The Redesigns Are Back On

[dkupf]

9 hours ago, BrooklynBus said:

I don’t believe the MTA would lose money on this concept. Around 85 percent of the riders have their trips separated by about five hours, so we are talking about a small percentage of riders....

In the MTA's view 15 percent is significant enough not to change it.

I think that the time limit should be 2 hours if the first bus is an express bus.  Otherwise, it should be 90 minutes.

[Mtatransit]

1 hour ago, dkupf said:

I think that the time limit should be 2 hours if the first bus is an express bus.  Otherwise, it should be 90 minutes.

You are cutting it very close with 90 minutes, especially for outer borough residents. There are many living in Eastern Queens or Southern Brooklyn, who would run the risk of having their transfer expire before they reach the subway.

Even worse is coming back from Manhattan, you have a delay on the  and now you can kiss your transfer goodbye at Jamaica.

The current 2 hour 18 minute (officially 2 hours) transfer rule I think is fair enough and shouldn't be modified.

 

On Staten Island, the ferry alone takes 25 minutes (on a good day). The margin of error is very small. Miss the ferry? Train Delay? Bus Delay? Waiting extra long for the bus? You may need to pay a second fare

 

Not related but on a side note, NYC Ferry have a St George-Midtown fast ferry route now. 30 minutes from St George to Midtown is incredible!

Edited August 25, 2021 by Mtatransit

[dkupf]

19 minutes ago, Mtatransit said:

You are cutting it very close with 90 minutes, especially for outer borough residents. There are many living in Eastern Queens or Southern Brooklyn, who would run the risk of having their transfer expire before they reach the subway.

Even worse is coming back from Manhattan, you have a delay on the  and now you can kiss your transfer goodbye at Jamaica.

The current 2 hour 18 minute (officially 2 hours) transfer rule I think is fair enough and shouldn't be modified.

 

On Staten Island, the ferry alone takes 25 minutes (on a good day). The margin of error is very small. Miss the ferry? Train Delay? Bus Delay? Waiting extra long for the bus? You may need to pay a second fare

 

Not related but on a side note, NYC Ferry have a St George-Midtown fast ferry route now. 30 minutes from St George to Midtown is incredible!

Then, two hours it is.

[Gotham Bus Co.]

6 hours ago, Mtatransit said:

The current 2 hour 18 minute (officially 2 hours) transfer rule I think is fair enough and shouldn't be modified.

 

Since the transfer window is already 2:18 , or 2.3 hours (unofficially), it can be extended to 2.5 hours officially without much impact.

[Future ENY OP]

7 hours ago, Mtatransit said:

You are cutting it very close with 90 minutes, especially for outer borough residents. There are many living in Eastern Queens or Southern Brooklyn, who would run the risk of having their transfer expire before they reach the subway.

Even worse is coming back from Manhattan, you have a delay on the  and now you can kiss your transfer goodbye at Jamaica.

The current 2 hour 18 minute (officially 2 hours) transfer rule I think is fair enough and shouldn't be modified.

 

On Staten Island, the ferry alone takes 25 minutes (on a good day). The margin of error is very small. Miss the ferry? Train Delay? Bus Delay? Waiting extra long for the bus? You may need to pay a second fare

 

Not related but on a side note, NYC Ferry have a St George-Midtown fast ferry route now. 30 minutes from St George to Midtown is incredible!

Coney Island is next for NYC Ferry..

Personally, I think a 2.5 hour window should be appropriate especially for commuters who live outside transit outskirts.

I just moved to Southeast Brooklyn from Central Brooklyn and I really see the difference. The   train is horrible. Bus lines are even worse.

I'm starting to understand what people in Sheepshead Bay and Midwood go thru to get decent bus and train service and I hope with the Brooklyn bus re-design plan they address the Sheepshead Bay and Midwood issues.

[BrooklynBus]

On 8/18/2021 at 2:18 PM, paulrivera said:

It is, but it also isn't. The freeloaders aren't counted in the Metrocard data, and if they don't count the data from the passenger counter sensors (going back to the point you were making) some routes are gonna get hosed.

The Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island come to mind for me as far as farebeaters. The Bronx and SI doesn't get screwed around with as much because Co-op City and Riverdale are politically well connected, and SI as a whole are very vocal. Brooklyn.... not so much.

The props up Manhattan service pretty well so I'm not as concerned about them (in Midtown at least), and Queens I'm not sure.

Just look at the B46 SBS. Fare beating is so great that ridership has declined each year since it was introduced in 2016, so they keep cutting service and ridership further declines. It is so bad, that they never issued any progress reports because they couldn’t even lie with the statistics to find something good to say like they did with the B44 SBS.

On that route, no progress report was issued the first year because ridership declined. Then they increased service on the local because of all the complaints. The progress report was issued after the second year in 2015 and the SBS was hailed as a success with ridership up by 10 percent. They figured no one would read the fine print which stated that total ridership on the entire route (SBS and local) was actually down by 2%. You can’t evaluate success by only looking at the SBS portion and ignoring the local. 

[Future ENY OP]

32 minutes ago, BrooklynBus said:

Just look at the B46 SBS. Fare beating is so great that ridership has declined each year since it was introduced in 2016, so they keep cutting service and ridership further declines. It is so bad, that they never issued any progress reports because they couldn’t even lie with the statistics to find something good to say like they did with the B44 SBS.

On that route, no progress report was issued the first year because ridership declined. Then they increased service on the local because of all the complaints. The progress report was issued after the second year in 2015 and the SBS was hailed as a success with ridership up by 10 percent. They figured no one would read the fine print which stated that total ridership on the entire route (SBS and local) was actually down by 2%. You can’t evaluate success by only looking at the SBS portion and ignoring the local. 

Even still with this statement the still claims that the B46 has top 10 ridership.

Always good to read the fine print of any document, including the .

[BrooklynBus]

In the 1950s, the top ten was the B41, B35, B46, B44 in that order. So the B46 has dropped consistently. Also, believe it or not, the B2 was also in the top ten. I am proud to say that my B1 is like number 7. The routes it replaced were all in the bottom 50 percent. 

[B35 via Church]

9 hours ago, Future ENY OP said:

Even still with this statement the still claims that the B46 has top 10 ridership.

Always good to read the fine print of any document, including the .

Living around here, I often think about how far the B46 has fallen (including during the ride this past Saturday when I took it home from WBP)... Along Utica, I've never seen so many near (or literally) empty buses arriving at Church av. (from either direction) ever since the B46 SBS became a thing.... Growing up in the 80's & 90's, that just wasn't happening... And on top of it, in terms of traffic, Utica av. was nightmarish.... Well worse than at Flatbush/Church even.... Gridlock would sometimes occur at Linden during the PM rush; I remember days where it would take almost an hour to get from the to Church (I would gun for the locals... weren't getting involved in those shoving/bumping matched to get on the LTD)... All this, and buses would still be packed to the gills (again, either direction)...

...the days where even the LTD's from WBP during peak periods would take about 90 mins. from end to end, they were so delayed... The Broadway portion of the B46 took a major hit, usage-wise; if not for that area around Woodhull (Thornton, Flushing stops), you're going to notice straggler level ridership for that stretch of the route (SB specifically I'm speaking... WBP bound is actually worse)... Crazy to see the Myrtle av. stop not garnering nearly as many ppl. as it used to... There has been numerous times in recent years where a B46 ride I was on, picked up less than a handful of people before it turned off Broadway onto Malcolm X...

Gentrification can only be blamed but for so much..... The long story short is that the B46 has been decimated, by design, under the guise of improving service...

Disgusting.

[dkupf]

2 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

Living around here, I often think about how far the B46 has fallen (including during the ride this past Saturday when I took it home from WBP)... Along Utica, I've never seen so many near (or literally) empty buses arriving at Church av. (from either direction) ever since the B46 SBS became a thing.... Growing up in the 80's & 90's, that just wasn't happening... And on top of it, in terms of traffic, Utica av. was nightmarish.... Well worse than at Flatbush/Church even.... Gridlock would sometimes occur at Linden during the PM rush; I remember days where it would take almost an hour to get from the to Church (I would gun for the locals... weren't getting involved in those shoving/bumping matched to get on the LTD)... All this, and buses would still be packed to the gills (again, either direction)...

...the days where even the LTD's from WBP during peak periods would take about 90 mins. from end to end, they were so delayed... The Broadway portion of the B46 took a major hit, usage-wise; if not for that area around Woodhull (Thornton, Flushing stops), you're going to notice straggler level ridership for that stretch of the route (SB specifically I'm speaking... WBP bound is actually worse)... Crazy to see the Myrtle av. stop not garnering nearly as many ppl. as it used to... There has been numerous times in recent years where a B46 ride I was on, picked up less than a handful of people before it turned off Broadway onto Malcolm X...

Gentrification can only be blamed but for so much..... The long story short is that the B46 has been decimated, by design, under the guise of improving service...

Disgusting.

Further proof that SBS in the outer boroughs have been a failure.  I think that the jury is still out for Manhattan.  What say you?

[BrooklynBus]

4 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

Living around here, I often think about how far the B46 has fallen (including during the ride this past Saturday when I took it home from WBP)... Along Utica, I've never seen so many near (or literally) empty buses arriving at Church av. (from either direction) ever since the B46 SBS became a thing.... Growing up in the 80's & 90's, that just wasn't happening... And on top of it, in terms of traffic, Utica av. was nightmarish.... Well worse than at Flatbush/Church even.... Gridlock would sometimes occur at Linden during the PM rush; I remember days where it would take almost an hour to get from the to Church (I would gun for the locals... weren't getting involved in those shoving/bumping matched to get on the LTD)... All this, and buses would still be packed to the gills (again, either direction)...

...the days where even the LTD's from WBP during peak periods would take about 90 mins. from end to end, they were so delayed... The Broadway portion of the B46 took a major hit, usage-wise; if not for that area around Woodhull (Thornton, Flushing stops), you're going to notice straggler level ridership for that stretch of the route (SB specifically I'm speaking... WBP bound is actually worse)... Crazy to see the Myrtle av. stop not garnering nearly as many ppl. as it used to... There has been numerous times in recent years where a B46 ride I was on, picked up less than a handful of people before it turned off Broadway onto Malcolm X...

Gentrification can only be blamed but for so much..... The long story short is that the B46 has been decimated, by design, under the guise of improving service...

Disgusting.

I lived right by the B46 in the 50s and 60s and watched it everyday. The rush hour scheduled service was every two minutes and midday it was every 10 minutes. Late evenings it became 15 and 20 throughout the night. Except in rush hours, the buses never ran every two minutes. It was four buses every 8 minutes. 

The rest of the day the schedule pretty much worked because most buses did not run the entire route from Avenue N to WB. Half the buses ran between Kings Highway and DeKalb. In the early 50s, only about 80 percent of the buses made those types of trips. A few from Avenue N terminated at Fulton St. There also were four buses that ran from the WB to Church Avenue turning using E 48 St to Snyder which is what the Reid Avenue trolley used to do before it merged with Utica Avenue trolley which started at Broadway. In rush hours six buses ran between Kings Highway and St Johns Place, but were signed Eastern Parkway. They operated    only in the peak direction with passengers. In the mornings, the used Schenectady to ENY Avenue southbound. They made it down the hill in under five minutes. N Utica, it took up to 15 minutes. So the buses saved like 20 minutes by not making any stops. It was a very efficient source of resources. In the PM rush hour, there was a TA employee with a fare box on the sidewalk outside the ENY Savings Bank at Eastern Parkway who let half the riders board through the rear door. That saved each bus five minutes because the drivers used to have to give change before exact fare started in 1969. So the bus stayed at the stop about three minutes instead of eight minutes. There was also No parking between President Street and Eastern Parkway 7 to 10 AM northbound, which saved buses five minutes on days no one blocked the lane which was about half the time. 

They knew how to run the buses back then. Now with SBS, and bus lanes it is much more inefficient and worse. 

[checkmatechamp13]

2 hours ago, dkupf said:

Further proof that SBS in the outer boroughs have been a failure.  I think that the jury is still out for Manhattan.  What say you?

The S79 and Bx41 were major successes in all aspects. For the other routes, some were implemented better than others and thus had different results.

[BrooklynBus]

11 hours ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

The S79 and Bx41 were major successes in all aspects. For the other routes, some were implemented better than others and thus had different results.

The worst disaster was the B46.

[Future ENY OP]

I don't be the bearer of bad news but the REDESIGN PROJECT IS SUSPENDED YET AGAIN UNTIL 2026.....

Per this AM NY Article: https://www.amny.com/transit/bus-network-redesign-2026/#.YT5uBVCW45M.twitter

Source: AM New York

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

1 hour ago, Future ENY OP said:

I don't be the bearer of bad news but the REDESIGN PROJECT IS SUSPENDED YET AGAIN UNTIL 2026.....

Per this AM NY Article: https://www.amny.com/transit/bus-network-redesign-2026/#.YT5uBVCW45M.twitter

Source: AM New York

It's not suspended, it's when they believe they'll be done with redesigning all boroughs. They were initially proposed to all be redesigned by this year.

[Gotham Bus Co.]

7 hours ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

It's not suspended, it's when they believe they'll be done with redesigning all boroughs. They were initially proposed to all be redesigned by this year.

 

In other words, 2026 is the new ending date, not the new starting date.