Brooklyn Bus Redesign Discussion Thread

[Lex]

1 hour ago, BrooklynBus said:

Your comment about Ocean Avenue isn’t relevant to the B7.

Where are your glasses?

[BrooklynBus]

1 hour ago, Lex said:

Where are your glasses?

Ex696 stated:”There aren't enough places along the route that people want to go for people to use it more? What about the proposed extension to Forest Avenue 

? Any possibility demand along the B7 will grow because of it?”

 

And you answered: “The fact of the matter is, the borderline stroad east of Ocean Avenue is highly residential, unlike the more mixed portion west of Ocean Avenue.”
 

So I asked how is your comment relevant? 

[Lex]

29 minutes ago, BrooklynBus said:

Ex696 stated:”There aren't enough places along the route that people want to go for people to use it more? What about the proposed extension to Forest Avenue 

? Any possibility demand along the B7 will grow because of it?”

 

And you answered: “The fact of the matter is, the borderline stroad east of Ocean Avenue is highly residential, unlike the more mixed portion west of Ocean Avenue.”
 

So I asked how is your comment relevant? 

If you still can't figure it out after putting the two together like this, I don't know what to tell you.

[Ex696]

so I take it that the  absorbing the  segment north of Broadway won't result in a substantial increase in ridership?

 

[BrooklynBus]

10 hours ago, Lex said:

If you still can't figure it out after putting the two together like this, I don't know what to tell you.

My problem wasn’t the question Ex696 asked, it was your irrelevant comment regarding Ocean Avenue which you still haven’t explained.

[B35 via Church]

21 hours ago, Ex696 said:

There aren't enough places along the route that people want to go for people to use it more? What about the proposed extension to Forest Avenue ? Any possibility demand along the B7 will grow because of it?

7 hours ago, Ex696 said:

so I take it that the  absorbing the  segment north of Broadway won't result in a substantial increase in ridership?

Extending the B7 up to Ridgewood was always one of these age-old proposals around these NYC-based transit forums (not just this forum/site) that I never really understood from a demand perspective.... Also, as far as the logistics of the extension, consider the notion that the route's going to go from having one poor layover scenario (Bed-Stuy end of the current B7) to a worse layover scenario (inheriting the B20's layover scenario in Ridgewood)....

AFAIC, the B7 extension to Forest isn't much more than having it end proximate to the depot it operates out of; which is Fresh Pond.... It won't do much of anything for the residents that live along/around the B7 & I cannot fathom there's much of anything along/around the B7 that would attract a Ridgewood or Bushwick resident.... The folks that currently use B20's north of Broadway tend to use it within Ridgewood & Bushwick.... Of the ones that don't, they're more or less all off the bus at Broadway Junction.... With the proposed B66 (their proposed northern split of the current B60) running to Broadway Junction, you'd just have those Bushwick patrons gravitating towards the proposed B66....

I mean, there's obviously going to be a ridership increase, but substantial isn't an adjective that I'd use to describe the potential for it.

 

1 hour ago, BrooklynBus said:

My problem wasn’t the question Ex696 asked, it was your irrelevant comment regarding Ocean Avenue which you still haven’t explained.

Guess I'll act as an intermediary here.

His response wasn't irrelevant..... It's pretty pertinent (and funny when I think about it).... All he's saying is that there isn't much of anything east of Ocean along the B7 that would spur ridership growth..... That's like 95% of the route

Edited August 25, 2023 by B35 via Church

[Ex696]

24 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

Extending the B7 up to Ridgewood was always one of these age-old proposals around these NYC-based transit forums (not just this forum/site) that I never really understood from a demand perspective.... Also, as far as the logistics of the extension, consider the notion that the route's going to go from having one poor layover scenario (Bed-Stuy end of the current B7) to a worse layover scenario (inheriting the B20's layover scenario in Ridgewood).... AFAIC, the B7 extension to Forest isn't much more than having it end proximate to the depot it operates out of; which is Fresh Pond.... It won't do much of anything for the residents that live along/around the B7 & I cannot fathom there's much of anything along/around the B7 that would attract a Ridgewood or Bushwick resident.... The folks that currently use B20's north of Broadway tend to use it within Ridgewood & Bushwick.... Of the ones that don't, they're more or less all off the bus at Broadway Junction.... With the proposed B66 (their proposed northern split of the current B60) running to Broadway Junction, you'd just have those Bushwick patrons gravitating towards the proposed B66....

I mean, there's obviously going to be a ridership increase, but substantial isn't an adjective that I'd use describe the potential for it.

I see....so what can be done to improve the current  conditions, because as it stands right now, it's not really doing too hot.

[B35 via Church]

53 minutes ago, Ex696 said:

I see....so what can be done to improve the current  conditions, because as it stands right now, it's not really doing too hot.

Short of sabotaging the routes that operate proximate to it? Well nothing, being the part of Kings Highway it serves is as residential as it is... The route simply isn't one of these routes that transports hordes of residents to a central, or otherwise highly in-demand location (like, the Downtown Brooklyn - Ridgewood routes for example).... Its largest ridership generator is easily the commercial part of Kings Hwy. around the Brighton line... Saratoga I'd say is right behind it....

It's sad when you have a route that's on a serious decline like the B2 has been over the past couple decades (that also has Kings Highway around the Brighton line being its largest ridership generator) having more of an importance to the communities it serves, over that of a route that racks up about 3x the mileage per trip.... The route {B7} for too many people is either an afterthought, or *just another bus*.....

It's one thing if you're asking how can the B7 be improved, but you're asking what can be done to improve the conditions plaguing it....

Edited August 25, 2023 by B35 via Church

[BrooklynBus]

1 hour ago, B35 via Church said:

Short of sabotaging the routes that operate proximate to it? Well nothing, being the part of Kings Highway it serves is as residential as it is... The route simply isn't one of these routes that transports hordes of residents to a central, or otherwise highly in-demand location (like, the Downtown Brooklyn - Ridgewood routes for example).... Its largest ridership generator is easily the commercial part of Kings Hwy. around the Brighton line... Saratoga I'd say is right behind it....

It's sad when you have a route that's on a serious decline like the B2 has been over the past couple decades (that also has Kings Highway around the Brighton line being its largest ridership generator) having more of an importance to the communities it serves, over that of a route that racks up about 3x the mileage per trip.... The route {B7} for too many people is either an afterthought, or *just another bus*.....

It's one thing if you're asking how can the B7 be improved, but you're asking what can be done to improve the conditions plaguing it....

I wasn’t sure if the proposal to extend the B7 northward was a good idea or not, so I am glad you answered the question with a no. That makes my proposal for the B16 more relevant. Not to end it at Utica Ave as the MTA proposed, it to extend it past E98 St and hook it up with the Saratoga portion of the B7, eliminating the rest of the route south of Clarkson Avenue, except for school specials to the old Tilden High School. That actually might be a zero cost proposal or a net savings to be applied elsewhere. 

[B35 via Church]

37 minutes ago, BrooklynBus said:

I wasn’t sure if the proposal to extend the B7 northward was a good idea or not, so I am glad you answered the question with a no. That makes my proposal for the B16 more relevant. Not to end it at Utica Ave as the MTA proposed, it to extend it past E98 St and hook it up with the Saratoga portion of the B7, eliminating the rest of the route south of Clarkson Avenue, except for school specials to the old Tilden High School. That actually might be a zero cost proposal or a net savings to be applied elsewhere. 

In this area of Brooklyn I'm in, yeah, the B7 is essentially a school bus... I mean, even as a kid, being a cartophile & as interested in the inner workings of bus networks, I could never understand why there'd never be virtually anyone xferring b/w B7's & B46's at Utica/Kings Hwy.... 30+ years later, still like that to this day... The Target they opened up over there back in 2021 hasn't done much of anything for the B7....

Believe me, I could understand someone wanting to eliminate the B7.... When some people around these parts were on that, extend the B7 to Ridgewood bit back then, I was on that, the B7 should be eliminated bit..... Maybe biased, but the more I grew to detest the B47 (and miss the old B78), the more I started thinking about how the B7 could be made more useful... However long ago it was, that was when I came up with the idea to preserve the upper-third of the route, to have it supplant the Paerdegat branch of the B17.... The current B7 as a whole, simply isn't vital to the network...

Edited August 25, 2023 by B35 via Church

[Ex696]

so the  will just continue to stagnate in ridership and not grow...what about the? Is ending it at Clarkson/Utica a stub?

[BrooklynBus]

1 hour ago, B35 via Church said:

In this area of Brooklyn I'm in, yeah, the B7 is essentially a school bus... I mean, even as a kid, being a cartophile & as interested in the inner workings of bus networks, I could never understand why there'd never be virtually anyone xferring b/w B7's & B46's at Utica/Kings Hwy.... 30+ years later, still like that to this day... The Target they opened up over there back in 2021 hasn't done much of anything for the B7....

Believe me, I could understand someone wanting to eliminate the B7.... When some people around these parts were on that, extend the B7 to Ridgewood bit back then, I was on that, the B7 should be eliminated bit..... Maybe biased, but the more I grew to detest the B47 (and miss the old B78), the more I started thinking about how the B7 could be made more useful... However long ago it was, that was when I came up with the idea to preserve the upper-third of the route, to have it supplant the Paerdegat branch of the B17.... The current B7 as a whole, simply isn't vital to the network...

Yet the MTA isn’t smart enough to see that it’s not vital, and instead propose to eliminate vital routes. 
 

The only thing I disagree with you on is the old B78. I like the combination with the B40 which I first suggested back in my 1973 masters thesis. 

1 hour ago, Ex696 said:

so the  will just continue to stagnate in ridership and not grow...what about the? Is ending it at Clarkson/Utica a stub?

Clarkson Utica is the wrong place to end it. It is in the middle of nowhere. I lived two blocks from there for my first 25 years, so I am intimately familiar with the neighborhood. 

[Ex696]

 

6 hours ago, BrooklynBus said:

Clarkson Utica is the wrong place to end it. It is in the middle of nowhere.

What about the Kingsbrook Jewish Hospital one block north? I saw you propose merging it with the Saratoga/Thomas S. Boyland segment of the . What will merging those two routes accomplish for you?

[BrooklynBus]

9 hours ago, Ex696 said:

 

What about the Kingsbrook Jewish Hospital one block north? I saw you propose merging it with the Saratoga/Thomas S. Boyland segment of the . What will merging those two routes accomplish for you?

Yes, Kingsbrook is important, also the psychiatric center and Winthrop School, but when an east west route ends it needs to connect with another east west route if possible for those who need to travel further. Similar for north south routes. That’s what I really meant by ending in the middle of nowhere. I believe the Saratoga, Hopkinson route is important enough to retain, but can’t succeed on its own. Tying the B16 to that route allows connections to other east west routes like the B14 and B15.

[Ex696]

2 minutes ago, BrooklynBus said:

That’s what I really meant by ending in the middle of nowhere. I believe the Saratoga, Hopkinson route is important enough to retain, but can’t succeed on its own. Tying the B16 to that route allows connections to other east west routes like the B14 and B15.

Would it end at Halsey Street  like the current B7 does?

[BrooklynBus]

I didn’t have any plans for it to go further. The route would be long enough, although I would shorten the southern end to 86 St and 4th Ave except for school specials to Ft Hamilton HS. And replace the Shore Road portion with a B9 extension.

[B35 via Church]

23 hours ago, Ex696 said:

so the  will just continue to stagnate in ridership and not grow...

For as long as it serves as much of Kings Hwy. as it currently does, yes.

23 hours ago, Ex696 said:

...what about the? Is ending it at Clarkson/Utica a stub?

Yeah, it's a stub... AFAIC, they're using that B10 & the B16 to take away patronage from the B12... There's no way you can have 4 routes ending at Prospect Park , so they got the B48 running down to Church av (which I personally think is asinine from a logistical perspective)....

I don't see the demand for service clear along Empire, I don't see it as being necessary to run the B16 east of Flatbush av., and the B48 (or anything else, for the matter) should not be ending at Church & East 18th.... I don't have a problem with repurposing the B48 in general, but the efforts with the B16 should've been more focused on having it run along Ft. Hamilton (which there's actual/latent demand for).... That's how I view that whole dynamic.

21 hours ago, BrooklynBus said:

Yet the MTA isn’t smart enough to see that it’s not vital, and instead propose to eliminate vital routes. 
 

The only thing I disagree with you on is the old B78. I like the combination with the B40 which I first suggested back in my 1973 masters thesis.

Yeah, IDC for the current B47.... I'd have rather left the B78 alone & had the B15 continue up Ralph to Broadway, to phase out the old B40.... I'd have then taken the Albany/Troy portion of the current B15 north of Dean & carved a new route from that..... Other changes to the network would've followed suit.

To tie this back to the B7 & Kings Hwy. service, while I don't have near as much of a problem with the current B82 as I do the current B47, I still believe the old B50 should've been left alone.... Well before I came up with the idea to have the B100 run over to Caesars Bay, at the time the B82 was created back in '95, my idea was to eliminate the B7 & have the old B5 run down to Coney Island (look at how long it even took for the MTA to have that be done with the B82)... Now these tools want to undo THAT change (which benefits the current B82) by having this proposed B82 end at the depot... Can't make this stuff up.... Much of nobody is going to take the B82 to xfer to the (proposed) B64 to get to Coney Island....

[Ex696]

34 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

but the efforts with the B16 should've been more focused on having it run along Ft. Hamilton (which there's actual/latent demand for).... That's how I view that whole dynamic.

So the  would be streamlined onto Fort Hamilton Parkway and a different route would take over the 13th Avenue/14th Avenue portion of the route?

[B35 via Church]

1 minute ago, Ex696 said:

So the  would be streamlined onto Fort Hamilton Parkway and a different route would take over the 13th Avenue/14th Avenue portion of the route?

Yep.

I had an old B23 proposal many moons ago on here that would address 13th/14th.... IINM, I had it running b/w Ft. Hamilton/86th (due to lack of layover space around 86th/4th) & Rockaway Pkwy - via [the Cortelyou portion of the old B23] & [part of the old B8 between Nostrand av & the Brooklyn Terminal Market (where it used to terminate)]...

[BrooklynBus]

5 hours ago, Ex696 said:

So the  would be streamlined onto Fort Hamilton Parkway and a different route would take over the 13th Avenue/14th Avenue portion of the route?

I addressed this also in my proposal. The B64 would use 92 Street to access the 95 St station or possibly extended to SI. The Bay Ridge Avenue portion could either be hooked up with a new 65 St route that would only stop at even numbered avenues for transfers or be connected in sone form with all or part of the old B23. However, all this involves additional mileage, perfectly justified for a growing borough, but instead the MTA wants to shrink bus service and force more people onto the subway. 

[Q43LTD]

7 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

Yeah, it's a stub... AFAIC, they're using that B10 & the B16 to take away patronage from the B12... There's no way you can have 4 routes ending at Prospect Park , so they got the B48 running down to Church av (which I personally think is asinine from a logistical perspective)....

According to the  Church Av  will be an accessible station in the future, but yeah that's not a good place to end a bus

[ThatSubwayFan980]

8 hours ago, Ex696 said:

So the  would be streamlined onto Fort Hamilton Parkway and a different route would take over the 13th Avenue/14th Avenue portion of the route?

The  would be replacing the  during its bus system redesign in Brooklyn. I heard that in Wikipedia. Also I have created the  Wikipedia article as "TheWiki93".

[Ex696]

2 hours ago, ThatSubwayFan980 said:

The  would be replacing the  during its bus system redesign in Brooklyn.

It is, the problem is the 's frequency is not being increased despite being offered as an alternative.

Edited August 27, 2023 by Ex696
Adding more to the sentence

[BrooklynBus]

4 hours ago, Ex696 said:

It is, the problem is the 's frequency is not being increased despite being offered as an alternative.

It also makes very few stops. 

[Gotham Bus Co.]

5 hours ago, Ex696 said:

It is, the problem is the 's frequency is not being increased despite being offered as an alternative.

 

What are the 's ridership levels? Can existing service accommodate both current  ridership and current ridership? Or would they need to add at least a few trips at certain times of day?