 at nights? The area by the mall has to rely on cars since the nearest 24/7 bus is around 2 miles away.

Side Note: Do people ever use the X1 during late nights as a local bus to get from someplace among Richmond Ave to Hylan Blvd due to no overnight local bus service?

People use the express buses where there aren't local buses all the time. I certainly have done it.  They function more like the subways there since there isn't one.

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

18 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Oddly enough the overnight Bx24 has been a huge success. It serves the overnight workers at the newly opened Hutchinson Metro Center, taking them to the Pelham Bay subway station. Those trips take roughly around the same amount of time that a trip from City Island to the Pelham Bay subway station would take, so to say that the cost would be astronomical just isn't the case.

It's pure laziness (or the MTA's holier-than thou attitude).

The issue is that the Bx29 from City Island to Pelham Bay takes 12 minutes at 1 AM, and the Bx24 from Pelham Bay to Hutchinson takes 16 minutes. There needs to be an adequate break. A 28 minute runtime with two minutes layover IIRC misses the minimum requirement by one minute. So either the route would need to operate with a weird headway overnight, or some runtime would have to be shaved off somehow. Multiple routes though operate above the maximum 60 minute headway during the overnight. Routes like the Q46 (every 64 minutes) and the B25 (every 74-80 minutes) come to mind. If a combo of this route were to exist, it could run every 60-65 minutes.