Queens Bus Redesign Discussion Thread

[BrooklynBus]

16 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

Ever think about just how "constrained" their budget is....

I think about it all the time. But the answer isn’t to keep reducing service and driving customers to other modes of travel that further reduces revenue.

There are ways to improve the budget situation that doesn’t have negative effects for bus riders. Why in 16 years have they not merged MTA Bus and NYCT depots giving them more flexibility? Why do buses travel halfway across a borough before they are put in service? Why are there no ads inside buses for the past 50 years that could provide needed revenue. (I remember when every ad space was occupied.) Why is there no state law giving buses the right of way when pulling out of a bus stop to make them go faster and reduce costs. Some buses could save 20 seconds every time they leave a bus stop. 

[B35 via Church]

3 minutes ago, BrooklynBus said:

I think about it all the time. But the answer isn’t to keep reducing service and driving customers to other modes of travel that further reduces revenue.

There are ways to improve the budget situation that doesn’t have negative effects for bus riders. Why in 16 years have they not merged MTA Bus and NYCT depots giving them more flexibility? Why do buses travel halfway across a borough before they are put in service? Why are there no ads inside buses for the past 50 years that could provide needed revenue. (I remember when every ad space was occupied.) Why is there no state law giving buses the right of way when pulling out of a bus stop to make them go faster and reduce costs. Some buses could save 20 seconds every time they leave a bus stop. 

I'm not remotely implicating that their solution is the answer.... Matter of fact, that's not what I was even getting at.

I don't believe they're a] so damn constrained by the budget & b] that's even the main reason they continue to come up with innovative (by that, I mean underhanded) ways to cut bus service....

[BrooklynBus]

18 hours ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

They had a bunch of meetings in May. Where have you been?

Could it be he didn’t know about the meeting because of the MTA’s miserable outreach.

Guess he didn’t know the exact website to go to in order to find out because he didn’t realize he first had to go to “System Modernization” rather than “Planned Service Changes” or a missing direct link to the redesign which was either intentional or incompetence.

Maybe he tried “Public Notices” to find a meeting but nothing was listed. Guess he had to think of going to the old site, searching under “transparency” then “press releases” then scrolling down by date until he found one with the list of workshops. 

But not everyone is that resourceful, so I guess he just gave up. 

[BrooklynBus]

2 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

I'm not remotely implicating that their solution is the answer.... Matter of fact, that's not what I was even getting at.

I don't believe they're a] so damn constrained by the budget & b] that's even the main reason they continue to come up with innovative (by that, I mean underhanded) ways to cut bus service....

They just want to get out of the bus business and put everyone on already overcrowded trains because they cost less to operate per passenger. And also crowd them in even more by providing fewer and fewer seats and reducing service there also to make sure they stay crowded. I remember whenever all crowded subway lines operated with minimum headways from 7 AM to 9 AM. Now they only do that for the peak 30 minutes so the trains remain overcrowded during the shoulder periods which also increases dwell time at stations and makes the trips take longer. 

[Future ENY OP]

22 minutes ago, BrooklynBus said:

I think about it all the time. But the answer isn’t to keep reducing service and driving customers to other modes of travel that further reduces revenue.

There are ways to improve the budget situation that doesn’t have negative effects for bus riders. Why in 16 years have they not merged MTA Bus and NYCT depots giving them more flexibility? Why do buses travel halfway across a borough before they are put in service?
 

Why are there no ads inside buses for the past 50 years that could provide needed revenue. (I remember when every ad space was occupied.)

Why is there no state law giving buses the right of way when pulling out of a bus stop to make them go faster and reduce costs. Some buses could save 20 seconds every time they leave a bus stop. 

Most of the good ads are in Manhattan. That’s their money. Most of the garage is in the outer boroughs. Used to remember buses used to be fully wrapped especially with the Orion V’s from  bus. They need to go back to some fundamentals when it comes to advertising. 
 

To your last point, you have so-called state senators and assembly members who care for transit but really don’t and a governor who babysits this agency to the point to have it restructured smh. 

[B35 via Church]

16 minutes ago, BrooklynBus said:

They just want to get out of the bus business and put everyone on already overcrowded trains because they cost less to operate per passenger. And also crowd them in even more by providing fewer and fewer seats and reducing service there also to make sure they stay crowded. I remember whenever all crowded subway lines operated with minimum headways from 7 AM to 9 AM. Now they only do that for the peak 30 minutes so the trains remain overcrowded during the shoulder periods which also increases dwell time at stations and makes the trips take longer. 

That's more or less what I'm getting at..... (Aim to) force everyone onto the almighty subway by hook or by crook, while (indirectly) making the city's roads more congested than they already are... There's only but so much walking and/or biking that the everyday commuter's going to end up putting up with..... More vehicles on the road traveling at slower speeds is apparently the end goal....

If the MTA was so bogged down with the budget, knowing how this agency gets down, pfft, there would be FAR less buses on the road than there are today.... It's more along the lines of *why spend money when you don't have to*; they want to see how much service they can feasibly get away with axing, without maximally disrupting the public (e.g. - riots)....

It's only but so many pokes bears are going to take....

Edited January 31, 2020 by B35 via Church

[BrooklynBus]

1 hour ago, B35 via Church said:

That's more or less what I'm getting at..... (Aim to) force everyone onto the almighty subway by hook or by crook, while (indirectly) making the city's roads more congested than they already are... There's only but so much walking and/or biking that the everyday commuter's going to end up putting up with..... More vehicles on the road traveling at slower speeds is apparently the end goal....

If the MTA was so bogged down with the budget, knowing how this agency gets down, pfft, there would be FAR less buses on the road than there are today.... It's more along the lines of *why spend money when you don't have to*; they want to see how much service they can feasibly get away with axing, without maximally disrupting the public (e.g. - riots)....

It's only but so many pokes bears are going to take....

I agree, but meanwhile the MTA claims bus ridership is reduced because of slower bus speeds, not because of higher fare evasion. And the speeds were reduced due to the increased congestion, partially because of the lower speed limits that reduces road capacity.

The more dissatisfied the people become with the buses, the higher the fare evasion will become.

They are proposing to eliminate about 70 percent of the bus stops in Queens knowing full well they will have to reinstate 20 percent, to get to the 50 percent they want to eliminate. There is only so much the public will take and this also accounts for the increased attacks of MTA operating personnel which is very unfortunate, because they are only trying to do their job and aren’t even part of this. 

And their solution to the reduced bus speeds is not to increase the speed limits to where they make sense, but to add 20 exclusive bus lanes and ban cars altogether from every major crosstown Street in Manhattan. (One idiot even proposed banning cars from Northern Blvd.) This will only add to congestion and cause more people to use cars to get around. 

[BrooklynBus]

1 hour ago, Future ENY OP said:

Most of the good ads are in Manhattan. That’s their money. Most of the garage is in the outer boroughs. Used to remember buses used to be fully wrapped especially with the Orion V’s from  bus. They need to go back to some fundamentals when it comes to advertising. 
 

To your last point, you have so-called state senators and assembly members who care for transit but really don’t and a governor who babysits this agency to the point to have it restructured smh. 

They could have the ad space in the buses of the outer boroughs also filled if the price and terms and conditions were right for small local business advertisers. They seem to only be interested in internet start ups and big companies. 

[Future ENY OP]

5 minutes ago, BrooklynBus said:

They could have the ad space in the buses of the outer boroughs also filled if the price and terms and conditions were right for small local business advertisers.
 

They seem to only be interested in internet start ups and big companies. 

This is the new   to where everything is limited. 

[BrooklynBus]

5 minutes ago, Future ENY OP said:

This is the new   to where everything is limited. 

Including limited intelligence.

[LTA1992]

The Brooklyn Existing Conditions Report is out.

[Future ENY OP]

11 minutes ago, LTA1992 said:

The Brooklyn Existing Conditions Report is out.

..... oh great.

[Cait Sith]

Many Queens Bus redesign threads(including topics of articles) have been merged into this one thread. Please keep any type of Queens Bus Redesign topic or article in this one thread.

 

-WHOOPS, made a mistake, ignore the first several pages, I'm fixing that now.

Edited January 31, 2020 by Cait Sith

[Lawrence St]

7 minutes ago, Cait Sith said:

Many Queens Bus redesign threads(including topics of articles) have been merged into this one thread. Please keep any type of Queens Bus Redesign topic or article in this one thread.

 

-WHOOPS, made a mistake, ignore the first several pages, I'm fixing that now.

I think you merged the SBS discussion by accident lmao.

[Cait Sith]

2 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

I think you merged the SBS discussion by accident lmao.

Yeah, I goofed up just like they did with the redesign😅

Almost done lol.

[Cait Sith]

Okay, everything has been fixed, discussions can resume now. As said before, many Queens Bus redesign threads(including topics of articles) have been merged into this one thread in an effort to reduce clutter in the bus section. Please keep any type of Queens Bus Redesign topic or article in this one thread.

If there is a topic that you think needs to be of its own thread, shoot me an inbox.

The SBS thread will be restored soon. If not, once an announcement of a new SBS route is made, a new thread will be pinned.

I need to put my glasses on the next time I do this.

Edited January 31, 2020 by Cait Sith

[B35 via Church]

1 hour ago, Cait Sith said:

Yeah, I goofed up just like they did with the redesign😅

42 minutes ago, Cait Sith said:

Okay, everything has been fixed, discussions can resume now. As said before, many Queens Bus redesign threads(including topics of articles) have been merged into this one thread in an effort to reduce clutter in the bus section. Please keep any type of Queens Bus Redesign topic or article in this one thread.

If there is a topic that you think needs to be of its own thread, shoot me an inbox.

The SBS thread will be restored soon. If not, once an announcement of a new SBS route is made, a new thread will be pinned.

I need to put my glasses on the next time I do this.

At least you rectified your mistake to levels greater than that of satisfactory.... OTOH, I'm not holding my breath for that to happen with the Queens redesign... You & I both know that the MTA needs more than glasses to have that happen....

Put it to you this way... The scarecrow has more upstairs than this frickin agency does.....

 

[Lawrence St]

2 hours ago, Cait Sith said:

Okay, everything has been fixed, discussions can resume now. As said before, many Queens Bus redesign threads(including topics of articles) have been merged into this one thread in an effort to reduce clutter in the bus section. Please keep any type of Queens Bus Redesign topic or article in this one thread.

If there is a topic that you think needs to be of its own thread, shoot me an inbox.

The SBS thread will be restored soon. If not, once an announcement of a new SBS route is made, a new thread will be pinned.

I need to put my glasses on the next time I do this.

Great now I need glasses to read that last sentence 😛

Edited February 1, 2020 by Lawrence St

[checkmatechamp13]

9 hours ago, BrooklynBus said:

Could it be he didn’t know about the meeting because of the MTA’s miserable outreach.

Guess he didn’t know the exact website to go to in order to find out because he didn’t realize he first had to go to “System Modernization” rather than “Planned Service Changes” or a missing direct link to the redesign which was either intentional or incompetence.

Maybe he tried “Public Notices” to find a meeting but nothing was listed. Guess he had to think of going to the old site, searching under “transparency” then “press releases” then scrolling down by date until he found one with the list of workshops. 

But not everyone is that resourceful, so I guess he just gave up. 

Sure, I would agree with you if he were just some regular passenger, but he has been on this transit forum for years and should have no excuse as to why he didn't know about the meetings held in the Spring of 2019.

[N6 Limited]

11 hours ago, BrooklynBus said:

I agree, but meanwhile the MTA claims bus ridership is reduced because of slower bus speeds, not because of higher fare evasion. And the speeds were reduced due to the increased congestion, partially because of the lower speed limits that reduces road capacity.

The more dissatisfied the people become with the buses, the higher the fare evasion will become.

They are proposing to eliminate about 70 percent of the bus stops in Queens knowing full well they will have to reinstate 20 percent, to get to the 50 percent they want to eliminate. There is only so much the public will take and this also accounts for the increased attacks of MTA operating personnel which is very unfortunate, because they are only trying to do their job and aren’t even part of this. 

And their solution to the reduced bus speeds is not to increase the speed limits to where they make sense, but to add 20 exclusive bus lanes and ban cars altogether from every major crosstown Street in Manhattan. (One idiot even proposed banning cars from Northern Blvd.) This will only add to congestion and cause more people to use cars to get around. 

I was just grumbling about this earlier, 25MPH is entirely too slow. I was driving down Springfield Blvd, and right around Merrick Blvd I was stopped by 3 signals in a row, and they wonder why bus speeds are slowing down? It's bad enough you now have cars competing on who can go the slowest, but to have signals intentionally out of sync just adds nuisance. 

[bobtehpanda]

23 hours ago, BrooklynBus said:

They could have the ad space in the buses of the outer boroughs also filled if the price and terms and conditions were right for small local business advertisers. They seem to only be interested in internet start ups and big companies. 

Would that even pay for the labor cost of putting in ads?

[Cain]

On 1/28/2020 at 11:39 PM, jaf0519 said:

The only SBS lines in Queens will be the M60, QT44, QT52, and QT70. The QT1-7, QT13, and QT50 will all be limited stop routes. The prurple routes will act as the kind of as the Inter-County express buses act in Westchester, taking people from a neighborhood to a high demand destination like the subway. Both the green and red routes are local, with the red being more major corridors with high frequency and slightly further stop spacing, and green being more infrequent with more stops. SBS will most likely be phased out by the time OMNY is fully implemented, since OMNY should be quicker than the Metrocard is now, combined with all door boarding, even though i disagree with that part of the plan.

Thanks for this - as for the last part, that would be disheartening. I feel NYC would be better served if it had BRT like service in the city - especially in the outer boroughs.

Out of curiosity, would the MTA add more articulated buses to these "straightened" routes? Some of these lines could be better served with more capacity per bus.

[BrooklynBus]

10 minutes ago, Cain said:

Thanks for this - as for the last part, that would be disheartening. I feel NYC would be better served if it had BRT like service in the city - especially in the outer boroughs.

Out of curiosity, would the MTA add more articulated buses to these "straightened" routes? Some of these lines could be better served with more capacity per bus.

But when the MTA puts in artics with more capacity, they also reduce service to compensate so the buses stay just as crowded. 

 

Edited February 1, 2020 by BrooklynBus

[BrooklynBus]

31 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

Would that even pay for the labor cost of putting in ads?

The term of the ads used to be every three months which if it still is would be reasonable in terms of labor costs. I think the problem is the minimum number of buses you have to advertise in. A chain store or internet company could advertise in every bus in the city. But that wouldn’t make sense for a local business with a smaller audience that perhaps would only want to advertise on buses in a single depot. I don’t believe the MTA lets you advertise by depot which is why local businesses would not be interested in advertising in every bus in the city. Also, the rates they are asking are probably too high since no one wants to advertise inside the buses anymore. 

 

[Cain]

4 minutes ago, BrooklynBus said:

But when the MTA puts in artics with more capacity, they also reduce service to compensate so the buses stay just as crowded. 

That is a shame... although with all of the cuts they are proposing in the Queens Redesign, would that mean I would expect Artics?

I have ridden the artics on the Q53 and Q44 SBS routes and it is a thing of beauty when it flies down the bus lane while passing by cars in traffic...