b35

[Mtatransit]

1 hour ago, East New York said:

the B35 is over capacity and has needed artics for years. It the 6th heaviest line in the city. The service reductions as scheduled were not enough to cut capacity, which has slightly increased.  

The wait isn’t that much longer and as mentioned above it’s long overdue. The artics have also proven that they they attract customers on every line they have been placed on in recent years. Especially the new one. At this point I know white a few people who do not take the B35 ever and have been doing it over the last couple weeks. 

 

Yes the future is all door boarding for all buses. I mentioned that in the title post of this thread and elsewhere. In the meanwhile however, the B35 and every route on the list above are planned for SBS. That’s the current wave of the future and it’s not changing anytime soon. All door boarding cannot even begin to pilot until the new fare system is fully functional 

I was never a fan of putting artics on routes, until the headways are so small that there wouldn’t be too much of a reduction in service. 8 min to 12 min seems like a “slight” reduction in service but if it is delayed by traffic or missing, passengers have to wait 24 min instead of 16 minutes. The same reasoning goes to why the Q113/114 don’t warrant artics. 

Passengers don’t actually care about capacity or having a seat on the bus. They care about wait time. People HATE waiting at the bus stop. Frequency is the key to increasing ridership, and throughout the years MTA has been slowly cutting back on that

I thought the MTA put a stop on new SBS route for now until 2021, when by then the new fare payment system should be out.

[East New York]

21 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

Oh I get what SBS is supposed to be & that it's going nowhere & what not.... I was asking about artics on the route (esp. all of a sudden).... So what you're basically telling me is that artics on the route is a future ploy for SBS & not this crap about increasing ridership.... Things like that is why you have as many ppl. that are so skeptical of this agency.

You're conveying matters from the industry side of things, which is much appreciated (believe me) & taken into consideration.... However, while I'd like to believe that the service will evolve (there's no question that SBS will expand city-wide), when I see local service being bastardized upon the introduction of this service-type to quite a bit of routes, AFAIC, it amounts to a net devolving of bus service.... This is somewhat rhetorical, but why does the MTA have to make local service worse, to have SBS portrayed in a light that it's the best thing since sliced bread (so to speak)? If it was as good as advertised, there'd be zero need for the shenanigans.... That to me, if anything, is irritating - going hell & high water in overselling SBS

But it wasn’t all of a sudden. It’s been in the works for years. I mentioned a few years ago that MTA would like artics on the B35 but we didn’t have any CNG artics, Gleason wasn’t Artic ready, and we weren’t ordering CNG artics at the time. Now seeing as most all high capacity limited buses are going SBS, it was only a matter of time before planning for the B35 began. All the XN60’s, and the new LFSA’s have a base paint of SBS blue. That’s a key sign right there of things to come. It’s more about off-board payment than anything. Not trying to oversell the service. The B35 local should fare better than other locals because of this design with the entire line going articulated, unlike the B44, B46, and Bx6. Not only that, but I noticed people along the Church corridor prefer to use the limited as I have seen many days that most of us don’t mind walking a couple blocks. However, because the local can be equally crowded MTA decided to convert the entire line. I have also noticed as I said that people who otherwise don’t ride the bus have recently been attracted to the new branding, and even more so to the new articulated buses. Many customers in the areas along that route prefer to get on whatever comes first these days. Dollar cab or bus. 

I totally agree on your other points. I was against the way local buses have been left behind since long before the introduction of the B44 or B46, and years ago I said this would be a major problem. I’m not taking away from that at all, but change is going to take time. In the past there has been no effort to make any change. The main thing that has helped is the fact that almost every limited was interlined with a local which, is good for reliability. Now that we are moving away from that, local buses have suffered. The B44 and 46 were disasters at introduction as I said they would be. Hopefully with the redesign and my plan that I am submitting, some good change will come.

1 hour ago, Mtatransit said:

I was never a fan of putting artics on routes, until the headways are so small that there wouldn’t be too much of a reduction in service. 8 min to 12 min seems like a “slight” reduction in service but if it is delayed by traffic or missing, passengers have to wait 24 min instead of 16 minutes. The same reasoning goes to why the Q113/114 don’t warrant artics. 

Passengers don’t actually care about capacity or having a seat on the bus. They care about wait time. People HATE waiting at the bus stop. Frequency is the key to increasing ridership, and throughout the years MTA has been slowly cutting back on that

I thought the MTA put a stop on new SBS route for now until 2021, when by then the new fare payment system should be out.

That’s understandable. Many people weren’t and still aren’t in favor of artics on many lines. However, this is what MTA has decided works best for them. I don’t like waiting for the bus either and that’s why I have an app for that. This day in age, no one should be waiting on a bus unless something happens along the line or it’s not on GPS and you miss it. I can’t remeber the last time I waited for a bus, and still don’t understand why other people do it in 2018 unless you don’t have a smart phone. This makes my life simple, and my trips go the way they are planned 90% of the time. 

I gave the preliminary information above along with the next 3 SBS routes, so I’m not sure where you got information that MTA was putting a stop to the program until such time. I said above that MTA put a stop to Queens SBS expansion until after 2021/New Fare Payment System.