MTA express bus changes: New SIM9, South Shore extension and more

[B35 via Church]

1 minute ago, Lawrence St said:

I took the SIM7 around 5 like you suggested earlier, oh. my. god.

I had to fight with 4 people all at the same bus stop. One because he cut in front of me. One because he kept pushing the seat back. One because she spilled hot coffee on me. One because the driver decided to have an attitude while I was getting change out of my pocket.

3 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Not surprised. You're lucky you even got a seat. Because of the other group working to try to fix this mess, they have a dispatcher over there sending over a bus to try to handle the crowds which can be upwards of a 75-100 people at one stop alone. The bus seats around 57 people I believe tops so just with one or two stops, with the gaps in service, the buses become insanely overcrowded and if you've been waiting 30+ minutes for a bus, well you become quite cranky and all of the things you mentioned are bound to happen and then some. There have already been several fights that almost broke out already and if things aren't fixed it will only get worse. You work eight hours and then spend another four hours trying to get and from home... Basically half a work day spent commuting...

A city full of angry commuters goes a long way to the declination of that city's QoL (quality of life).... I would have been fuming if all that happened to me....

In juxtaposition with anything regarding quality of service, these are also the types of intricacies that commuters need to be more vocal about as well.

 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

58 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

A city full of angry commuters goes a long way to the declination of that city's QoL (quality of life).... I would have been fuming if all that happened to me....

In juxtaposition with anything regarding quality of service, these are also the types of intricacies that commuters need to be more vocal about as well.

 

Well I received a lot of congratulations for my speech before the board on social media that inspired other riders to come before the board at the next meeting and speak, and the ones that did, my God did they put things into perspective. My speech was the catalyst, and these guys went and put the icing on the cake. One of them actually took photos and blew them up at his job and brought them showing the massive overcrowding at bus stops in Downtown and Midtown and on the buses themselves, pictures of screenshots on BusTime with huge gaps in service and reiterated what the agency had promised in terms of frequencies during the redesign. If I was a board member seeing that and the media taking photos, I would've wanted to have crawled under my chair. LMAO. They actually made the newspaper (page 4). LOL

[MysteriousBtrain]

I'm just reading the posts I've missed and oh god this is absolute gold.

Short way to put my thoughts here is that if I was in a situation where I had to get on a crowded coach and the driver acts like an @$$ it's time for you to meet my lawyers.

[MysteriousBtrain]

16 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Well I received a lot of congratulations for my speech before the board on social media that inspired other riders to come before the board at the next meeting and speak, and the ones that did, my God did they put things into perspective. My speech was the catalyst, and these guys went and put the icing on the cake. One of them actually took photos and blew them up at his job and brought them showing the massive overcrowding at bus stops in Downtown and Midtown and on the buses themselves, pictures of screenshots on BusTime with huge gaps in service and reiterated what the agency had promised in terms of frequencies during the design. If I was a board member seeing that and the media taking photos, I would've wanted to have crawled under my chair. LMAO. They actually made the newspaper (page 4). LOL

Good. It's time to speak up. The way the redesign is being done all over the city so far is absolute crap. I feel no data is actually being gathered and the mta just wants to cut here and there and use "collected data" to try and justify why routes are the way they are now.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

13 minutes ago, MysteriousBtrain said:

Good. It's time to speak up. The way the redesign is being done all over the city so far is absolute crap. I feel no data is actually being gathered and the mta just wants to cut here and there and use "collected data" to try and justify why routes are the way they are now.

There are a lot of people on social media calling this redesign on Staten Island a service cut. It's too early to say if that is true or not because the planning was SO bad that either they are just that incompetent in the planning department or they truly planned this with the hope that people would become so fed up that they'd flee the express bus system which would allow them to justify the service levels and then they could try to cut more service thus lowering their overhead costs to run service. They love to state that they added more trips, but they exclude the fact that they have one route now in some cases doing the work that several routes used to do, so when you consider that and look at the overcrowding every single day, you have to think that it is indeed a service cut. 

The problem is with only one route when it is delayed and you have no alternatives, it makes things look really bad because the lines become insanely long and there is massive overcrowding on the buses.

[Coney Island Av]

These are all the "so-called" benefits I can think of. SMH this should sum it up how bad it is...

Expanded Weekend Service & More Trips & Better Frequency

-More like discounted off-peak X19 service at 50% off, plus major service reductions on the North Shore, Mid-Island, and South Shore routes.

-Cause overcrowding/infrequency

-Did absolutely nothing to improve off-peak X1, X10, and X17 service (aka SIM1C, SIM3C, SIM4C) 

-Copied and pasted the schedules for the majority of the new SIMs (eg. the SIM32 is exactly the same as the X11) 

Eliminating stops

-Causes people to overcrowd major hubs such as ETC

-Some have to walk farther than before

-Requires people to drive or get car service if they live too far from a certain bus stop

Eliminating the "Midtown-via-Downtown" pattern

-More like reducing alternatives and forcing people to take the subway.

-Causes a lot of overcrowding on the few SIMs as opposed to the old Xs that could handle it fine.

-One accident pretty much screws express bus riders over if their coming from Midtown.

Advertising the network as "good"

-Secretly a way to cut express bus service

-Makes most support it when in reality it's something bad

[Lawrence St]

5 minutes ago, Coney Island Av said:

These are all the "so-called" benefits I can think of. SMH this should sum it up how bad it is...

Expanded Weekend Service & More Trips & Better Frequency

-More like discounted off-peak X19 service at 50% off, plus major service reductions on the North Shore, Mid-Island, and South Shore routes.

-Cause overcrowding/infrequency

-Did absolutely nothing to improve off-peak X1, X10, and X17 service (aka SIM1C, SIM3C, SIM4C) 

-Copied and pasted the schedules for the majority of the new SIMs (eg. the SIM32 is exactly the same as the X11) 

Eliminating stops

-Causes people to overcrowd major hubs such as ETC

-Some have to walk farther than before

-Requires people to drive or get car service if they live too far from a certain bus stop

Eliminating the "Midtown-via-Downtown" pattern

-More like reducing alternatives and forcing people to take the subway.

-Causes a lot of overcrowding on the few SIMs as opposed to the old Xs that could handle it fine.

-One accident pretty much screws express bus riders over if their coming from Midtown.

Advertising the network as "good"

-Secretly a way to cut express bus service

-Makes most support it when in reality it's something bad

I find that accident thing to vary. If a car breaks down in the HOV lane, all hell breaks loose.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

6 minutes ago, Coney Island Av said:

These are all the "so-called" benefits I can think of. SMH this should sum it up how bad it is...

Expanded Weekend Service & More Trips & Better Frequency

-More like discounted off-peak X19 service at 50% off, plus major service reductions on the North Shore, Mid-Island, and South Shore routes.

-Cause overcrowding/infrequency

-Did absolutely nothing to improve off-peak X1, X10, and X17 service (aka SIM1C, SIM3C, SIM4C) 

-Copied and pasted the schedules for the majority of the new SIMs (eg. the SIM32 is exactly the same as the X11) 

Eliminating stops

-Causes people to overcrowd major hubs such as ETC

-Some have to walk farther than before

-Requires people to drive or get car service if they live too far from a certain bus stop

Eliminating the "Midtown-via-Downtown" pattern

-More like reducing alternatives and forcing people to take the subway.

-Causes a lot of overcrowding on the few SIMs as opposed to the old Xs that could handle it fine.

-One accident pretty much screws express bus riders over if their coming from Midtown.

Advertising the network as "good"

-Secretly a way to cut express bus service

-Makes most support it when in reality it's something bad

And of course if you had to transfer to the subway when it was flooding in several stations last week during those pourdowns, you may have arrived to work drenched even though you were below ground. lol Another thing you left out... People trying to transfer and being charged another fare. Don't you love getting the subway to the express bus to find that your bus is MIA and now you're scrambling to look for an "alternative"... I have to laugh at all of this because it's that absurd.

[Lawrence St]

2 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

And of course if you had to transfer to the subway when it was flooding in several stations last week during those pourdowns, you may have arrived to work drenched even though you were below ground. lol Another thing you left out... People trying to transfer and being charged another fare. Don't you love getting the subway to the express bus to find that your bus is MIA and now you're scrambling to look for an "alternative"... I have to laugh at all of this because it's that absurd.

Honestly, unlimited express bus metrocards should also work for local buses and the subway.

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

4 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

Honestly, unlimited express bus metrocards should also work for local buses and the subway.

They do. 

[Lawrence St]

Just now, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

They do. 

Oh, never mind then lmao.

[NoHacksJustKhaks]

4 minutes ago, Coney Island Av said:

These are all the "so-called" benefits I can think of. SMH this should sum it up how bad it is...

Expanded Weekend Service & More Trips & Better Frequency

-More like discounted off-peak X19 service at 50% off, plus major service reductions on the North Shore, Mid-Island, and South Shore routes.

-Cause overcrowding/infrequency

-Did absolutely nothing to improve off-peak X1, X10, and X17 service (aka SIM1C, SIM3C, SIM4C) 

-Copied and pasted the schedules for the majority of the new SIMs (eg. the SIM32 is exactly the same as the X11) 

Eliminating stops

-Causes people to overcrowd major hubs such as ETC

-Some have to walk farther than before

-Requires people to drive or get car service if they live too far from a certain bus stop

Eliminating the "Midtown-via-Downtown" pattern

-More like reducing alternatives and forcing people to take the subway.

-Causes a lot of overcrowding on the few SIMs as opposed to the old Xs that could handle it fine.

-One accident pretty much screws express bus riders over if their coming from Midtown.

Advertising the network as "good"

-Secretly a way to cut express bus service

-Makes most support it when in reality it's something bad

This agency is part of a first world country and world class city, and many of it's actions today are in a similar vein to what many corrupt third world countries do. It's truly shameful that they have such a leverage over riders and continue to see it as a win in their book, for their benefit. I feel for Staten Island right now, being subjected to this cr*p.

[Around the Horn]

3 hours ago, Lil 57 said:

Time to get a Car🚗

Time to move...

[checkmatechamp13]

7 hours ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

So instead of running SIM32 buses, they decide to elongate the commutes for those along Richmond Avenue by doing that 4C nonsense.

Regarding Watchogue, I would have added a 7:20 PM SIM34 bus from Downtown, with the first SIM3C bus passing at 7:40 PM (originating from Midtown at 7:00 PM). The 6:25 PM and 6:40 PM SIM3C buses would become SIM3 buses. There's no need for the SIM3C if the SIM34 is also running. Convert the 2:20 PM, 2:40 PM, and 3:00 PM buses into SIM3 trips, because they run together with SIM34 buses when they get to Downtown.

Agreed with the shortened SIM4C nonsense. My stance has always been that the SIM4C should be broken up into the SIM4 & SIM32, and if money is left over, maybe add another off-peak express route (whether Downtown-only or Midtown-only). But they definitely shouldn't have cut back on the span of the SIM4. 

Also keep in mind that the SIM3C covers Port Richmond riders (of course, as I mention below, it's still a fairly easy transfer on the Staten Island end, though). But even there, the 3pm bus is scheduled to reach Worth Street at 3:42pm (while the SIM35 reaches Battery Place at 3:31pm). So already, the first 3 SIM34 buses and first 2 SIM35 buses passed before that last midday SIM3C reached Battery Place. If they're worried about those buses being empty, then they can just reduce the frequency to every 30 minutes and use that extra bus to add a SIM35 trip at 2:50pm from Frankfort Street.

But here's the thing, they're so focused on shifting the North Shore ridership patterns to prove QJT's theory correct about Watchogue being a higher-ridership corridor than Gannon that they'll blindly throw service at Watchogue even if it makes no sense. Notice how cheap they continue to be with the SIM4C (with the first example being, where the heck is that weekday span extension to 1:15am or 2:15am to cover X10 Gannon riders). Notice how the midday frequency is still generally once per hour, and there's still a noticeable gap between the 2:30pm SIM4C and the 3:40pm SIM31. They want people to take the SIM3/3C and either walk down from Watchogue or transfer to a local bus (So they can say "Look how easy the local connections are on Victory Blvd" when the only reason those people need to make that connection in the first place is because Watchogue is too far north for them). 

I don't have a problem with Watchogue getting off-peak service, but this idea of making it the central North Shore express corridor (which they mentioned at the meetings, but I didn't think they'd go this far) is getting out of hand. At this point, they'll screw Gannon riders and Richmond Avenue riders just to prop up Watchogue. 

6 hours ago, FLX9304 said:

So why add AM only 5X & 6X, knowing that their riderships are lower than expected? Now they’re gonna add the 9 to replace some of the work that the 5X & 6X was doing in the morning and add service in the pm peak. If I was them instead, add SIM13 to replace the 3 to downtown and have SIM3 go directly to Midtown. 

The SIM34 is basically the Downtown version of the SIM3. The only difference is it terminates in Mariners Harbor instead of Port Richmond.

Yeah, I was wondering why the 5X & 6X were even created, skipping a whopping 3 stops when the underlying base route already has frequent service.

4 hours ago, Coney Island Av said:

I have a question: was eliminating the Midtown-via-Downtown pattern good?

While it does eliminate horrible congestion and longer trips, they've overall severely reduced alternatives and forced more to take the subway.

For example, before the new network, what if something happened on the FDR Drive that led to the X2/X5/X14/X42 being temporarily suspended? No worries! The X1/X7/X9/X10/X12 were there to save you when all hell broke loose. Now, with the SIMs, aside from the Lincoln Tunnel routes, the only other routes that run to/from Midtown are the FDR Drive routes. Without any alternative, any incident will royally screw everything up. 

From Worth St to 14 St/23 St, we've gone from FIVE express routes (three via Hylan and two via Gannon/Watchogue) to a mere TWO. The SIM7 and SIM33 are very far from adequate/productive to cover all of the riders that are vastly left underserved by this redesign. 

The list goes on and on, but I can't list all examples that stick out to me IMO...

The problem is the opposite was also true: When there was an issue in Midtown, it affected riders Downtown, so it spread the problems around in that sense. Yes, to get from Midtown to Downtown in a reasonable amount of time, that requires the subway, but at least once you're there, the idea was that you'd have reliable service. Of course, with the Battery Place approach to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and the crappy frequencies they ended up offering, that turned out to not be the case.

And it can work if you need it to.  What might be necessary is a trunk up the West Side Highway (serving the Hudson Yards area in the process, which a lot of people have called for service to). Maybe take 5th/Madison, 34th Street, and 10th/11th Avenue, so if there's an issue on the FDR, you have a backup on the West Side Highway.

That being said, the X1 was a duplicate of the X7/9 in that area. The X9 covered the northern part of Hylan, and the X7 covered the southern part of Hylan (for Richmond Avenue, you could transfer to the S79, or even the X4/5 if you needed to). So the SIM7 and new SIM9 will provide adequate coverage there. The SIM33 is just the X10B routed to Mariners Harbor. So for Port Richmond, you can transfer to a local bus (most likely at Forest & Richmond, but you can even transfer to the S57 at Bradley if you needed to). Victory (where the X12/42 and SIM3/34 ran/run) is a fairly short walk from North Gannon and everything north/west of Deppe Place is covered by the SIM33, so it's really just Watchogue Road that lost service to/from Greenwich Village. For those who don't want to take the subway, they can take the X27/28 or M55 to the SIM34, or take the SIM33 to Slosson and walk over to Victory for the SIM3/34. 

They key of course, is making sure adequate service is run on these routes so that buses aren't overcrowded and waits aren't too long.

1 hour ago, MysteriousBtrain said:

Good. It's time to speak up. The way the redesign is being done all over the city so far is absolute crap. I feel no data is actually being gathered and the mta just wants to cut here and there and use "collected data" to try and justify why routes are the way they are now.

This is the key and this is where they messed up on Staten Island. Any decision they made should've been justified with statistics. How many people will transfer? How much time will be saved? How much is reliability expected to improve? What frequencies will be offered on the consolidated routes? 

Instead, their whole justification was a little 25 page report when comparable system redesigns have hundreds of pages worth of data backing them up.

14 minutes ago, Around the Horn said:

Time to move...

To me, some of the concepts that were presented in the beginning were stupid ("Oh, we should have more park-and-rides"). The day I have to get behind the wheel and drive to an express bus to get to work is the day I leave the island.

I'll put it this way, there's some people who say "the point of the express bus is to not take the subway". For me personally, the whole point of taking public transportation is to avoid driving. I'll make whatever transfers you want me to make, but to have a transportation system in an area as dense as Staten Island reliant on people driving to their routes is stupid. 

There were issues with the old system that weren't addressed because "Eh, it's always been that way". The South Shore is covered by a bunch of Midtown-only routes. Many of us asked for a Downtown-only variant of some of these routes at the meetings (notably on the X22 since that's the busiest line down there). Their compromise was to extend the X19/SIM2 to Tottenville (and the schedule basically made the assumption that the only riders would be those in Arden Heights/Huguenot). So what's happening now with Downtown riders? The original Arden Heights/Huguenot riders are packing onto the SIM2 with the Princes Bay/Tottenville riders, and the rest of the people are continuing to drive to the ETC or SI Mall (or if they don't have access to a car, they're taking a bus to Midtown and backtracking on the subway because they can't fit on the SIM2 at the "Checkpoint" stop). The whole point of this was to try to address issues where areas were being underserved, not just look at the runtimes or reliability statistics.

[Lawrence St]

12 minutes ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

Agreed with the shortened SIM4C nonsense. My stance has always been that the SIM4C should be broken up into the SIM4 & SIM32, and if money is left over, maybe add another off-peak express route (whether Downtown-only or Midtown-only). But they definitely shouldn't have cut back on the span of the SIM4. 

Also keep in mind that the SIM3C covers Port Richmond riders (of course, as I mention below, it's still a fairly easy transfer on the Staten Island end, though). But even there, the 3pm bus is scheduled to reach Worth Street at 3:42pm (while the SIM35 reaches Battery Place at 3:31pm). So already, the first 3 SIM34 buses and first 2 SIM35 buses passed before that last midday SIM3C reached Battery Place. If they're worried about those buses being empty, then they can just reduce the frequency to every 30 minutes and use that extra bus to add a SIM35 trip at 2:50pm from Frankfort Street.

But here's the thing, they're so focused on shifting the North Shore ridership patterns to prove QJT's theory correct about Watchogue being a higher-ridership corridor than Gannon that they'll blindly throw service at Watchogue even if it makes no sense. Notice how cheap they continue to be with the SIM4C (with the first example being, where the heck is that weekday span extension to 1:15am or 2:15am to cover X10 Gannon riders). Notice how the midday frequency is still generally once per hour, and there's still a noticeable gap between the 2:30pm SIM4C and the 3:40pm SIM31. They want people to take the SIM3/3C and either walk down from Watchogue or transfer to a local bus (So they can say "Look how easy the local connections are on Victory Blvd" when the only reason those people need to make that connection in the first place is because Watchogue is too far north for them). 

I don't have a problem with Watchogue getting off-peak service, but this idea of making it the central North Shore express corridor (which they mentioned at the meetings, but I didn't think they'd go this far) is getting out of hand. At this point, they'll screw Gannon riders and Richmond Avenue riders just to prop up Watchogue. 

The SIM34 is basically the Downtown version of the SIM3. The only difference is it terminates in Mariners Harbor instead of Port Richmond.

Yeah, I was wondering why the 5X & 6X were even created, skipping a whopping 3 stops when the underlying base route already has frequent service.

The problem is the opposite was also true: When there was an issue in Midtown, it affected riders Downtown, so it spread the problems around in that sense. Yes, to get from Midtown to Downtown in a reasonable amount of time, that requires the subway, but at least once you're there, the idea was that you'd have reliable service. Of course, with the Battery Place approach to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and the crappy frequencies they ended up offering, that turned out to not be the case.

And it can work if you need it to.  What might be necessary is a trunk up the West Side Highway (serving the Hudson Yards area in the process, which a lot of people have called for service to). Maybe take 5th/Madison, 34th Street, and 10th/11th Avenue, so if there's an issue on the FDR, you have a backup on the West Side Highway.

That being said, the X1 was a duplicate of the X7/9 in that area. The X9 covered the northern part of Hylan, and the X7 covered the southern part of Hylan (for Richmond Avenue, you could transfer to the S79, or even the X4/5 if you needed to). So the SIM7 and new SIM9 will provide adequate coverage there. The SIM33 is just the X10B routed to Mariners Harbor. So for Port Richmond, you can transfer to a local bus (most likely at Forest & Richmond, but you can even transfer to the S57 at Bradley if you needed to). Victory (where the X12/42 and SIM3/34 ran/run) is a fairly short walk from North Gannon and everything north/west of Deppe Place is covered by the SIM33, so it's really just Watchogue Road that lost service to/from Greenwich Village. For those who don't want to take the subway, they can take the X27/28 or M55 to the SIM34, or take the SIM33 to Slosson and walk over to Victory for the SIM3/34. 

They key of course, is making sure adequate service is run on these routes so that buses aren't overcrowded and waits aren't too long.

This is the key and this is where they messed up on Staten Island. Any decision they made should've been justified with statistics. How many people will transfer? How much time will be saved? How much is reliability expected to improve? What frequencies will be offered on the consolidated routes? 

Instead, their whole justification was a little 25 page report when comparable system redesigns have hundreds of pages worth of data backing them up.

To me, some of the concepts that were presented in the beginning were stupid ("Oh, we should have more park-and-rides"). The day I have to get behind the wheel and drive to an express bus to get to work is the day I leave the island.

I'll put it this way, there's some people who say "the point of the express bus is to not take the subway". For me personally, the whole point of taking public transportation is to avoid driving. I'll make whatever transfers you want me to make, but to have a transportation system in an area as dense as Staten Island reliant on people driving to their routes is stupid. 

There were issues with the old system that weren't addressed because "Eh, it's always been that way". The South Shore is covered by a bunch of Midtown-only routes. Many of us asked for a Downtown-only variant of some of these routes at the meetings (notably on the X22 since that's the busiest line down there). Their compromise was to extend the X19/SIM2 to Tottenville (and the schedule basically made the assumption that the only riders would be those in Arden Heights/Huguenot). So what's happening now with Downtown riders? The original Arden Heights/Huguenot riders are packing onto the SIM2 with the Princes Bay/Tottenville riders, and the rest of the people are continuing to drive to the ETC or SI Mall (or if they don't have access to a car, they're taking a bus to Midtown and backtracking on the subway because they can't fit on the SIM2 at the "Checkpoint" stop). The whole point of this was to try to address issues where areas were being underserved, not just look at the runtimes or reliability statistics.

I mean I could see why some Staten Island people go to Park and Rides to not pay that (outrageous) toll on the bridge... 

[checkmatechamp13]

51 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

I mean I could see why some Staten Island people go to Park and Rides to not pay that (outrageous) toll on the bridge... 

Yeah, but the point is service in their own neighborhood should be adequate and they shouldn't have to drive to a park and ride.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

2 hours ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

Yeah, but the point is service in their own neighborhood should be adequate and they shouldn't have to drive to a park and ride.

On this is I agree. I can't believe how many people that used to walk to the express bus are now driving because of how poorly bus stops have been placed and spaced. One of my questions for the DOT when we meet will be who decided to place some of these stops where there are no sidewalks or where the stops are right next to areas that are overgrown with vegetation? That alone infuriates me because I know that even with the old system you had a good 10 minute walk for some. I myself used to walk 10-20 minutes depending on where I boarded and what bus I took, and I was fine with that because I had sidewalks to actually use, but this nonsense about people clogging up the streets and circling to find parking and then having to run to try to get the express bus.... It's absurd.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

6 hours ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

They do. 

 

6 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Oh, never mind then lmao.

Exactly @BM5 via Woodhaven... The thing is with telecommunicating and people working from home more regularly, there are people that don't need the unlimited Express Bus Plus Metrocard. They should be able to use a pay-per-ride if that works for them and not be forced into paying $59.50 a week because the can't provide service as it should.

[Lil 57]

Quote

Planned Detour 
Sep 30, Sunday, 7 AM to 3 PM
SIM1C, SIM3C and SIM4C buses rerouted the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel

Due to the Tunnel to Towers 5K Run & Walk, buses are rerouted via New Jersey and the Holland Tunnel.

Northbound: The first stop after the Holland Tunnel will be made on Chambers St at Church St then regular route.

Southbound: The last stop in Manhattan will be made on Worth St at Broadway.

Note: SIM4C buses will not stop in Brooklyn during the duration of the detour.

First day of Major detours for the SIM routes. A few questions.

1. If the Battery Tunnel is closed, how is the SIM2 detoured?

2. Never knew SIM4c's stopped in Brooklyn 😂

[Via Garibaldi 8]

2 minutes ago, Lil 57 said:

First day of Major detours for the SIM routes. A few questions.

1. If the Battery Tunnel is closed, how is the SIM2 detoured?

2. Never knew SIM4c's stopped in Brooklyn 😂

It may run via NJ, come in via the Holland Tunnel, then head south on West Street and come around that way to drop off Downtown.

[Lil 57]

4 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

It may run via NJ, come in via the Holland Tunnel, then head south on West Street and come around that way to drop off Downtown.

Idk why the  didn't post the detour on the website though.

Also 2647 is shown going though Brooklyn on the SIM3c on BusTime.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

5 minutes ago, Lil 57 said:

Idk why the  didn't post the detour on the website though.

Odd because I don't see how else it can get there.  They likely forgot that the SIM2 runs on weekends. Previously all of the old routes would do that detour that I mentioned.

[Around the Horn]

7 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

On this is I agree. I can't believe how many people that used to walk to the express bus are now driving because of how poorly bus stops have been placed and spaced. One of my questions for the DOT when we meet will be who decided to place some of these stops where there are no sidewalks or where the stops are right next to areas that are overgrown with vegetation? 

Or you know install new sidewalks and trim the vegetation at these new stops? They had months to prepare...

[B35 via Church]

14 hours ago, MysteriousBtrain said:

....I feel no data is actually being gathered and the mta just wants to cut here and there and use "collected data" to try and justify why routes are the way they are now.

Oh, I believe they're keeping tabs (have data available).... The issue is, what are they using that data for (if, anything).....

14 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

There are a lot of people on social media calling this redesign on Staten Island a service cut. It's too early to say if that is true or not because the planning was SO bad that either they are just that incompetent in the planning department or they truly planned this with the hope that people would become so fed up that they'd flee the express bus system which would allow them to justify the service levels and then they could try to cut more service thus lowering their overhead costs to run service. They love to state that they added more trips, but they exclude the fact that they have one route now in some cases doing the work that several routes used to do, so when you consider that and look at the overcrowding every single day, you have to think that it is indeed a service cut. 

The problem is with only one route when it is delayed and you have no alternatives, it makes things look really bad because the lines become insanely long and there is massive overcrowding on the buses.

The massive crowding & people getting flagged alone tells me that these are service cuts.... I mean, yes, there were more bus stops system-wide (compared to this shitstorm SI has for an express bus network now), but you simply weren't seeing people getting flagged.... Standees on particular trips at the most.... This plan was most definitely a way to induce crush loading on the more utilized routes (and/or, heavily utilized portions of the former routes) & to gauge how (un)utilized the lesser utilized routes are.... Look no further than the SIM5x/6x.... That is going to happen with some of these other routes too (coverage be damned) & all SI-ers are going to be left with, are buses they have to hope & pray they can get on.....

13 hours ago, Coney Island Av said:

These are all the "so-called" benefits I can think of. SMH this should sum it up how bad it is...

Expanded Weekend Service & More Trips & Better Frequency

-More like discounted off-peak X19 service at 50% off, plus major service reductions on the North Shore, Mid-Island, and South Shore routes.

-Cause overcrowding/infrequency

-Did absolutely nothing to improve off-peak X1, X10, and X17 service (aka SIM1C, SIM3C, SIM4C) 

-Copied and pasted the schedules for the majority of the new SIMs (eg. the SIM32 is exactly the same as the X11) 

Eliminating stops

-Causes people to overcrowd major hubs such as ETC

-Some have to walk farther than before

-Requires people to drive or get car service if they live too far from a certain bus stop

Eliminating the "Midtown-via-Downtown" pattern

-More like reducing alternatives and forcing people to take the subway.

-Causes a lot of overcrowding on the few SIMs as opposed to the old Xs that could handle it fine.

-One accident pretty much screws express bus riders over if their coming from Midtown.

Advertising the network as "good"

-Secretly a way to cut express bus service

-Makes most support it when in reality it's something bad

1- To call this "benefit" an embellishment, would be putting it mildly....

2- They went overkill in eliminating a lot of these bus stops & it's a real concern I have whenever they get around to f***ing up the individual borough local bus networks.... The way they're indulging in this stop elimination bit, is like someone overusing a word they just learned.... It's a last ditch effort to try to speed up bus service & it's going to end up backfiring in the longrun....

3- Like I said last night in this thread, theoretically it makes sense... The problem is realistically, they ignored a shit ton of external factors - and worse, added one of their own (centrally pigeonholing the midtown service, instead of providing east midtown, west midtown, and mid-midtown (lol) service like the old network did).... Queens & Brooklyn can get away with not having west midtown express service, due to the latter having the 7th & 8th avenue subway lines & the former having an 8th av line (well the also, now that it goes to Javits).....

Staten Island has none of that shit, so to tell (more) SI-ers to go f*** themselves & do whatever it is they have to do to get to the east side or west side after disembarking their midtown express, is insulting.....

4- If I told you that pigs fly, would you believe it???

They can tell you whatever they want, the only person that can tell you if the redesigned network enhanced or made your commute more of a detriment, is YOU. For as many people that utilize express buses in SI & for most of those same commuters to profess that their commute was made better (or had no effect - and that's giving the MTA the benefit of the doubt), only then can the MTA rightfully put it out there that the redesigned network was "good".... A service provider can only judge and/or conclude if their service{s} are successful, adequate, or wasteful by how they are patronized - Period..... Demand dictates service & not the other way around (as the MTA would love to have commuters believe).... As a matter of fact, they're trying to justify that service dictating demand as we speak..... Crushloaded buses with sub-par service (to them) means that said route{s} are successful...

No, it's called, you as a service provider being f*****' CHEAP !!!!!

[B35 via Church]

13 hours ago, NoHacksJustKhaks said:

This agency is part of a first world country and world class city, and many of it's actions today are in a similar vein to what many corrupt third world countries do. It's truly shameful that they have such a leverage over riders and continue to see it as a win in their book, for their benefit. I feel for Staten Island right now, being subjected to this cr*p.

Funny, because third-world corruption is a characterization of the MTA I used to blurt out (offline, to peers & family members) back during the "draconian" 2010 cuts....

12 hours ago, Around the Horn said:

Time to move...

 

10 hours ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

But here's the thing, they're so focused on shifting the North Shore ridership patterns to prove QJT's theory correct about Watchogue being a higher-ridership corridor than Gannon that they'll blindly throw service at Watchogue even if it makes no sense. Notice how cheap they continue to be with the SIM4C (with the first example being, where the heck is that weekday span extension to 1:15am or 2:15am to cover X10 Gannon riders). Notice how the midday frequency is still generally once per hour, and there's still a noticeable gap between the 2:30pm SIM4C and the 3:40pm SIM31. They want people to take the SIM3/3C and either walk down from Watchogue or transfer to a local bus (So they can say "Look how easy the local connections are on Victory Blvd" when the only reason those people need to make that connection in the first place is because Watchogue is too far north for them). 

I don't have a problem with Watchogue getting off-peak service, but this idea of making it the central North Shore express corridor (which they mentioned at the meetings, but I didn't think they'd go this far) is getting out of hand. At this point, they'll screw Gannon riders and Richmond Avenue riders just to prop up Watchogue.

...and when the next string of service cuts arises, watch how fast all that Watchogue service disappears.

10 hours ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

They key of course, is making sure adequate service is run on these routes so that buses aren't overcrowded and waits aren't too long.

Funny how they did the opposite of that

10 hours ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

This is the key and this is where they messed up on Staten Island. Any decision they made should've been justified with statistics. How many people will transfer? How much time will be saved? How much is reliability expected to improve? What frequencies will be offered on the consolidated routes? 

I know we're talking about this SI abomination right now, but what I'm going to point out is something more macro.... The MTA uses stats to justify cuts, not to improve service & that is a large part of where the problem lies.... It justifies the culture that's been solidified & ingrained in those doing/have been doing the major decision making in this agency for quite some time now... Illustrates just how much they truly think about the riding public..... Honestly.

If there are no complaints (especially from the "right" people), there will be no service improvements..... That's not how public transportation should be doled (or otherwise provided) out....

10 hours ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

To me, some of the concepts that were presented in the beginning were stupid ("Oh, we should have more park-and-rides"). The day I have to get behind the wheel and drive to an express bus to get to work is the day I leave the island.

I'll put it this way, there's some people who say "the point of the express bus is to not take the subway". For me personally, the whole point of taking public transportation is to avoid driving. I'll make whatever transfers you want me to make, but to have a transportation system in an area as dense as Staten Island reliant on people driving to their routes is stupid. 

There were issues with the old system that weren't addressed because "Eh, it's always been that way". The South Shore is covered by a bunch of Midtown-only routes. Many of us asked for a Downtown-only variant of some of these routes at the meetings (notably on the X22 since that's the busiest line down there). Their compromise was to extend the X19/SIM2 to Tottenville (and the schedule basically made the assumption that the only riders would be those in Arden Heights/Huguenot). So what's happening now with Downtown riders? The original Arden Heights/Huguenot riders are packing onto the SIM2 with the Princes Bay/Tottenville riders, and the rest of the people are continuing to drive to the ETC or SI Mall (or if they don't have access to a car, they're taking a bus to Midtown and backtracking on the subway because they can't fit on the SIM2 at the "Checkpoint" stop).

The whole point of this was to try to address issues where areas were being underserved, not just look at the runtimes or reliability statistics.

The suggested influx of more P&R's on the island IMO is a way to try to make SI appear/portrayed as more suburban than it really is.... You don't get to bitch about being neglected (compared to the other boroughs) & go hell or high water with wanting to be more suburban than the other boroughs at the same time.....

The point of an express bus was to originally do away with 2-fare zones.... That can (and did) include the subway..... To have the belief of commuter express bus travel not having people take subways afterwards, is not mutually exclusive to the belief that the point of public transit is to quell (or for the staunch, pro-transit folks, completely do away with) the amount of driving being done.... I'm not sure if you were trying to pose that as some sort of contrarian point or something, but I do want to point that out regardless.... I do agree though that for a public transportation agency to actually promote driving in any facet, defeats the purpose... Or to parrot the adjective you use, Stupid.

If that was the case (what you state as the whole point of this redesign supposedly being), then they really don't/never realized just how riders, system-wide were using the expresses with the old setup.... It should not take a redesign of an entire bus network to address that issue.... As you probably know/realize, I'm big on adages, and here's the perfect one to describe it - Cutting off your nose to spite your face.

.....and STILL didn't get it right.

9 hours ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

Yeah, but the point is service in their own neighborhood should be adequate and they shouldn't have to drive to a park and ride.

It's one thing if we're talking about those living in the sticks of NNJ P&R-ing to Ringwood for a bus to PABT.... However, to have SI-ers driving 5 miles or less to a P&R to catch a bus because the route that's proximate to them is rather useless (a commuter needing downtown with said route being a midtown route, or vice versa), or has too narrow a span, and/or has infrequent service, is quite another....