Queens Bus Redesign Discussion Thread

[BrooklynBus]

I can’t address everything you said, but I want to make one thing clear. I didn’t say we should add lanes to the BQE, we just need to get back the lanes we lost so the congestion isn’t ridiculous. 
 

Also, we don’t need bus lanes when buses operate every ten minutes.Nathan just causes needless traffic congestion. And yes, congestion causes cancellation of discretionary trips. That means less money for restaurants or people will patronize establishments in other areas like along Island instead where they can park or get there quicker. So there is an economic impact of fewer cars that you are neglecting to see. 

[Lawrence St]

10 hours ago, IAlam said:

 

Stuff

It all stems down to lanes being loss for glorified and overhyped bike lanes, road diets, and street designs.

Does NYC have a traffic fatality problem? Yes, but not to the extent most people are making it out to be. To sum up what Garbaldi & Brooklyn Bus said, you can’t expect small things like scooters and bikes to share the road with cars trucks and buses 100x their size, accidents are bound to happen, ESPECIALLY with people trying to squeeze by other Veichles.

Instead of thinking, oh cars are the problem, let’s piss them off in every possible way so they stop driving, how about think outside the box and realize cars aren’t mostly the problem, but it’s jaywalkers, and rule breaking cyclists, scooters and illegal mopeds.

[BrooklynBus]

36 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

It all stems down to lanes being loss for glorified and overhyped bike lanes, road diets, and street designs.

Does NYC have a traffic fatality problem? Yes, but not to the extent most people are making it out to be. To sum up what Garbaldi & Brooklyn Bus said, you can’t expect small things like scooters and bikes to share the road with cars trucks and buses 100x their size, accidents are bound to happen, ESPECIALLY with people trying to squeeze by other Veichles.

Instead of thinking, oh cars are the problem, let’s piss them off in every possible way so they stop driving, how about think outside the box and realize cars aren’t mostly the problem, but it’s jaywalkers, and rule breaking cyclists, scooters and illegal mopeds.

And they make fatalities sound worse than they are by not comparing the number to the previous year. They started using the past three years, and when that number wasn’t high enough to get excited over, now they quote fatalities over the previous ten years. Soon it will be 25 or since cars were invented. 
 

What other fatalities are quoted over a ten year period? None. It’s always the previous year. But to say 3 people died at an intersection (which could have been from a single crash) isn’t high enough, but 30 over ten years sounds more. And for a neighborhood, 300 over ten years sound more serious than 30 the past year. 
 

Every time someone is killed, the intersection is deemed dangerous and has to be redesigned. I remember in my neighborhood someone was killed crossing the street. The community demanded a traffic signal, which wasn’t necessary, so to appease them, DOT instead removed a parking space. Every fatality does not warrant a change to an intersection, but DOT would like you to believe it does. Another fatality which was the first at that intersection in 40 years resulted in a bus rerouting inconveniencing thousands daily. 
 

Any fatality is unfortunate, but that does not mean a street redesign could have prevented it. 

[N6 Limited]

12 hours ago, BrooklynBus said:

I didn’t say we should add lanes to the BQE, we just need to get back the lanes we lost so the congestion isn’t ridiculous. 

Perhaps they should add a lane near the promenade. For example, northbound, have 4 lanes,  two lanes of thru-traffic, which bypasses the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, and two lanes local traffic from Atlantic Ave to Tillary Street or the Manhattan Bridge Ramp.

Since they built the new Kosciuszko Bridge, traffic going to the LIE no longer backs up the highway.

 

[BrooklynBus]

41 minutes ago, N6 Limited said:

Perhaps they should add a lane near the promenade. For example, northbound, have 4 lanes,  two lanes of thru-traffic, which bypasses the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, and two lanes local traffic from Atlantic Ave to Tillary Street or the Manhattan Bridge Ramp.

Since they built the new Kosciuszko Bridge, traffic going to the LIE no longer backs up the highway.

 

Possibly, if it is possible engineering wise. But you know it will never happen. 
 

Definitely agree with you about the Kosciusko. Saves five minutes. Anyone can see that, but a week after it opened, Transportation Alternatives planted an article how it increased congestion. Totally untrue. Lane was added because State not city was in charge. City would have reduced bridge to two lanes each way. 

[IAlam]

18 hours ago, BrooklynBus said:

I can’t address everything you said, but I want to make one thing clear. I didn’t say we should add lanes to the BQE, we just need to get back the lanes we lost so the congestion isn’t ridiculous. 
 

Also, we don’t need bus lanes when buses operate every ten minutes.Nathan just causes needless traffic congestion. And yes, congestion causes cancellation of discretionary trips. That means less money for restaurants or people will patronize establishments in other areas like along Island instead where they can park or get there quicker. So there is an economic impact of fewer cars that you are neglecting to see. 

When it comes to business in the city I really doubt many business are really dependent on car traffic and those that area already have their own parking lots. That being said in a city were it's constantly stated only a 1/3 of people here even own a car a bus stop being by a business is way more beneficial since it brings in pedestrians that actually walk past and can observe a store front. When I hear about business crying about loosing parking because of a bus lane to only see that the stores width is no more than 1-2 parking spots, I cannot believe that that business is staying afloat with that little space. Then when some of these same restaurants found they could place tables in the parking spot in front of building they all of a sudden couldn't care less about the loss of parking. You're right about the economic impact but, transit access, bike access and for local deliveries, and pedestrian have a far greater impact than cars. Granted if you can run a reliable 10 min bus service that isn't getting stuck in mixed traffic you'll probably be able to grow ridership too which is a bigger win for the business in the area too. The only times cars matter is when you have a lot of space for them, and that comes at the cost of everyone else. 
 

8 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

It all stems down to lanes being loss for glorified and overhyped bike lanes, road diets, and street designs.

Does NYC have a traffic fatality problem? Yes, but not to the extent most people are making it out to be. To sum up what Garbaldi & Brooklyn Bus said, you can’t expect small things like scooters and bikes to share the road with cars trucks and buses 100x their size, accidents are bound to happen, ESPECIALLY with people trying to squeeze by other Veichles.

Instead of thinking, oh cars are the problem, let’s piss them off in every possible way so they stop driving, how about think outside the box and realize cars aren’t mostly the problem, but it’s jaywalkers, and rule breaking cyclists, scooters and illegal mopeds.

I definitely agree with you there, but most of the road space already is dedicated to cars, and then it's expected that pedestrians and bikes are supposed to battle out what little remaining space there is. Have you ever walked down the sidewalks or 8th or 6th Ave? Those sidewalks are beyond congested and funnel a lot more people the and cars in less than half the space. In Flushing they got rid of a lane on Main St and doubled the sidewalk and the sidewalk is still just as congested as before. You act like I'm think the cars are the problem, at the end of the day I couldn't care less on who does or doesn't drive. What annoys me is when we give cars 80% or the road space to at best move 20% of all people using that road. Adding sidewalk extensions like on 8th Av and bikes lanes just makes things for fair for the rest of us. Blaming Jay walkers for issue related to cars is just blind sided IMO because most of this city was built before that term or cars even existed. Pedestrians are treated like second class citizens when crossing the street in Queens you're constantly waiting up to 2+ min some times to cross the street. When you're not sitting comfortably in a car those 2 min feel a lot longer. I've noticed in Queens there are a lot of intersections now where you have to wait for traffic to go in both directions before the give you 30 seconds or less to cross, and if you miss that you'll have to wait another 2 min. That's absolutely ridiculous because in those 2 min I'm waiting for traffic I can count ~20 cars and then in the 30 seconds pedestrians get you'll see ~50 scrambling to get across before the lights change. As a driver I rarely see pedestrians crossing directly in front of me when they don't already have the right of way. In the cases they don't have the right of way they'll unusually only cross when there's a good distance between me and them and/or I'm already braking to stop behind another car. Most people crossing are smart enough to look both ways where they're not crossing at a crosswalk and they don't really pose much of safety issue. Where I do see people getting hit is when the car is turning and not paying attention, or failing to give the pedestrian the right of way like they're supposed to. It's ridiculous how often a car making a left turn will just speed as soon as the light turns green and floor it so everyone runs out of their way, or cuts their turn in a way that's just dangerous to pedestrians and other drivers. 

[Lawrence St]

20 minutes ago, IAlam said:

When it comes to business in the city I really doubt many business are really dependent on car traffic and those that area already have their own parking lots. That being said in a city were it's constantly stated only a 1/3 of people here even own a car a bus stop being by a business is way more beneficial since it brings in pedestrians that actually walk past and can observe a store front. When I hear about business crying about loosing parking because of a bus lane to only see that the stores width is no more than 1-2 parking spots, I cannot believe that that business is staying afloat with that little space. Then when some of these same restaurants found they could place tables in the parking spot in front of building they all of a sudden couldn't care less about the loss of parking. You're right about the economic impact but, transit access, bike access and for local deliveries, and pedestrian have a far greater impact than cars. Granted if you can run a reliable 10 min bus service that isn't getting stuck in mixed traffic you'll probably be able to grow ridership too which is a bigger win for the business in the area too. The only times cars matter is when you have a lot of space for them, and that comes at the cost of everyone else. 
 

I definitely agree with you there, but most of the road space already is dedicated to cars, and then it's expected that pedestrians and bikes are supposed to battle out what little remaining space there is. Have you ever walked down the sidewalks or 8th or 6th Ave? Those sidewalks are beyond congested and funnel a lot more people the and cars in less than half the space. In Flushing they got rid of a lane on Main St and doubled the sidewalk and the sidewalk is still just as congested as before. You act like I'm think the cars are the problem, at the end of the day I couldn't care less on who does or doesn't drive. What annoys me is when we give cars 80% or the road space to at best move 20% of all people using that road. Adding sidewalk extensions like on 8th Av and bikes lanes just makes things for fair for the rest of us. Blaming Jay walkers for issue related to cars is just blind sided IMO because most of this city was built before that term or cars even existed. Pedestrians are treated like second class citizens when crossing the street in Queens you're constantly waiting up to 2+ min some times to cross the street. When you're not sitting comfortably in a car those 2 min feel a lot longer. I've noticed in Queens there are a lot of intersections now where you have to wait for traffic to go in both directions before the give you 30 seconds or less to cross, and if you miss that you'll have to wait another 2 min. That's absolutely ridiculous because in those 2 min I'm waiting for traffic I can count ~20 cars and then in the 30 seconds pedestrians get you'll see ~50 scrambling to get across before the lights change. As a driver I rarely see pedestrians crossing directly in front of me when they don't already have the right of way. In the cases they don't have the right of way they'll unusually only cross when there's a good distance between me and them and/or I'm already braking to stop behind another car. Most people crossing are smart enough to look both ways where they're not crossing at a crosswalk and they don't really pose much of safety issue. Where I do see people getting hit is when the car is turning and not paying attention, or failing to give the pedestrian the right of way like they're supposed to. It's ridiculous how often a car making a left turn will just speed as soon as the light turns green and floor it so everyone runs out of their way, or cuts their turn in a way that's just dangerous to pedestrians and other drivers. 

Bring this over to the other thread.

[IAlam]

Is there a mod that can move the last couple of posts in this convo over?

[BrooklynBus]

2 hours ago, IAlam said:

When it comes to business in the city I really doubt many business are really dependent on car traffic and those that area already have their own parking lots. That being said in a city were it's constantly stated only a 1/3 of people here even own a car a bus stop being by a business is way more beneficial since it brings in pedestrians that actually walk past and can observe a store front. 

I disagree with you. When I was Director of Bus Planning and had the power to change bus stops, the owner of a bakery asked me to move the bus stop to be in front of his store. It wasn’t because of the bus passengers. He wanted some spaces for cars to make a quick stop and pick up a box of donuts or the like. 

[Q43LTD]

I like how Brewer, Merrick and Springfield are saturated with bus service, but Woodhaven gets stuck with one local in this redesign. 

[NewFlyer 230]

33 minutes ago, Q43LTD said:

I like how Brewer, Merrick and Springfield are saturated with bus service, but Woodhaven gets stuck with one local in this redesign. 

If they could get away with it they would get rid of all local service and have people use the SBS routes instead. 

[limitednyc]

15 minutes ago, NewFlyer 230 said:

If they could get away with it they would get rid of all local service and have people use the SBS routes instead. 

Cuase that's what the ridership servays and current service say.

[Bill from Maspeth]

1 hour ago, limitednyc said:

Cuase that's what the ridership servays and current service say.

No.  That's so running  time could be cut so they could get more "seat time" out of the operators during their shift.  

[TDL]

2 hours ago, Q43LTD said:

I like how Brewer, Merrick and Springfield are saturated with bus service, but Woodhaven gets stuck with one local in this redesign. 

Well Brewer Merrick and Springfield are saturated with more limited service. Not local. If Woodhaven followed that model, there would be a local between QCM and Jamaica Ave, and one that went local to Jamaica Ave and express from there. But the corridor doesnt have the ridership or length for that.

[B35 via Church]

On 2/21/2023 at 10:49 AM, limitednyc said:

Cuase that's what the ridership servays and current service say.

That's what was forced upon riders.

Once upon a time, the Q11 was king (as in, having the highest demand for it) along Woodhaven Blvd... Currently, it's basically a joke, compared to the SBS'.... The proposed Q11 is that much more disgusting..... When you deliberately make local service that much less attractive, the result is what you currently get along Woodhaven.....

On 2/21/2023 at 9:58 AM, Q43LTD said:

I like how Brewer, Merrick and Springfield are saturated with bus service, but Woodhaven gets stuck with one local in this redesign. 

In comparison to local service, Brewer & Merrick with the redesign would even be more oversaturated with skip-stop services than Woodhaven currently is.... Another way of putting that is, at least Woodhaven would still have a *green* route along it..... I have far more of an issue with what would end up being done along Brewer & Merrick in that particular regard, than the consolidation of local service along Woodhaven.... Woodhaven was doing alright when it had just the one local service....

As to how your point relates to Springfield I guess, I don't have much of a problem with *an increased total number of routes along Springfield*... Springfield could use a through route.... I just don't care for having Q26's running down to Cambria Hgts.... Even considering the proposed Q27 running up to College Point, I'd say stymieing the thing where the old Q75 used to end, justifies running *something else* from Flushing, past Oakland Gardens.... I just don't think that *something else* should be the Q26.... I would have the Q27 run down to Union Tpke & prop up/increase proposed Q78 service.... Not due to *too many bus routes along Springfield*, but due to (what I deem a) misallocation of resources....

Edited February 25, 2023 by B35 via Church

[40 to 241st]

They better put artics on the q50 it would make sense because it will be a select bus service from the bronx serving the airport

[Gotham Bus Co.]

7 hours ago, 40 to 241st said:

They better put artics on the q50 it would make sense because it will be a select bus service from the bronx serving the airport

Does Eastchester have lift capacity for articulateds?

[limitednyc]

When is the final  revision going to be released?

[40 to 241st]

1 hour ago, Gotham Bus Co. said:

Does Eastchester have lift capacity for articulateds?

Honestly as a person that lives in Westchester I don't know the Mta depots or routes that well I've been on the q50 a couple times if thats the only bus in the bronx that will take people to the airport then it would be well used and the q50 does get a little crowded when I'm on it at least. Because the Next Gen's are retiring so that mean if they want to keep 40 footers they will most likely have Nova buses run or the Xd40's  in the bronx if Easchester depot has them 

[xD4nn]

3 hours ago, limitednyc said:

When is the final  revision going to be released?

Apparently this spring but I don't know if the MTA can keep their word.

[40 to 241st]

10 minutes ago, xD4nn said:

Apparently this spring but I don't know if the MTA can keep their word.

Isn't it spring already

[checkmatechamp13]

49 minutes ago, 40 to 241st said:

Isn't it spring already

Knowing them, they probably mean the last day of spring (or the last day of the fourth quarter in June 2023). 

[BrooklynBus]

9 hours ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

Knowing them, they probably mean the last day of spring (or the last day of the fourth quarter in June 2023). 

Didn’t they originally say January?

[Cait Sith]

22 hours ago, BrooklynBus said:

Didn’t they originally say January?

They had no date announced. All that was said was that it'll be released in 2023, no date or month.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Cait Sith

[BrooklynBus]

12 hours ago, Cait Sith said:

They had no date announced. All that was said was that it'll be released in 2023, no date or month.

In January, the former head of the project stated on Facebook he heard it would be released in two weeks. That’s how I got that.