MTA Does an About Face on Bronx Redesign Proposals

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Word was just released via Facebook that the Spencer Estates/Country Club waterfront Bronx communities in CB10 will NOT see changes to the Bx8 or Bx24, thanks to strong opposition from the aforementioned area and thanks to Assemblyman Benedetto and Council member Gjonaj whose offices made the announcement.

 

 

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

The initial proposal wasn't perfect, but if this is true, then IDK if I can agree with that either.

The Bx8 carries very little south of Edgewater Park. Ideally, it should have been proposed to run there at the very least during rush hours. Given how Locust Point is very much suburban in almost every aspect, I believe that having the Bx24 would have sufficed down there. I'm actually surprised the neighborhood hasn't made too much of a fuss over the amount of buses provided.

Also, ridership in Country Club is relatively small. Service would have still been retained between the neighborhood, Pelham Bay, and Westchester Square. 

[Future ENY OP]

What about Throggs Neck with the Bx40/42? 

Great work on the fight with the Bx8/Bx24. So definitely a delay for the Bx redesign plan. 

[checkmatechamp13]

2 hours ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

The initial proposal wasn't perfect, but if this is true, then IDK if I can agree with that either.

The Bx8 carries very little south of Edgewater Park. Ideally, it should have been proposed to run there at the very least during rush hours. Given how Locust Point is very much suburban in almost every aspect, I believe that having the Bx24 would have sufficed down there. I'm actually surprised the neighborhood hasn't made too much of a fuss over the amount of buses provided.

Also, ridership in Country Club is relatively small. Service would have still been retained between the neighborhood, Pelham Bay, and Westchester Square. 

It's a short distance from Edgewater Park to Locust Point and one of the Bronx planners said Edgewater would go crazy if they tried to end buses there.

During rush hour those areas get decent ridership. Off-peak the Bx8 often runs every 30 minutes anyway (I know weekends it does. Not sure about weekday off-peak)

[Via Garibaldi 8]

2 hours ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

The initial proposal wasn't perfect, but if this is true, then IDK if I can agree with that either.

The Bx8 carries very little south of Edgewater Park. Ideally, it should have been proposed to run there at the very least during rush hours. Given how Locust Point is very much suburban in almost every aspect, I believe that having the Bx24 would have sufficed down there. I'm actually surprised the neighborhood hasn't made too much of a fuss over the amount of buses provided.

Also, ridership in Country Club is relatively small. Service would have still been retained between the neighborhood, Pelham Bay, and Westchester Square. 

It came down to a few things... 

#1 The Spencer Estates Civic Association said from the start that they did not want any bus running down Stadium Avenue because they didn't want all of that noise, etc. 

#2 Putting the bus on Stadium Avenue meant longer walks, particularly for the elderly, and they were esp. opposed to that.

Since I started my advocacy group, I have been meeting quite a few people, and the person I got this from is heavily involved in the community there. They said they were going to fight months ago, and they did just that. They got the elected officials involved, and got petitions going and so this is where we are. Ultimately it's their neighborhood and that's how they want it, although others may not feel that it's as good as it could be.

They like it quiet there, and quite frankly some streets are simply too narrow or lack sidewalks to have a bus coming down them, so I get it.

Aside from that the people in Edgewater said they would raise hell if they tried to remove the bus from serving Edgewater Park or any other funny business given the nonsense that the  has tried in the past. That's a sizable community and they spoke. 

Whether or not a route carries that much should not be the deciding factor. These areas lack subways and serve numerous areas with several complexes. Smaller versions of Co-op City to some extent in terms of the population size.

[JeremiahC99]

12 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

It came down to a few things... 

#1 The Spencer Estates Civic Association said from the start that they did not want any bus running down Stadium Avenue because they didn't want all of that noise, etc. 

#2 Putting the bus on Stadium Avenue meant longer walks, particularly for the elderly, and they were esp. opposed to that.

Since I started my advocacy group, I have been meeting quite a few people, and the person I got this from is heavily involved in the community there. They said they were going to fight months ago, and they did just that. They got the elected officials involved, and got petitions going and so this is where we are. Ultimately it's their neighborhood and that's how they want it, although others may not feel that it's as good as it could be.

They like it quiet there, and quite frankly some streets are simply too narrow or lack sidewalks to have a bus coming down them, so I get it.

Aside from that the people in Edgewater said they would raise hell if they tried to remove the bus from serving Edgewater Park or any other funny business given the nonsense that the  has tried in the past. That's a sizable community and they spoke. 

Whether or not a route carries that much should not be the deciding factor. These areas lack subways and serve numerous areas with several complexes. Smaller versions of Co-op City to some extent in terms of the population size.

Not to mention that with the Bx24 via Stadium going to Locust Point, it was going to be 2010 all over again (the proposed Bx24 routing was the same routing as the Bx8 of that time). Didn’t they learn anything from 2010?

And that was actually the first thing I asked here when the draft plan came out.

[JeremiahC99]

16 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

#1 The Spencer Estates Civic Association said from the start that they did not want any bus running down Stadium Avenue because they didn't want all of that noise, etc. 

Noise complaints? I though the new LFS buses (used on the Bx24 and other GH routes) were quieter than the old Orion VII CNG buses. Did they think those buses would be loud as well (or louder than the Orion VII)?

[Via Garibaldi 8]

4 hours ago, JeremiahC99 said:

Noise complaints? I though the new LFS buses (used on the Bx24 and other GH routes) were quieter than the old Orion VII CNG buses. Did they think those buses would be loud as well (or louder than the Orion VII)?

Here are the full comments:

"FOR THE RECORD: No Misunderstandings, No misinterpretations 

MTA OPPOSITION LETTER SENT TO EVERY LOCAL ELECTED

Spencer Estate Civic Association
3243 Ampere Avenue 
Bronx, New York 10465

Dear>>>>>>>>> 

The May 2019, MTA question and answer event designed to be a fountain of information about the proposed subway and bus route changes was more of a dry well. Much to our chagrin too many pertinent questions lacked adequate responses. The expectation of garnering community support for a prolific alteration to our mass transit without producing vital information is totally unreasonable. The following is a partial list of unaddressed concerns of neighborhood residents and Spencer Estate Civic association.  

*Start and Stop Times of Bus Routes *

*Specific bus stop locales, not general vicinity*

*Affect on parking in our parking deprived neighborhood*

*The potential need for “day lighting” to create safe sight lines and room to accommodate the turning radius of the large buses*

* How the two-way traffic flow of large noisy vehicles will affect our quality of life and home valuations? * 

The MTA proposal to streamline area bus routes will profoundly affect low-density communities including Spencer Estate. Under this proposed plan our neighborhood bus service would be covered by an extension of the Bx24. The money saving linear pathway presented by the M.T.A. for this bus service will create two-way bus traffic on narrow stretches of Stadium Avenue, Ampere Avenue and Kennelworth Place. These narrow streets in our quiet residential neighborhoods are not equipped to handle noisy two-way traffic flow of oversized vehicles. The elimination of certain stops, most notably the widely used hub at Research and Ampere avenues, will create a hardship for many of our elderly residents reliant on bus service. These individuals will now be forced to navigate the steep Ampere avenue incline to utilize the newly proposed stop at Ampere and Stadium avenues. According to the A. D. A. sidewalks must have a slope of less than 1:20. Simply meaning, for every one hundred feet of run (length) the rise (elevation) cannot exceed five feet. The Ampere avenue incline clearly exceeds A. D. A. standards. Those that use assistive devices such as canes or walkers to independently fulfill ambulatory needs should not face the choice to either confront a hazardous situation or forego their independence. This insensitive action by the MTA clearly violates the Spirit of the Americans with Disabilities and emits a bias aroma.

The MTA commentary policy disenfranchised our neighborhood seniors and those without Internet access, creating an aura of exclusivity that teeters on the edge of discrimination. The MTA’s dubious methods left many bus riding area residents unaware of the proposed redesign. Proper announcement procedures would have included posted signage on buses and bus stops on affected routes. The MTA Bus Redesign Draft Plan clearly states the May meeting is to be followed by a September 2019 final release to area community boards. “We want to be sure any proposed route changes are implemented in an easy customer friendly manner.” (P, 7) However, reports in NY Daily News July 22 indicate the MTA is initiating the plan in September irrespective of community wishes or concerns that have a July 31 deadline. In late June test buses were witnessed navigating the proposed route change in Spencer Estate and Country Club. The MTA indicated that this plan had no financial motivations; however, the Daily News reported that several million dollars would be saved through this redesign. The MTA’s practice of customer friendliness was exposed by polar opposite sources. The NY Times and Fox News recently reported that 22% of all bus riders ride free due to a lack of enforcement by the MTA. The MTA’s blind eye policy toward fare evasions resulted in over 200 million dollars of lost revenue in 2018. Now, many low-density communities including Spencer Estate must risk further devaluations to their quality of life due to the ineptness and “Customer Friendliness” of the MTA. Please preserve our communities quality of life and prevent these unwarranted and unnecessary changes to bus services that are likely to negatively affect many communities. Our community is depending upon you to be the voice for the disenfranchised and a champion for the cause to preserve our Quality of Life. 

Sincerely,
George Havranek 
Vice-President Spencer Estate Civic Association"

[Lawrence St]

What noise complaints? The newer buses are quieter then the Orion 7's...

[Via Garibaldi 8]

57 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

What noise complaints? The newer buses are quieter then the Orion 7's...

Read above...

[B35 via Church]

Saw this coming a mile away.... 'twas only a matter of when....

I'm not exactly claiming right or wrong, but what I'm about to mention, is what it is - When it comes to any alteration of "their" route, they will come up with anything under the sun to reject anything that isn't a revival of the old Bx14......

 

11 hours ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

The initial proposal wasn't perfect, but if this is true, then IDK if I can agree with that either.

The Bx8 carries very little south of Edgewater Park. Ideally, it should have been proposed to run there at the very least during rush hours. Given how Locust Point is very much suburban in almost every aspect, I believe that having the Bx24 would have sufficed down there. I'm actually surprised the neighborhood hasn't made too much of a fuss over the amount of buses provided.

Also, ridership in Country Club is relatively small. Service would have still been retained between the neighborhood, Pelham Bay, and Westchester Square. 

Not exactly for their (seemingly) last ditch effort concocted arguments posed in that letter, but I'm going to actually defend Country Club on this objection to this proposed Bx24 for a very simple reason - An extension southward does absolutely nothing for those folks.

Ridership in Country Club being rather small, doesn't mean that it should be combined with a lightly used segment of another route.... The only entity it suffices for, is the MTA itself....

As the bird goes, "cheap cheap cheap"....

4 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

What noise complaints? The newer buses are quieter then the Orion 7's...

Same old regurgitated (obsolete) complaint which serves as a bit of a euphemism to the basic, blatant objection of the idea....

 

[danielhg121]

I gotta applaud Country Club residents on this one. They banned together and fought the MTA head on with petitions and it worked. They saw through the BS the MTA always spews and provided valid reasons/justification for their stance. They know full well that the MTA is implementing these changes to save money but they're not having any of it.   

[Lex]

3 hours ago, danielhg121 said:

I gotta applaud Country Club residents on this one. They banned together and fought the MTA head on with petitions and it worked. They saw through the BS the MTA always spews and provided valid reasons/justification for their stance. They know full well that the MTA is implementing these changes to save money but they're not having any of it.   

I'm not convinced. 

 

On 9/6/2019 at 4:48 AM, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

According to the A. D. A. sidewalks must have a slope of less than 1:20. Simply meaning, for every one hundred feet of run (length) the rise (elevation) cannot exceed five feet. The Ampere avenue incline clearly exceeds A. D. A. standards.

I have to wonder what the rise is. (The run is about 250 feet, so if the rise is 12.5 feet or less, this assertion is a load of bullshit. Based on the awnings in relation to the doors and ground, I'm not convinced that the rise is much greater than 7 feet, if it even reaches that.)

[Dan1]

On 9/5/2019 at 11:34 PM, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

It came down to a few things... 

#1 The Spencer Estates Civic Association said from the start that they did not want any bus running down Stadium Avenue because they didn't want all of that noise, etc. 

#2 Putting the bus on Stadium Avenue meant longer walks, particularly for the elderly, and they were esp. opposed to that.

Since I started my advocacy group, I have been meeting quite a few people, and the person I got this from is heavily involved in the community there. They said they were going to fight months ago, and they did just that. They got the elected officials involved, and got petitions going and so this is where we are. Ultimately it's their neighborhood and that's how they want it, although others may not feel that it's as good as it could be.

They like it quiet there, and quite frankly some streets are simply too narrow or lack sidewalks to have a bus coming down them, so I get it.

Aside from that the people in Edgewater said they would raise hell if they tried to remove the bus from serving Edgewater Park or any other funny business given the nonsense that the  has tried in the past. That's a sizable community and they spoke. 

Whether or not a route carries that much should not be the deciding factor. These areas lack subways and serve numerous areas with several complexes. Smaller versions of Co-op City to some extent in terms of the population size.

Is the MTA intentionally trying to use residential streets for bus routes now? I'm not a Bronx resident but I've been following the Bronx redesign just to see what may be in store for the SI local route re-design in two years.

[Mtatransit]

1 hour ago, Dan1 said:

Is the MTA intentionally trying to use residential streets for bus routes now? I'm not a Bronx resident but I've been following the Bronx redesign just to see what may be in store for the SI local route re-design in two years.

The MTA want to streamline service down Stadium Av there to reduce turns down there, to save money

[Lex]

1 hour ago, Dan1 said:

Is the MTA intentionally trying to use residential streets for bus routes now? I'm not a Bronx resident but I've been following the Bronx redesign just to see what may be in store for the SI local route re-design in two years.

What street over there isn't? (Don't say Bruckner Boulevard.)

[B35 via Church]

1 hour ago, Mtatransit said:

The MTA want to streamline service down Stadium Av there to reduce turns down there, to save money

They're cutting back the Bx8 & extending the Bx24 to Locust Pt. to save money.... There's more Bx8 service than there is Bx24 service.... Much more.

1 hour ago, Lex said:

What street over there isn't? (Don't say Bruckner Boulevard.)

...which is what makes their complaints largely disingenuous.

Don't put on this front like there's some area within your overwhelmingly, whoppingly residential, pretentious ass community where it won't have you bitching about so-called noisy buses....

[aemoreira81]

At the end of the day, I doubt the desire of not wanting buses down Stadium Avenue alone was the issue...but rather the walks. Remember when the MTA sought to reroute the Bx8 before? The reason why the current routing works is because southern Country Club gets access to a Foodtown at Crosby and Bruckner, which to me is super-important. The reason that routing actually functions as needed is because, even though it's close to the water, and it might seem to make sense on paper to use Vincent Avenue instead, there is a 6-story apartment building at the end of Randall Avenue to provide ridership, along with an apartment complex at the end of Layton Avenue.. The Bx8 provides direct service to the former and one block away service from the latter.

Additionally, if the Bx8 ran down Stadium, it would miss the Foodtown. Google Maps really allows one to "observe the neighborhood".

In short, I'm perfectly okay with not running a bus down Stadium (between the two sections of Country Club). Wasn't that a complaint before when the Bx8 was routed away from Foodtown?

[paulrivera]

6 hours ago, Mtatransit said:

The MTA want to streamline service down Stadium Av there to reduce turns down there, to save money

The MTA wants people to choose either coverage or frequency, but not both. I think a MTA quote supporting this statement was buried somewhere in the SI redesign materials.

[Around the Horn]

If they don't want "noisy" buses in their neighborhood, then just don't provide any service *shrugs*

[Kamen Rider]

(Looks over neighborhood on google maps)

 

parking deprived?

 

looks to me like almost every house ether has a driveway or room for one.

 

blocks upon blocks of standalone houses.

Come to my neck of the woods, three to four story walk ups with buses on “residential” streets. Never mind the way the el cuts through.

[checkmatechamp13]

10 minutes ago, paulrivera said:

The MTA wants people to choose either coverage or frequency, but not both. I think a MTA quote supporting this statement was buried somewhere in the SI redesign materials.

They didn't have the coverage vs. frequency discussion out here. That was one of the lessons they learned from the SI express redesign, is that they have to make sure the public understands the trade-offs

[Via Garibaldi 8]

30 minutes ago, aemoreira81 said:

At the end of the day, I doubt the desire of not wanting buses down Stadium Avenue alone was the issue...but rather the walks. Remember when the MTA sought to reroute the Bx8 before? The reason why the current routing works is because southern Country Club gets access to a Foodtown at Crosby and Bruckner, which to me is super-important. The reason that routing actually functions as needed is because, even though it's close to the water, and it might seem to make sense on paper to use Vincent Avenue instead, there is a 6-story apartment building at the end of Randall Avenue to provide ridership, along with an apartment complex at the end of Layton Avenue.. The Bx8 provides direct service to the former and one block away service from the latter.

Additionally, if the Bx8 ran down Stadium, it would miss the Foodtown. Google Maps really allows one to "observe the neighborhood".

In short, I'm perfectly okay with not running a bus down Stadium (between the two sections of Country Club). Wasn't that a complaint before when the Bx8 was routed away from Foodtown?

Ay yay yay... I posted the full letter of opposition. Please read it.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

17 minutes ago, Around the Horn said:

If they don't want "noisy" buses in their neighborhood, then just don't provide any service *shrugs*

The neighborhood is low density, so the only people using the buses are those who truly need it. You have to remember that sometimes it isn't necessarily the people that live there that are using the buses, but rather people that go to school or that work there. Country Club is almost all residential (think Shore Road, but without any apartment buildings - just houses) with a very small commercial area (the bare basics - small store for food, etc., pizzeria and that's about it), so yes it is quiet and the residents move there specifically for that and it is understand that you drive to get around unless you can't. There are many neighborhoods like this in fact around the City. Service is not that frequent at every 30 minutes, but service is needed in some capacity for the people that need buses such as the elderly that live there, and the school kids that go to Villa Maria in Country Club.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

24 minutes ago, Kamen Rider said:

(Looks over neighborhood on google maps)

 

parking deprived?

 

looks to me like almost every house ether has a driveway or room for one.

 

blocks upon blocks of standalone houses.

Come to my neck of the woods, three to four story walk ups with buses on “residential” streets. Never mind the way the el cuts through.

That depends on where in Country Club you are. Some streets have no sidewalks and are too narrow to park there, so parking thus becomes scarce.