Brooklyn Bus Redesign Discussion Thread

[Lawrence St]

1 hour ago, Q43LTD said:

Was it 3 St it used to travel east?

IIRC, yes.

[Mpn4179]

13 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

IIRC, yes.

Actually, 3rd St is westbound, Union St was eastbound.

[Q43LTD]

21 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

IIRC, yes.

Sorry. I meant it used 3 St westbound 

[Mpn4179]

2 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

The eastbound routing for the B71 was a mess being 5 blocks away from the westbound routing on Union St.

The reason why the westbound routing was 5 blocks away from the eastbound routing on Union Street had to do with the Gowanus Canal. Third Street bridge crossing was the closest street they could use for westbound traffic to go across the canal.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Mpn4179
Adding info about the crossing.

[Lawrence St]

1 hour ago, Mpn4179 said:

The reason why the westbound routing was 5 blocks away from the eastbound routing on Union Street had to do with the Gowanus Canal. Third Street bridge crossing was the closest street they could use for westbound traffic to go across the canal.

Yeah but they could have made that section of Union St two ways

[Q43LTD]

Or use Sackett from 3 Av

[JAzumah]

On 12/13/2022 at 9:51 PM, Lawrence St said:

Yeah but they could have made that section of Union St two ways

That street is narrow with a capital N over there. They would have had to eliminate parking on one side and that would have been fought to the bitter end.

[Lawrence St]

9 minutes ago, JAzumah said:

That street is narrow with a capital N over there. They would have had to eliminate parking on one side and that would have been fought to the bitter end.

Like the city cares anyway. 

[JeremiahC99]

On 12/13/2022 at 10:13 PM, Q43LTD said:

Or use Sackett from 3 Av

Sackett does not cross the Gowanus Canal.

[BrooklynBus]

I attended on Zoom the MTA’s presentation of the Brooklyn bus redesign before the NYC Transit Riders Council today. Everyone complimented the MTA for doing a great job only saying the redesign needs a few tweaks. One person criticized the B4 for no longer serving Beach Haven, but that was it. The MTA outright lied by showing a picture of their proposed B16, stating that they have straightened the route which will make it go faster. Never mind that 6O Street has more traffic than 56/57 Streets and the community twice rejected that plan, once in 1978 and again in 2004 because of that and twice asked that the route pass Maimonides on Ft Hamilton Pky. They also praised the “benefits” of “bus stop balancing”, never using the words “removal” or “elimination.” 
 

I raised my hand to speak as soon as they started talking about bus stops. Andrew Albert refused to call on me and then lowered my hand and stated we will end this portion of the meeting since there are no more questions. 
 

I did enter some comments via the chat. Cate from the MTA wrote “With all due respect Mr. Rosen, we have been listening to the public by revising the Queens drafts.” I asked if that meant they will not remove 1,300 stops in Queens because of the 1,560 people who signed the petition against bus stop removal. No further response from her. 

[BrooklynBus]

That should be 2,560, not 1,560.

[Lawrence St]

17 hours ago, BrooklynBus said:

I attended on Zoom the MTA’s presentation of the Brooklyn bus redesign before the NYC Transit Riders Council today. Everyone complimented the MTA for doing a great job only saying the redesign needs a few tweaks. One person criticized the B4 for no longer serving Beach Haven, but that was it. The MTA outright lied by showing a picture of their proposed B16, stating that they have straightened the route which will make it go faster. Never mind that 6O Street has more traffic than 56/57 Streets and the community twice rejected that plan, once in 1978 and again in 2004 because of that and twice asked that the route pass Maimonides on Ft Hamilton Pky. They also praised the “benefits” of “bus stop balancing”, never using the words “removal” or “elimination.” 
 

I raised my hand to speak as soon as they started talking about bus stops. Andrew Albert refused to call on me and then lowered my hand and stated we will end this portion of the meeting since there are no more questions. 
 

I did enter some comments via the chat. Cate from the MTA wrote “With all due respect Mr. Rosen, we have been listening to the public by revising the Queens drafts.” I asked if that meant they will not remove 1,300 stops in Queens because of the 1,560 people who signed the petition against bus stop removal. No further response from her. 

They didn’t kick you out of the meeting?

[BrooklynBus]

4 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

They didn’t kick you out of the meeting?

What kind of question is that? 

[Lawrence St]

36 minutes ago, BrooklynBus said:

What kind of question is that? 

A question...

Knowing how  is with trying to shush opposers of the plan, its a question.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

1 hour ago, Lawrence St said:

A question...

Knowing how  is with trying to shush opposers of the plan, its a question.

I think he was pretty clear about what they did, which is not allow him to speak after he raised his hand to do so.  This was a virtual meeting via Zoom, so it's easy to control what people do and can't do.  

[Cait Sith]

Did anyone check out the remix maps before they removed the comments from being visible? Some of the comments left on there were not what I was expecting, others were just.....yikes. Here's some of the ones I remember offhand.

One person wanted the B39 to go all the way to Broadway Junction from Spring Street Station, with another person wanting the B53 to only run from Sunnyside to the Bridge Plaza, having the B39 cover the rest of the way to Broadway Junction.
Another person complained about having to walk 2 blocks to walk to the train from Grand/Union from the Q54 and Q59.

The B62 saw A LOT of opposition from Greenpoint riders, a lot of people don't like the line being removed off of Manhattan Avenue.

The B55 had gotten quite a lot of praise from people.

B71 comments were loud and proud.

Quite a bit of opposition with the swapping of the B48 and B69 northern ends.

A few people proposed having the B1 and B16 swap western ends, having the B1 run straight along 86th Street instead of terminating by the train station, letting the B16 do that instead. A few people also said that the B16 should've ended at Remsen Avenue.

Two people wanted an express bus from Red Hook to Manhattan.

A LOT of complaints from the Downtown express bus riders concerning the loop. Folks are saying that the removal of the loop makes it harder to connect to other subway lines(which isn't exactly true since you got the 1, 4, 5, R & W within a short walking distance from West Street, I still think the first stop in Manhattan should've been further up either at Greenwich or Broadway). Some folks wanted Whitehall as a stop instead of Broad for the purpose of subway connections.

[Lex]

1 hour ago, Cait Sith said:

Did anyone check out the remix maps before they removed the comments from being visible? Some of the comments left on there were not what I was expecting, others were just.....yikes. Here's some of the ones I remember offhand.

One person wanted the B39 to go all the way to Broadway Junction from Spring Street Station, with another person wanting the B53 to only run from Sunnyside to the Bridge Plaza, having the B39 cover the rest of the way to Broadway Junction.
Another person complained about having to walk 2 blocks to walk to the train from Grand/Union from the Q54 and Q59.

The B62 saw A LOT of opposition from Greenpoint riders, a lot of people don't like the line being removed off of Manhattan Avenue.

The B55 had gotten quite a lot of praise from people.

B71 comments were loud and proud.

Quite a bit of opposition with the swapping of the B48 and B69 northern ends.

A few people proposed having the B1 and B16 swap western ends, having the B1 run straight along 86th Street instead of terminating by the train station, letting the B16 do that instead. A few people also said that the B16 should've ended at Remsen Avenue.

Two people wanted an express bus from Red Hook to Manhattan.

A LOT of complaints from the Downtown express bus riders concerning the loop. Folks are saying that the removal of the loop makes it harder to connect to other subway lines(which isn't exactly true since you got the 1, 4, 5, R & W within a short walking distance from West Street, I still think the first stop in Manhattan should've been further up either at Greenwich or Broadway). Some folks wanted Whitehall as a stop instead of Broad for the purpose of subway connections.

That's an interesting proposal. If a decent turnaround can be established, that could possibly work.

[Cait Sith]

18 minutes ago, Lex said:

That's an interesting proposal. If a decent turnaround can be established, that could possibly work.

For the Spring Street end, there's literally no decent turnaround.

[BrooklynBus]

What everyone should be concerned about and should ask the MTA is why the Remix comments not visible? Why don’t they want us to see what others are thinking? Are they afraid people have ideas that are better than theirs? And they have the nerve to say that transparency is one of their goals. 

[Cait Sith]

54 minutes ago, BrooklynBus said:

What everyone should be concerned about and should ask the MTA is why the Remix comments not visible? Why don’t they want us to see what others are thinking? Are they afraid people have ideas that are better than theirs? And they have the nerve to say that transparency is one of their goals. 

A part of it I think is because people were literally attacking other people on the map. I saw some comments that were pretty....screwed up so to say about what others had to say. There was one guy that was commenting basically everywhere and some people were literally attacking him for spamming all over the map. There were other commenters that were just deliberately attacking other people for no reason.

Edited December 21, 2022 by Cait Sith

[Via Garibaldi 8]

1 hour ago, Cait Sith said:

A part of it I think is because people were literally attacking other people on the map. I saw some comments that were pretty....screwed up so to say about what others had to say. There was one guy that was commenting basically everywhere and some people were literally attacking him for spamming all over the map. There were other commenters that were just deliberately attacking other people for no reason.

And unfortunately, that is a problem. There are people in some neighborhoods that are really pissed about some of these proposals because it impacts their commutes.  The B103 comes to mind. People in Kensington in particular are not happy and a few elected officials claim they are going to fight to keep the route as is. However, I am sure that some people think the B103 proposal is fine, but they also don't depend on the bus. lol  That's the real issue with some of the people commenting. They are not commuters or they don't depend on the line that they think is totally fine on a map.  It's one thing to comment on a forum and another to comment on something that may screw up other peoples' quality of life.  

 

[BrooklynBus]

2 hours ago, Cait Sith said:

A part of it I think is because people were literally attacking other people on the map. I saw some comments that were pretty....screwed up so to say about what others had to say. There was one guy that was commenting basically everywhere and some people were literally attacking him for spamming all over the map. There were other commenters that were just deliberately attacking other people for no reason.

There is a simple way to prevent people from attacking others. You don't allow to comment on someone else’s comment. You have only three actions you can take. You enter a new comment or you can thumbs up or thumbs down someone else’s comment. Anyone who doesn’t abide, has his comment deleted. But not allowing you to see what other people think is a flagrant attempt at preventing discussion. 
 

Also, I am not sure attacks are the reason you can’t see comments by others, because I heard the same thing happened in Queens. You could see all comments one day and the next day you couldn’t. If attacks were the reason seeing other people’s comments were not allowed in Queens, they never would have been allowed in Brooklyn. Why would the MTA think Queens riders attack but Brooklyn riders won’t? They probably just forgot to disable the feature in Brooklyn that allows you to see the comments of others. 

[Cait Sith]

Just now, BrooklynBus said:

There is a simple way to prevent people from attacking others. You don't allow to comment on someone else’s comment. You have only three actions you can take. You enter a new comment or you can thumbs up or thumbs down someone else’s comment. Anyone who doesn’t abide, has his comment deleted. But not allowing you to see what other people think is a flagrant attempt at preventing discussion. 
 

Also, I am not sure attacks are the reason you can’t see comments by others, because I heard the same thing happened in Queens. You could see all comments one day and the next day you couldn’t. If attacks were the reason seeing other people’s comments were not allowed in Queens, they never would have been allowed in Brooklyn. Why would the MTA think Queens riders attack but Brooklyn riders won’t? They probably just forgot to disable the feature in Brooklyn that allows you to see the comments of others. 

I'm not sure if that Queens part is even true because I've never seen any comments posted on both Queens remix maps, both old and new.

[checkmatechamp13]

3 minutes ago, BrooklynBus said:

There is a simple way to prevent people from attacking others. You don't allow to comment on someone else’s comment. You have only three actions you can take. You enter a new comment or you can thumbs up or thumbs down someone else’s comment. Anyone who doesn’t abide, has his comment deleted. But not allowing you to see what other people think is a flagrant attempt at preventing discussion. 

That's how it's set up. All of the comments are their own individual comments (but you can place a pin right next to someone else's comment and then state your own comment...which can be a response to that comment, or an entirely separate comment). I've put down next to a few that I agree with their comment, and a couple that I disagree.

I saw what they were mentioning where the guy was going around commenting all over the map (which is his right, though most of his ideas weren't that great, but a few did have something that could open a reasonable discussion about service in certain corridors), but people were going off unnecessarily strong on him.

[Theli11]

4 hours ago, Cait Sith said:

One person wanted the B39 to go all the way to Broadway Junction from Spring Street Station, with another person wanting the B53 to only run from Sunnyside to the Bridge Plaza, having the B39 cover the rest of the way to Broadway Junction.

Would making the B39 a rush route to Union Square be useful for riders? Going via Avenue A/Essex, stopping at Essex/Delancey, 14th St/Avenue A, to Union Square (on the M14 turn around) and turning back the same way down, stopping at Avenue A/14 St, then, Rivington St (before the bridge).

I've been interested in growing the B39s are in both Brooklyn and Manhattan for a while. I think Spring Street would be hard to turn around but if we do Union Square, we can get the B39 in and out of Manhattan quickly by making it a Rush Route in Manhattan. the B53 and the B39 could both potentially run down Broadway, I don't think there's a lot of routes that can connect to that part of Queens and that part of Brookyln as easily so I can see worth in doing that.