The Express buses between Manhattan and the Bronx also rarely run on time and can take 1.5 hours to go 9 miles But let's talk about pricing. At 6,50 per ride more than double the price if the subway - the
cost round-trip is $13/day with no option for a monthly discount. How about offering a discounted unlimited or regular card or simply lowering the cost to an affordable rate.
7
The commuters from Princes Bay and Eltingville could shave at least half an hour from their onerous commute by taking the Staten Island Railway, the SI Ferry, and subways in Manhàttan, and would save a few cents each trip, too.
I was born and raised on Staten Island, when express buses were a new phenomenon. I commuted for four years from Staten Island to Manhattan for high school. Bus to the ferry, the ferry, then two subways in Manhattan done in 100 minutes each way.
6
This is Comrade DeBlasio's New York running at 100% efficiency. He does not get to the office until his mid morning WMCA workout in Brooklyn, and his buttered croissant and iced decaf break at his favorite bakery. Why should you complain? You get to work sooner than him?
7
The schedule said 2 hours and 33 minutes and it was a few minutes longer? No way. Insane. What a crisis.
4
Three hours Staten Island to Manhattan? I only takes three hours to go from Madrid to Valencia, 40 minutes Madrid to Toledo.
Buses are the least efficient form of public transportation.
2
As a Manhattan bus rider - I have one simple suggestion. Do NOT allow parking on the streets that are bus routes. Madison Avenue between 7am-7pm each weekday - is little more than a slow moving parking lot. The same can said of all the cross-town buses. We cannot make our streets wider so make them more efficient. Allow loading and unloading for stores but not parking. I do not understand why this hasn't been implemented. It seems so logical.
13
In New York City there is always the question, "why are we here? Why not go somewhere else?"
It's a question that has as more answers than there are people in the city, because the answers are all about the connections people have, and that's a lot more than one each.
But those connections depend on transit -- people pay exorbitant rent to live in relative squalor, put up with all the indignities, for the face-to-face.
If transit becomes unbearable the city will die, and it seems to be halfway there.
6
the bus system needs to include rail - as one of many who gave up years ago - i previously drove to a rail station in NJ ( yes, New Jersey) and got to Manhattan quicker for less money - some the Staten Island buses - could do the same versus driving to the Atlantic Avenue station where a large number of subway lines converge. Barclays should of included a bus station underneath it - ( yes, i know the LIRR is in the basement. )
It takes over an hour to travel by car or express bus 10 miles in the Seattle area during morning and evening commute times. Plus there is always an accident, multiple ones. I can’t call it rush hour, it’s a crawl and lasts almost all day long. No matter how bad the commute seems to be getting in the Tri-State area, it is light years ahead of here. As a former New Yorker, the main reason I’ve been in despair is because I am still stuck in Seattle.
6
I used to work on the upper east side (70th and 3rd) and took the M98 bus home each night to Washington Heights. One evening, in perfectly fine weather in the middle of the summer, I left work at 5:15 and *returned home at 9:00 pm*.
In Manhattan.
Let that sink in for a while.
9
It has taken me nearly an hour to travel a mile on a bus in Manhattan. So the Staten Island bus times actually sound not too bad to me.
5
Why does the obvious need to be stated in this article? When buses and cars don't work, you need trains.
There is no bridge train or subway tunnel over the (Verazzano) Narrows. What foolishness.
7
@keithwwalker - Pay for it and you can charge your own fee.
2
@keithwwalker - And you are going to fund this venture and build it? Good Luck -Here's your sign!
1
In the meantime commuters in Japan and China ride high speed rail and maglev trains. What has happened to America? We used to be cutting edge on commuter transportation and other technologies. There hasn’t been a major nationwide transportation project since the Eisenhower highway system built in the 1950’s-60’s. It is ironic that it is Eisenhower who warned us of the military industrial complex. That’s because all the money that should have been spent on infrastructure in this country has been spent on our military. Half of the national budget is defense. And half of the defense budget is fuel. And yet our infrastructure is crumbling. Citizens have turned to TV and then the internet for constant entertainment instead of being responsible citizens and learning about how our political system works and to be involved. Nothing is more important in the long run. Yet that is exactly what the status quo establishment wants. I’m ashamed to be an American anymore because my fellow citizens are more concerned with the Kardashians than with voting in primary and general elections. What is it going to take to wake people up? A complete economic collapse?
22
@Mike L - Yeah, you are ranting about being on a bus in one of the busiest cities in the world? 30 minutes overdue is not bad. Blame the management planning that went into this 'express route'.
I'm ashamed of you.
1
Renegadepriest, just wondering, how’s your commute to work? Do you have one?
1
@John Murphy - My commute is very pleasant because I commute to work before dawn unlike the entitled who show up at 9AM.
A bus that holds 57 passengers makes 66 stops before heading to Manhattan? Before you ask, all the stops in the outerboroughs are either pickups or drop offs, depending on the direction.
4
I would suggest that the MTA hire a former bus driver who has a distinguished track record of excellent management skills, proven fiscal responsibility, and strong executive abilities to handle this task: Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's answer to Ralph Kramden
5
An efficient way to enforce double parking and obstruction of bus lanes is to have a parking officer ride the next bus on a route. When an offender is found, the officer gets off the bus and writes the ticket immediately. The original bus goes on and the officer gets on the next bus to repeat the process. I think the bus drivers will support this process.
When there is a certainty of a ticket much of the problem will go away.
18
I have never lived in NYC, but have lived in many major cities including Houston, LA, London, Jakarta, Mumbai among others.
And now, I am living in Bogota - so, I was surprised to read a comment below about it's mass transit.
The writer is right on the money - it is exceptionally efficient along main and trunk lines. It's universally called "Transmilenio". It has dedicated lanes and few stops. From airport to downtown - a distance of some 15 plus miles - it has no more than six or so stops.
Buses are designed with wide doors for ingress and outflow. It also has a feeder system where folks are delivered and picked up at these Transmilenio stops - all inclusive fare. There is a "green" tarriffs card that you can top up as you use up credit. Any journey is a flat 2,100 pesos (about $1).
I have now traveled to all major cities in Colombia - they have reproduced Bogota everywhere and every efficient. And even for locals - it is cost effective.
Jakarta has a similar system - but as crowded as the city is and they started late - not so good as here in Bogota.
No mass transit is ever good - London's much vaunted tube system can never keep up.
Folks need to compromise - and more important, learn to walk.
10
So you think New Yorkers should learn to walk? Arrogant and smug. Also probably young and in good health.
Many New Yorkers are mobility-impaired from age, handicapping conditions, or other reasons. Your comment does not take this under consideration. I applaud the idea of feeder shuttles for bus patrons like the senior pharmacist whose bus stop moved abruptly 18 blocks away. It’s a service our perpetually tone-deaf MTA should consider.
In the meantime, start cultivating a little awareness, smug boy. And
consider this: the word ‘bus’ is short for the Latin ‘omnibus.’ It means ‘FOR ALL.’
7
Ironic, when I ran in the NYC marathon it took me, on foot, only slightly more than 4 hours, and many runners finished the marathon in under 3 hours!
2
@billyen1 - yes and all the streets were closed except for Marathon - no comparison!
Here's your sign!
5
There's nothing "Express " about a bus that makes 85 stops.
Chargers and padded seats don't make for a shorter , nausea free ride.
It's an hour and a half to midtown.
It always has been, always will be.
9
Too many Uber and Lyft drivers on the road adding to traffic congestion... When will cities understand the "ride sharing' con game? Oh, and don't forget the added air pollution, traffic accidents, wear and tear on our already crumbling roads/highways...
14
“When people’s eyebrows go up, we tell them you could fly to Florida in less time,”
Not really. You'd have to first drive to the airport, park and be there two hours before.
The bus was less than 30 minutes late: not as extravagant as the headline lead us to think. Everybody knows that NY traffic is bad. I live in a relatively very small city and I've had buses be consistently late on tiny routes compared to this one. For a long time, I took a bus that was 10-minutes to downtown and it was nearly always late (about 5-10 minutes) so my commute time was unreliable and long, and I was waiting outside. I had to plan to take an earlier bus to be sure I was on time. Public transportation has its perks and its downside. Until public transportation is given respect over individual cars it will not change.
5
This is what happens when the needs and prosperity of the less fortunate are completely subsumed by the desires of the wealthy and privileged.
Insufficient public services breed misery and contempt.
25
All the complaints about buses. What I would love to keep to see is a system of aerial trams.
Less expensive infrastructure, faster to implement, not affected by road traffic...
5
Or flying unicorns, while you’re dreaming....
9
Catapults are the answer. Big ones!!! Imagine flying over the congestion and landing splat on the side of your building. Maximum trip to destination about 45 seconds! Critics might suggest the mode of transportation is simply substituting one form of pain for another, but even the worst critics would have to concede the travel times are much improved.
7
These buses don’t have bathroom either, right?
4
Buy a car.
1
@There and spend money and or time looking for parking
4
Bus is a dumb , old idea. NYC should have done above ground light rail similar to SF, Boston. It would work great on the main crosstown streets to start off with for sure, I can walk faster than the 96 th street crosstown any day.
6
A) Hike up fees for cars/trucks entering Manhattan. B) Remove street parking on Midtown streets. C) As in other cities, allow for neighborhood parking for those who have neighborhood parking stickers.
8
The Greyhound lines at NY Port Authority are habitually late (nearly on a daily basis for points south and west of NYC such as Atlantic City, Philadelphia, Alexandria and DC). For the past 1.5 years, I have taken a Greyhound at least once a week since 2016 and each time I arrive at the gate, there is a line that bends around the corner where passengers have been standing for 1-3 hours. For some commuters that depend on public transportation this is unacceptable, especially when it is chronic and has been ongoing for nearly two years!!! When Greyhound staff is asked about the reason for the constant lateness, their response is something along the lines of "not enough drivers" and "no one communicated to the dispatcher about the bus". Being 30 minutes late is not OK, though bearable and understandable given the congestion at the bridges and tunnels. But 2 HOURS, which is now the norm with Greyhound, is not. This DAILY lateness is almost unheard of in cities outside of NYC.
4
85 stops is considered 'Express'?? And let me guess.... no SBS service, or pre-paid boarding allowed? Everyone must board, single file, through the front door?...insert their card, wait for it to be spitted back out, wash/rinse/repeat for anywhere from 2-30 passengers or so, at each of the 85 stops? If that ain't government-sanctioned slow torture, then I don't know what is.
1) We must implement pre-paid boarding at ALL stops, on ALL bus lines.
2) ALL doors should automatically open at ALL stops.
3) There must be clear, audible announcements of the bus stop names, and info on nearby subway connections, all the time, on all bus lines. (This is especially needed for riders who are not familiar with the particular bus route, for tourists, and even for locals riding the bus at night, during the rain, etc., and when bus stops/locations are NOT readily visible.
4) More dedicated bus lanes.
5) The DoT needs to start severely fining private cars which double-park with complete abandon, on many of the main thoroughfares in the outer boroughs, and where MTA buses travel (i.e., Steinway Street in Astoria, Myrtle Ave. in Ridgewood, etc.) The DoT also needs to fine private cars that sit idling in MTA bus stops, even while they see a bus pull up right beside them in the middle of the street.
6) If we want to consider ourselves a 'first world' country, we need to start acting like it.
15
@Lisa, Where do you think you are? Europe? Won't happen here, ever.
4
@Chris - Entitlement for sure!
We didn't invest in our public transportation, but invested to save the auto industry.
12
Live within walking distance to work.
3
@M Sometimes the world is more complicated than that.
8
@M - Or at least live on a bus route that does not make 60 plus stops. People have to live defensively these days, life is too crazy-making otherwise. Staten Island is the "isolated outpost" of NYC and it really doesn't make sense to live there and work somewhere else.
1
You obviously don’t know New York.
With the slavishly eager assistance of the NYS Assembly, real estate bosses have for decades stolen all convenient midtown locations. Most New Yorkers CANNOT LIVE within walking distance of their jobs. Heck, most New Yorkers can’t afford to live in the same borough as your job(know what a borough is? I didn’t think so).
So don’t shoot your mouth off, Mr/Ms Facile Solution, unless you have actual knowledge or experience about matters under discussion.
12
"Mr. Orcutt said riders increasingly have more options, including Ubers and bikes, while telecommuting and online shopping has also cut into ridership."
Indeed, there are two main ways to handle emerging trends (bikes excluded). The first is fighting the trends themselves so that consumers are funneled back towards aging systems. The second is to improve aging systems so that they remain a viable option for consumers. It is good to see some cities paying attention to the latter.
Call it what you want, tech is not going away anytime soon. It mus be responsibly regulated, to protect workers, consumers, quality of life, etc., but trying to actually stop it is pointless. If NYC and other cities want to address congestion they should continue doing what this article describes: examine their own systems.
Buses, trains and taxis were in trouble before Uber/Lyft came around. Perhaps medallion owners and industry insiders were doing alright, but the systems themselves were inadequate. It was government complacency that created the void into which private companies stepped.
Consider, for instance, the tunnels under the Hudson River. They are still not being adequately maintained/upgraded. The mandated resiliency upgrades to train signals are behind schedule on most lines. These are the kinds of major arteries and that need attention. If that sounds expensive to anyone, know that the price of a failure of critical infrastructure is immeasurably worse.
7
Over the past 8 years, some longtime Manhattan bus routes have been changed/cut, making them close to useless.
A recent example, the M5 which traditionally ran north-south from Harlem to South Ferry.
In January 2018, the M5 was split into two segments - M5 and M55 - which end/start in midtown 34-40th Street.
So no longer possible to take a bus from let's say 72nd Street or 66th Street to 14th Street. Or vice versa.
To have to transfer in midtown adds a minimum 15-30 minutes to the ride. Plus means another fare if needing to go crosstown.
Ridership will decrease - and so there will be calls to reduce bus service even further.
In the meantime apparently the bicycle infrastructure gets expanded.
5
@LS, a transfer from any one NYC bus or subway to another bus or subway within a fairly generous time frame does not require an additional fare. Free transfers using a Metrocard became the rule late in the last century.
That said, I take your more general point about the M5 and M55.
3
@carol goldstein
Yes the free transfer is a relatively "recent" addition.
The issue here is that with a now split route, the transfer may end up being used to "transfer" from the M5 to M55 or vice versa. No longer possible to use the transfer on a crosstown bus.
American cities are built for the Automobile. NY Metro area is 13,318 square miles. No public transport system, bus, train or subway can possibly cover that and get you to where you want to go in a reasonable amount of time. There is a reason that the NYC bus schedule and the subway lines are a century old, it stopped making sense to add to them around that time. The politicians who claim that they can fix the unfixable by tinkering with the routes and the schedule are just talking pie in the sky nonsense. Those who hanker for the British, French, Swiss or German public transportation should also consider the shoeboxes they are willing to live in. Americans want to live large and must pay the price for that!
6
A city bus can accommodate one or sometimes two wheelchairs. The bus stops, the ramp goes down, the wheelchair user jockeys the chair into place, the driver has to get up from her seat and strap in the wheelchair. All of this gets repeated in reverse when the wheelchair user wants to leave the bus. One of the many reasons that bus travel can be excruciatingly slow. The driver cannot take fares from the other boarding passengers until she has accommodated the wheelchair user.
Under the rules for the LA Metro system, an ambulatory person can be asked -- but not forced -- to move out of the seats where the wheelchairs are secured. More delays if the ambulatory person wants to argue with the driver and not move. (Which happens rarely, but it does happen.)
Also, in my unscientific observations, bus riders seem to have worse manners than train passengers, more bickering, more threatening language. Another reason to avoid the bus.
6
For NYC to renovate and rebuild its mass transit system and do what is necessary - everything from building dedicated bus-only lanes to reconstruction of subway lines and stations to construction of new ferry terminals - would mean an investment of hundreds of billions of dollars and the timetable would stretch for 10-20 years or more. City income taxes would have be perhaps doubled, state income taxes raised significantly (good luck getting Albany to go along) along with begging for cash from Uncle Sam (good luck getting Washington to go along).
I agree with the many comments here about the need to invest real money into NYC mass transit, but we all know that if the gargantuan bill for a necessary reconstruction were ever presented to the public, both taxpayers and politicians would pass out from shock and then resist paying for any of it. That's the reality.
5
I saw no mention of data being used for route planning. In Moscow all buses were equipped with GPS trackers, all major wireless carriers provided the city with petabytes of data on how citizens move each day, transportation dept. installed thousands of wireless traffic counting devices on the light posts - and only then they have overhauled the entire bus and tram network at once. Oh, and they have added 39% more buses + dedicated bus lanes. Google "new Magistral surface transport network Moscow". Changing the system route by route is dumb, you need to go bold to fix the transportation system in a meaningful way.
14
Why are you taking a bus from Staten Island to Midtown? There's a ferry that runs every 30 minutes.
4
@Andy, it’s a 40 minute bus ride for me to get to the ferry, then a half hour boat ride, then a 15 minute subway ride. And that’s why I take the express bus.
8
@Rls
85 minutes isn't a great commute, but it's more than twice as fast as the bus route discussed in the article and it's certainly manageable.
Switching would save 2-3 hours per day, which is a huge amount of time.
1
NYC traffic is in crisis and receives no oversight or enforcement support from NYPD, we are the only city around the world that I've visited, or lived in, where on a daily basis cars blatantly running through red lights, intersection blocking/blocking the box, double and triple parking, and speeding on residential streets. As many have mentioned, there are consistent trouble spots and yet the Dept of Transportation does nothing about it.
Examples: Streets leading into the Midtown Tunnel daily. Rush Hour on 9th Ave between 55th and 35th Streets leading into Lincoln Tunnel-especially on Thursday & Friday's in the summer. At every intersection, vehicles block the box creating traffic jams and horn symphonies throughout Hell's Kitchen. When an ambulance needs to get down 9th Avenue during this time of day, sirens for 30 minutes while they creep from block to block. Do we ever see cops stationed and directing traffic at these 10 intersections during rush hour? Nope.
40th Street between 7th and 8th Avenue...why isn't this street closed to cars during rush hour? There are hundreds of commuters heading to Port Authority daily and there isn't enough room on the sidewalk. Why are buses stopping every 2 to 3 blocks. The M11 up 8th Ave in Chelsea stops at 14th, 16th/17th, 20th, 23rd, 26th.
We need more traffic law enforcement, traffic toll zones, and more pedestrian and cyclist education.
10
This is kind of silly. The sensationalist headline obscures the fact that this route is scheduled to take, well, almost 3 hours. To get from Staten Island to Manhattan, take the ferry. Practically speaking, this is a bus to Brooklyn.
2
Why not build park and ride lots. Let the commuter make the short, local drive to the lot where he gets on the bus and the bus travels non-stop to mid-town or Wall Street or where ever?
Lack of awareness of bus and rail issues (and I get this article refers to local issues, not inter state ones) is a function of the obsession with the MSM reporting wall to wall on air travel issues.
There are venues, like USA Today, that have entire pages on nothing but air travel.
TV weather reports have segments on airport delays.
But coach and rail travel is ignored.
7
Yes, and also use road pricing to charge low occupancy private cars commuting in and out of the city during peak hours.
5
I really feel bad for these commuters. Life is just too short to sit on a bus on a hot day. It makes you want to work from home or better yet move to some place where the commute is a lot easier.
5
Thank you for your empathy. I mean that!
Unfortunately, economic realities preclude most people pulling up stakes (boy, there’s an ancient expression!) and starting all over in a place with fewer amenities. Okay, maybe less traffic and lower housing prices, but also lower salaries. And don’t say that lower salaries buy more in a place with lower housing costs. Not necessarily true.
2
@Another Nasty woman - If you live in a high-cost area, you ought to be able to sell your investments and buy a better property in a lower cost area. That combined with your superior skills from working in vastly more competitive work environment should enhance your income range.
If not, you probably could not survive in any economic environment,
Too little, too late. Aside from the deadening ride, there's mile after mile of ugly vistas.
People who live in this area all have two occupations: one is commuting, the other is whatever else they do to earn the $3500 a year they pay for this horror show.
8
MTA makes NJ Transit look good. I live in central NJ, maybe a little more than 40 miles from the PABT and my scheduled express bus trip is roughly 75 minutes at the peak of rush hour, sometimes worse, sometimes better (yesterday I caught a 2:30p express and made it to my home stop in an hour). The only times I remember a commute longer than two hours, much less three, was due to an accident or weather. However, I live along one of NJT's busiest commuter bus lines and they have various express versions of the same bus so my bus might not stop for almost 10 miles before the first "local" stop.
1
There is the beginnings of a rail tunnel to Staten Island under Owl's Head Park. I'd say let's keep digging. I'd also think that, if you live in southern SI, commuting to Midtown is asking a lot of the traffic gods.
Generally speaking, a more wholistic approach to transporting people across the tristate region is sorely needed. Maybe extend SIR to Perth Amboy? Would have made sense to allow for rail transit across the new Bayonne Bridge, so the light rail could go into Jersey.
Why can't we integrate the various systems under one unified pricing scheme, the way most European metropolitan regions manage? A unified monthly pass for the entire region would help a lot of people make the switch to public transportation.
4
Easier and cheaper to erect aerial tram poles and wires.
Oh the joys of living in big city America. Where you spend hours each day in traffic. Be it in a car or in a bus.
And it will only continue to worsen as long as mayors and local/state governments try to out do each other to bring in even more businesses and population in order to increase their tax revenue.
5
What I find remarkable is routes remaining unchanged for decades at a time! In a city with a reputation for clear-eyed pragmatism it reveals sometimes it gets stuck in a rut.
It's great that under the leadership of Byford, who happens to be from overseas and brings fresh eyes and sense to the situation, the bus system is being cleared of cobwebs and brought into the 21st century.
As someone who has visited New York and holds affection for it I wish him and New York bus riders all the best.
6
If congestion is a major cause of bus delays, as the article mentions, why not report the impact of Uber/Lyft on congestion?
7
Yet another fine example of a government monopoly doing what coercive monopolies do: Higher prices, putrid service.
3
Let’s see:
1. The amount of money we spend on healthcare? 1/6th of GDP. Outcomes? Abyssymal.
2. The amount of money college costs? Stratospheric. Outcome? Crippling student debt.
3. The amount of money we spend on elections? Humongous. Outcome: Trump and HRC as choices.
4. The amount of money we spend on wars? Humongous. Outcome? Shoddy care for veterans, the large part of them homeless.
5. The amount of money spent on DoD? $717 BILLION this year alone. Outcome? Not a single war won, but a lot of our protections gone.
Not a single dollar spent on education, health, infrastructure and plain humane values.
What an exceptionally stupid people we are!
29
@NYC Dweller, Illegals cost us, the American taxpayer, over 300 BILLION dollars each and every year.
1
If the MTA and the NYPD would do their jobs and simply prevent express buses on Broadway from blocking traffic at the Worth Street intersection, life downtown would be a lot more pleasant. ...The arrogance of the bus drivers (except the local bus drivers) throughout the city is provocative an dangerous. They should be controlled.
3
Couldn’t agree more
Why is this call an express if it makes 66 stops on Staten Island. How many stops does the local bun make 666? I wonder how many People are getting free subways rides in the city.
8
We have too much of population growth happening in this country. No public service can cater for this kind of growth. Please think of the population growth.
8
@Ugly and Fat Git
The New York City population is only slightly higher than it was 70 years ago. Perhaps 300K more people. Thats not a significant enough increase to be described as the reason for our present day commuting woes.
@lowereastside
not even close. NYC has 8.5 million people. In 1940 it had 7.45 million and in 1950 it had 7.89.
It reached a low of 7.02 million in 1980.
No direct express bus service between Brooklyn and Staten Island. Unbelievable!
2
With 8 million people living in NYC, with Yellow Cabs, Green Cabs, Uber, Lyft, Vai, just to mention a few, what do you expect? Too, too many vehicles on the roads. Too bad the rails for the streetcars were paved over! They, at least always had the right-of-way.
11
Besides stops that are literally within a few dozen yards of eachother, another cause of delays that this article doesn't mention is the fact that despite being around since 1992, there are lots of New Yorkers who STILL don't know how to use a Metrocard. -_-
7
Whatever is decided or done to reduce congestion, it better be implemented fairly quick because it is not going to improve overnight. Too many people. I can't imagine what traffic will be like in another 20 years time. And it is in or around every major metro region in the US. Standstill, crawling, multi-hour commutes. And we wonder why our mental and physical health is rapidly declining? How many of us would be willing to sit on a junky, stinky bus 5 hours a day in order to earn 100 bucks?
6
The problematic premise is that Staten Island, especially southern SI, to Manhattan is a reasonable commute. Maybe it's not. Staten Island needs a more self-sufficient economy, not like Stalinist Albania but certainly not one in which everyone needs to go to Manhattan every day. And hearing some of these stories, why don't people in Eltingville take the SIR to the ferry? That has to be much faster even with the additional subway ride.
4
Why not keep ALL the stops - but have two buses run it? For example, the X17a could pick up people at all the odd numbered stops. The X17b could pick up people at the even numbered stops. The buses could then alternate - or - they could go leap-frogging down the route. This is the most simple change that could be made and no one would have to walk 18 blocks unless they wanted to.
3
@anae
This works in theory but in practice it only save an average of 30 seconds per stop. It has been tried in many cities on both buses and subways.
1
Copenhagen is talking about a subway line to Malmo. But they already have the train, via the Oresund Bridge. 30 minutes, and very comfortable. A bit expensive, but maybe not if you are regular rider.
2
Up in the sky is where it's at - sending pneumatic tubes, similar to what office mail and drive-up banks use.
1
Look, it's a BUS, you know, those thousands of 40'x8' metal cages on wheels that jam up roads everywhere? Why wouldn't it take as long as everything else in the same traffic jam made even worse by the number of buses everywhere?
3
We are choking on more cars and more people. Yet we insist that mass immigration, legal or not, is a good thing.
11
@PWR
Complaining that the country has too many immigrants because New York roads are too congested is a lot like moving to Alaska and complaining that America is too cold.
I used to be able to get from my inside apartment to my GATE at the airport in about 20 minutes. It takes somewhat longer now, but not much. We have plenty of room and a below-replacement birth rate. We also have a giant military and many research endeavors that have the same requirements and costs no matter if there are 200 million or 400 million Americans. This means we can lower the cost-per-person by adding more people.
So yeah, I insist immigration is a good thing.
7
Some cities, especially outside the US, have traffic police, separate from crime-fighting police who understandably have higher priorities than giving out tickets to drivers who block bus lanes. If NYC had dedicated traffic police aggressively giving out thousands of tickets per day, it would surely speed up bus service.
9
@HB New York does have traffic police.
2
Given the enormous pressures on quality of life measures in NYC (and Los Angeles, too), it seems like a real failure of creativity that the country can't distribute more economic activity regionally. You couldn't pay me to live in New York, and the thoughts of so many in L.A. are, "When can I leave?" Meanwhile provincial towns are suffering from too little activity. This seems like a terrible way to organize a country.
3
"Provincial towns" have too little economic because they're, well, provincial. What's more, they're proud of it. Bully for them. But, they can't complain about highly-educated individuals being unwilling to move to them -- and companies locate where they can find a workforce. Young people don't want to live where the bars close at 11pm and where they fear attack if they hold hands with someone of the same sex. Even if the city itself is liberal, it may be located in a state that refuses to allow localities to protect their citizens from discrimination.
16
@Barry Short I spent 25 years in a gay ghetto before buying in a leafy suburb. I'm gay, but even I think ease of Grindr hookups is a flimsy reason to overload a few urban centers while the rest of the country groans for more activity.
With respect, the idea that bright, educated college graduates could only possibly accept a life in Manhattan hasn't always held. My father's provincial high school in the '30s had teachers from Columbia, regional centers of industry were once microcosms of larger cities, with civic groups and cultural institutions, and professional men made great lives in supposed backwaters. Lazily pointing to 2018's status quo and saying that's just the way it is misses my original point.
1
None of this will change while politicians are driven everywhere in comfortable SUVs. They have no idea what it's like to bike to work, take the train, or god forbid take a bus with people they see as inferior to them. But notice how quickly things can change when there is will to do it; the FDR highway on the East Side was repaved once *someone* started taking it every day to get from Gracie Mansion to his exercise bike in Park Slope.
22
@Scott - Rich privileges are something we strive for, just because you made different choices does not mean we have to make concessions for your lack of foresight.
The best way is local buses with local taxes to general service on New York State taxes rail. Spoke and hub transportation. Efficient and the most environmentally friendly transportation presently. Expanding direct route bus service encourages overcrowded streets, accidents, and an exodus of city wages for city people from the cheapskate employers who want right to work rules. Expand train and subway service first! Maintain the MTA and Amtrak. Less overall costs.
6
We have to buy a car for my grand daughter because she is entering a "running start" college program when she turns 16. It's a great opportunity to get a 2-year head start on college at an affordable price. But....there is no school bus to the college 12 miles away. It's a 15 minute drive, or a 1 hr 45 minute bus ride, not counting the time waiting for the bus. Did I mention, the weather is pretty rugged all winter here. The biggest obstacle to fixing this problem is a lack of imagination, and perhaps a heavy layer of inertia.
9
Back some decades ago I worked in a plant in Port Reading NJ - a short drive for me at the time. One of the machine operators lived in Brooklyn, didn't own a car, and his commute sometimes was as long as our 8-hour shift.
The Koch brothers are funding pressure groups to fight against efficient transit for cities around the country. Why? They claim "freedom" yet strangely enough these sons of an original John Bircher fight hardest to present "freedom" as something that lowers their billionaire taxes and maintains sales for their fossil-based fuel and road-building products.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-public-transit....
I wonder if they're working on an asphalt that won't melt as coming summer temperatures keep getting hotter?
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/05/626057055/melting-roads-and-runny-roofs-h...
12
LOL - It's 2018 and we have picture and text of a "dispatcher" with a paper map doing route planning, and "ambassadors" distributing flyers at bus stops?!
Really?!
And they are even only doing it in a reactive response to Uber taking away a lot of their fed-up ridership.
If you place yourself in a position to having to depend on a unionized, municipal bus system to get around you have already lost. Move. Change jobs. Do whatever it takes to escape. There is no reason to live like this is America.
14
The paper-based routing does look archaic. But, the flyers are an efficient means of communication. Not everyone has a smart phone.
4
NYC, like the rest of the world, is infested with humanity. There are too many people. And we just keeping making more of them. We don't need to start over with a new transit plan. We need a good plague to start over with a few less billion people.
11
"...Took Nearly 3 Hours..."
The schedule said two hours and 33 minutes.
So not even 27 minutes late. Which is not great, but the headline is sensationalistic in that it implies it was hours late.
8
@Matthew
Please read this paragraph again:
Total distance? Nearly 40 miles. Total drive time? The schedule said two hours and 33 minutes, but closer to three hours was often more like it.
1
@ssundar
Yeah, I did, I kinda summed up what you just strangely reiterated, because again, the bus was all of up to about 27 minutes late. Given the vagaries of travel in NYC, such as that rainstorm pictured in the article, it's not remarkable in any way. Timetables are best possible scenarios. No one would be doing themselves a favor to think that they are going to be met. Most especially bus service, which is affected by so many things beyond its control.
@Matthew
2 and 1/2 hours is rather long for 40 miles
All of the suggestions are great, except for the fact that they cost money.
Perhaps if we had a governor who did not waste taxpayer money on attorneys to defend illegals who commit felonies from deportation we would have a few more dollars. What percent of state money goes to medicaid for illegals? What about the immense amount spent on welfare programs for able-bodied people?
I see this as a tremendous opportunity...... Find the money in state budget to do everything readers here suggest to ease congestion, and find the labor in those already on our payroll.
13
"What about the immense amount spent on welfare programs for able-bodied people?"
If they can't find jobs, it doesn't matter if they're able-bodied or not. They still need help.
4
I have your solution: give them the job of working on roads subways etc. we’re paying them anyway.
How eliminating tax subsidies for real estate companies building luxury high rises.
3
If Staten Island were New Jersey territory, which, by the inexorable logic of geography, it really is, New York City could have passed the commuting buck, a skill at which it is truly expert.
Trenton, Albany... What's the difference.
1
@Taz
By that logic, most of Long Island should be in Connecticut territory.
Turn away from the endless Wars and obscene tax cuts for the wealthy.
America needs more infrastructure, health care, education.
35
How much time did the commute take before Uber and Lyft?
8
Why wasn't a map depicting the route of the X17 bus included in the online version along with all the [uninformative] pictures?
4
@Samuel
People don't like maps. Maps challenge them to see the world in a different way.
1
Sure, Tony, you could fly to Florida in less time, but only if you didn’t have to take the bus - or even an Uber - to the airport!
2
Such nonsense. Cities are crowded during rush hour-- and cop cars parked on 42nd St. don't help with traffic flow. Tottenville is far away -- supposed there were no expressways at all -- and there is local bus service, free ferry, various subway service. You can't have it all. To get from the UWS of Manhattan to the S. Bronx before the dedicated bus lanes on 125th took close to an hour. If I want to be sure to make a train or bus downtown from103rd no.1 I have to allow at least a half hour if not 45 minutes.
The city is big -- area-wise with the outer boroughs. Ever been in rush hour outside Paris to the western suburbs: a London rush hour. NYC is not nearly as bad.
So far as bicycles for transportation -- I would prefer motor scoters-- e.g. Vespas IMO less dangerous for all concerned. PS all bikes should have operating lights for nite driving!!
Too old for Uber... I take yellow cabs or other car services.
6
Ah, one wishes our urban Federal legislators in NY-NJ-CT would focus on that one thing that affects all life in a 40-mile radius of NYC --- mass transportation. NJ Transit trains are an overcrowded disaster, not helped at all by our last governor's refusal to work out a compromise on a new rail tunnel to Manhattan --- he just lazily vetoed NJ's funding portion; took his ball and went home. That tunnel would've been built by now. But all whom we send to Washington must share the blame for not demanding --- and getting! --- funds for transportation that should be the envy of the world, in "The Greatest City in the World", or so we're told.
When it comes to public transit, America, to Europeans, Japan, S. Korea and Hong Kong, is a great billboard; just don't look behind it. Too many Federal legislators fervently wish the same.
9
The current administration revels in figuring out ways to hurt the New York area. It doesn't matter how forceful our reps are .. we're not going to get anything in return for the massive amount of tax dollars that we send to DC for redistribution to the "taker" states.
6
Nothing will improve until mass-transit stops being treated like a stepchild. Cars rule and we are choking with them, literally.
120
@Eddie Lew
Part of the reason is cars are almost always quicker. Unless you live at a bus/subway stop and your destination is another bus/subway stop on the same line, it will be shorter to drive.
the only thing this DOT understands is bike lanes...
Bike lanes here
bike lanes there
Which are really for the 1% and there offspring....
Great read and yet Bill and Andrew have no clue
9
@David
Curious how you figure that bike lanes are "really for the 1%."
You do know that owning a bike costs multiple orders of magnitude less than owning a car, right?
11
@AGuyInBrooklyn
Bikes are expensive. A token is cheaper. Old people can't ride bikes.
3
@DG
In Chicago, the bike lanes are a joke. I have never once seen any bicyclist follow the rules of the road. They don't stop at red lights, they weave and out of traffic, they never stay in the lane.
It creates slower auto traffic, because of their dangerous bike driving.
1
Blocked bus lanes.....hmmmmm.....think it's all those Ubers and Lyfts.....it sure is here in Boston.
9
@Barbara K.
Poorly designed bus-lanes.
UPS.
FEDEX.
NYPD Police cars.
Every-Tom-Dick-and-Harry-Delivery Truck.
Failed MTA creation policy and failed NYPD enforcement policy are the cause. Uber and Lyft are mere symptoms and reactions to those failures.
2
Your supposed to buy a car and consume at a level that is considered appropriate for the profits of industries and wealthy people. They control your government because you are, collectively on the whole, incapable of selecting leaders who have your best interest in mind. Additionally, the police are way too busy working over low level druggies and making sure brown people are aware that institutional racism is real to police public transportation.
I don't believe any of this will ever be fixed. I would avoid certain places if I were you, especially if you are middle class or lower. It just doesn't make any sense that you live in these places. These are NYC, Washington, Chicago, San Fransisco, Los Angeles and others that I am sure I am forgetting. The bottom line is that your leaders are owned by corporations and they will never improve your lives because that is not the most profitable thing for corporations and the wealthy.
I am not sure why I bother to say these things since I don't believe Americans will ever awaken from their cult induced stupor.
We just gave a big tax cut to the wealthy. Trillions of dollars. Is it fiscal responsibility? No, it is the tax payer subsidizing those who control our politicians. The fact that this can happen is proof of the lunacy of the people of the US. Why don't you all just hit yourselves in the face with a hammer. It's the same as voting for the people that are in power now. "Thank you Sir may I have another".
21
Hmm, its Staten Island people. I grew up there and this is not at all surprising - it has always been a schlep. If there is traffic on Hylan Blvd, an accident on the bridge or the BQE you're hosed.
2
Every weekend we drive from NJ to Hauppauge to visit my in-laws. The 65 miles trip takes 2-3 hours as we go over the GWB to the Cross Bronx, to the Whitestone to the Cross Island to the LIE.
This past weekend there was an accident on the GWB just as we were about to leave. We spent the next 15 minutes discussing whether to take the tunnels or tell my FIL we couldn't make it out this week. We went for it and it was the fastest time we every made it out there.
It was just luck but it was a beautiful day, we left early and it so good to see him. It is crazy how the inadequate transportation options govern our lives.
Chris Christie never should have cancelled that tunnel. It will hurt NJ for decades.
18
@Deirdre Christie should never have been elected to public office, but he was. Alas.
6
The irony of the headline hysterically saying “took nearly 3 hours!!” The horror! And then you read normal time is 2 hours 33 minutes. So it was not even 27 minutes late. Bad, sure, but come on, the insinuation it that it was hours late.
74
@Matthew
No offense, but the article's title doesn't emphasize one particular ride. It emphasizes that the express bus regularly takes 3 hours to get off the island. I don't want to imagine how long the normal bus would take.
A bus running 3 hours late would be frustrating, but that would be a one-time inconvenience. Can you imagine a 3+ hour commute on an 8 hour workday?
3
The point is that an Express took even longer than the 2 1/2 hours scheduled. The "Express" part is the irony, not the extra half hour per se.
4
Bus to the Staten Island subway. Subway to the Ferry. Ferry to work.
What's the problem here?
1
@John The problem is there is no subway.
1
@J Yes but there is a train - that runs from Tottenville to St. George. So its the train to the ferry and on the the subway. Dad did that for 40 years.
1
The worst mistake I ever made was moving to Staten Island. The best decision I ever made was moving out of Staten Island. It's the forgotten borough, and I'd like to forget about it or fuhgettaboutit, whatever the case may be.
13
Yes, better routes and smarter dispatching can and will ameliorate the situation. However, the fundamental problem is the congestion of our roads by cars, most of them carrying only 1-2 persons (2 if Uber etc, 1 if classic commute) . This is a economics 101 in action: if limited goods are offered for too low a price (free!), you'll never have enough to satisfy demand. The solutions are known and proven: congestion pricing for urban centers ( Manhattan), HOV and Bus-only lanes for key arteries in Staten Island and other boroughs. What is missing is the political will and guts up in Albany, which has been blocking any attempt to implement a rational solution to congestion in NYC!
6
@Pete in Downtown
Studies don't support that. In DC and Boston, they found adding more buses simply drove up ridership. It did nothing to decrease suggestion. Now instead of 70 people on one bus you had 140 on two buses.
HOV and additional lanes also did nothing. The more lanes of highway that were added in metro DC, they found just increase in proportion the additional number of car. So instead of a thousand cars per hour on one lane you had 2K on two lanes.
The problem is people WANT to live and businesses WANT to be in Manhattan. (Or other desirable parts of the cities). To decrease this you need to make othe parts of cities (or their suburban areas) desirable for business to be in and people to live.
For instance between SF Bay (Incl San Jose) and NYC you have nearly 80% of tech companies. This is a ludicrous concentration of a business. Before 1970, outside of automobiles a 15% rate in one metro was considered too much.
1
As a Manhattan resident I gave up public transit years ago for a bicycle. My commute from the east village to midtown is 20 minutes door to door. I ride all year round except when there is heavy snow.
Rain is not an issue with all of the weather applications I can fairly accurately determine when I need to leave to miss heavy rain. For light rain proper rain gear is the answer.
My wife chooses to take public transport and it takes her a minimum of 45 minutes each way.
7
The Transport Authority should just bring in operators of working and efficient city transportation from cities of the world, say Tokyo, and let them have a free hand to review and redraw the routes to remove favourotism and undue influence.
Unfortunately, there's just too much pig-headedness from the insular believe of exceptionalism to accept that.
2
Given that NYC is surrounded by water, I'm constantly amazed that the city does not not make better use of small-scale "mosquito" ferries (i.e. 50-100 passengers, high frequency of service, can use small private docks).
These are very common in places like Sydney, and are very effective since there are few, if any, traffic jams on the water. In NYC, they could be very effective providing additional transit across both the East & Hudson rivers.
28
@Matt
Sydney has 5 million in it's metro area. NYC has over 20 million, not comparable. All of Australia only has 24.13 million.
3
I know no one would support it, but the correct thing to do would be to build a subway of extend the SI railroad so it can along one or more central spines and funnel all buses to connect to it. it would then go straight into Manhattan and connect with an existing line.
15
@Andrew
It's very cost prohibitive to build subways in the USA. One of the reasons Chicago stopped growing was from 1900-1940, it was inundated by lawsuits to stop any subway planning. People didn't want the El trains much less the subway.
If you were sued into in action 100 years ago, imagine today. By 1940 when Chicago started to dig for subways WWII happened and put all that on hold, and Chicago fell way behind.
Too. Many. People. Any improvement will be eventually overwhelmed by an increasing population.
16
@JimmyMac
NYC Population, 1950: 7,891,957
NYC Population, 2016: 8,461,961
That's about 570,000 in 66 years, or about 8,600 people per year.
It's not Too. Many. People. It's Too. Many. Cars.
5
@LenG- That's not counting the population growth outside of NYC. Those are the commuters.
Manhattan apartments and coops are increasingly occupied by wealthy people who don’t work or by out of town rich people who want vacation spot. Workers seek affordability by moving further out in search of affordability. Fixing the buses addresses the wrong end of the equation, the city can’t work if it can’t house its own workers.
29
@Rick Don't forget rent-controlled / rent stabilized retirees living in Manhattan, not paying a market rent and taking up apartments that workers could use.
4
@Edward
Not really.
Need to remember:
1. Tons of new apartments have been built over past 10 years but they are "luxury" with many aimed at affluent recent college graduates and wealthy people of all ages who want a pied a terre or to park their money.
2. Landlords can and do raise rents to market once older rent-controller (not many of those left) and rent-stabilized tenants leave.
1
@Rick and @Edward
Such nonsense! Source your statistics - please!
Edward - do you actually dream even for a moment that when an apartment becomes destabilized its rent somehow drops dramatically enough to ever become actually affordable? And what is a "worker" and how much do "workers" make?
So often one senses the anti-stabilization crowd to be choking on a massive mound of sour grapes.
7
"Now there's no way to get home."
Among those who rely most heavily on buses are older people. When the new, improved bus paths avoid "congested areas" they are avoiding the areas most people want to get to and from.
Making buses faster by dropping people 18 blocks from their destination with no means to cover that distance other than walking--in the snow, heat, rain, with parcels, mobility problems--is exactly the kind of "solution" I've come to expect from the MTA.
The new routes are designed for people who would almost always take the subway if they could--young and mobile. Those who rely most heavily on the bus because they are not young and mobile are out of luck.
26
@Talbot
You have said it just right. We have the same problem in Columbus. Several years ago many stops on our #2 line were discontinued. That makes it more difficult for people such as myself (age 81) to get around in the winter.
6
@Talbot Chicago has been adding elevators and escalators as they rehab transit stations. I've taken the El on crutches many times. It's handy for people with strollers, luggage, etc. too. Why does NY not seem to do this?
Only mass transit and deliveries should be driving into congested city areas like Manhattan, create a huge parking lot and let them take trains, light rails, buses or bikes..
21
As long as we are dreaming big, why not a ferry service that carries buses from SI to Manhattan instead of putting them all on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Unstated in the article is that once you are across the Verrazano from SI you are in south Brooklyn, not exactly on top of Manhattan. The bus is forced to use the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway which is the definition of a chock point to get to a tunnel or bridge to Manhattan. The bus-ferry terminal could be in west midtown, for instance, and the passengers could be driven across an east-west artery (already crowded, I know) where they could get off and transfer to a subway or bus that would get them where they need to be.
26
@carol goldstein
Excellent idea! However, really there is no reason there couldn't be dozens (and more dozens!) of ferry slips spread all around both Staten Island and Manhattan. It seems patently ridiculous and luddite for such a geographically concentrated land mass so absolutely surrounded by water to not exploit that to its fullest potential.
If only our self-proclaimed 'Progressive Mayor' was cut from true leadership cloth and not simply a defensive, uninspiring career-politician.
4
I would trade a hundred "identity politics" articles about bathrooms and gender, or guns and flags, and easily a thousand articles about politics, politicians, political campaigns, congress, the president and the always looming elections to read more articles like this about ordinary people in ordinary jobs actually trying to solve the problems of shove a 21st century population into a 20th century infrastructure.
This is the world as ordinary people see it. There is so much to see and learn -- and report -- if reporters would choose to skip the sound bite press conference and, for example, ride a bus.
102
This is about identity politics; it's just that the reporters are trying to hide it. Deciding which neighborhoods get better transit is a _very_ political decision. Is Staten Island where it's most needed?
4
@drollere Amen, from a former staten islander who rode an express bus in the 80s.
4
@drollere Amen!
I blame American culture. Our aversion to paying more taxes to maintain what we have, or demanding our current taxes emphasize infrastructure and scrutinizing waste, along with our love of cars are key reasons for this decades-old problem. Lots of businesses are built around car transport, so you bet they will lobby against better mass transit. Our political system of Federal, state, and local government funding/control -- and power concentrated in the 1% are also major reasons for transport woes.
Most Americans are too broke or refuse to travel overseas, where they can see firsthand how places in Europe and Asia have much better infrastructure (and quality of life). NYC infrastructure in particular seems very shabby compared to Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Moscow, Paris, or London.
17
@John W There was a push by our local mass transit operator, a quasi-government operation, to increase sales tax to pay for mass transit "improvements".
This agency in the past has been populated by self-dealing managers, saddled with less that ethical behavior by board members, and graft.
For this agency to come to the taxpayers after all of these revelations was laughable.
Fortunately for the agency, and possibly the communities served, some cities and counties in the service area passed the tax increase. And they may see some service improvement.
I wait to see if the self-dealing, the graft and unethical activities the managers and the board were complicit in to actually cease before I vote to spend more money.
2
@John W
Most Americans don't mind paying taxes. What we object to is paying TOO MUCH tax.For instance in Chicago a file clerk makes 40K year from the city and more from the county. A file clerk is a minimum wage job, in private industry.
This is one of hundreds of abuses. Of course these overpaid workers are not going to vote anyone in office that will leave them unemployed so the cycle continues.
And wages are only a small part of it. If cities had to account for their spending like private business, you'd soon seen a correction.
1
Bus routes are infrastructure. People build communities and businesses around them. They should not be redesigned haphazardly.
4
but they shouldn't be left alone to crumble either. communities chang over time, develop new requirements as others fade away. failure to adapt to those changes just leads to dieing infrastructure for all.
1
I didn't get the impression from the article that the changes were haphazard. Instead, they were based on current development and commuting patterns. Resources are not unlimited. Neglecting newer areas to maintain a route that's been around since 1950 simply because it HAS been around since 1950 is a waste.
But, I understand what you're getting at. The mention of the man with a revised bus stop 18 blocks from his workplace made me wonder if they were taking some of the changes too far.
1
Commuting in NYC in rush hour is more than nightmare. I think this will kill NYC economically. From Jamaica , my home to Brooklyn, it takes me 90 minutes to drive 13 miles one way. From Mytle Avenue to North Portland Avenue on Park Avenue in Brooklyn is about 1.8 miles and in morning rush hour, it takes about 30 minutes to drive. Even if you drive via Flushing Ave or Myrtle Avenue, it takes about same time. Too many double parked vehicles and delivery trucks make lives miserable. There should be law that between 7 AM to 9 AM, there will be no delivery vans or trucks blocking traffic flow. Some time I think NYC is a no man's land or nobody is watching. Subway and buses are not reliable either. It got to be improved.
15
Ok -- here is the million dollar answer. From 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Delivery/Shipping vehicles ONLY allowed access to Manhattan (UPS, FedEX, Goods, Services, etc.) From 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., NO Vehicle Access: Except Bus, Taxi, Private Car Service and Residents Only. All must have permits or pay a daily use-fee of $300.00! 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. Open Zone/All Vehicles. Simple. Take the Bus, Train or Ferry and no commuter vehicles.
8
@NYC-Independent1664
Good ideas. $300 is a bit steep though. The truck situation is a big piece. Sometimes they unload on the same street at the same time in the same spot; blocking the right and left lanes and busses etc have to squeeze into the middle lanes. This often happens to me on the 15 on 1st Ave — it can take forever to go a few blocks!
4
@NYC-Independent1664 Do you think that individualism possessed Americans could stick to such rules? I doubt it.
But don't despair. Trump will find a solution.
@NYC-Independent1664
Most buildings do not accept deliveries during the hours you state. Who is going to pay to keep those buildings open and staff them to accept deliveries?
What about contractors and services? When you boiler breaks or your electric is out, their vans need access, places to park and unload.
What about hospital patients?
The city is vibrant because of it's diversity of users. Leave any of them out and it doesn't work.
The bus system is an absolute nightmare, avoid at all costs. Look at the M60 bus which was announced as being service to LaGaurdia from Manhattan. What a joke, dozens of stops in Harlem, then weaving in and out of local neighborhoods in Queens. A 20 minute car ride turns into a 2 hours bus ride with nowhere to put luggage on a supposed airport bus.
12
Columbus does have a redesigned transit system, and if you squint at the map really hard, you can see a few small differences from the old system. A "redesign" is just a label, and ours came with a full set of new bus stop signs but few other changes.
It is difficult to take routes or stops away from people who already have them, and a transit union will not be eager to cut back its hours or lose a chance to add to them. Connecting people to subways or ferries seems worth exploring, but a bus-only redesign may turn out to be underwhelming.
1
have to laugh when you read the TA is studying transportation hot spots. Every day throughout the city the same places get clogged at the same time -- just look at where 23rd st. meets West St. It's predictable, but still nothing is ever done about these spots, which could be fixed. And add double and triple parking, and construction sites which now for some reason are allowed to take over two lanes of major avenues, then subtract a lane or two for bikes, and the notion of a plan and enforcement become laughable.
17
To alleviate midtown congestion and the consequent bus delays, why not modernize and consolidate transporting people in the way many cities around the world have done. Convert at least one major arterial road into a pedestrian-only thoroughfare along with light-rail transit and stops on each block. Fifth, 6th, or 7th Avenue are possibilities. Though hotels might object, this design works in many cities; hotel guests are dropped off on the nearest side street. With rolling luggage, walking a short distance with luggage is no longer an issue. (And many would prefer to stay in a hotel on a pedestrian-only street with light rail.)
The NY subway system is difficult to use for the disabled and elderly. Surface transportation is necessary, and light rail would be far more efficient than buses stuck in traffic.
13
"Convert at least one major arterial road into a pedestrian-only thoroughfare along with light-rail transit and stops on each block."
Years ago, Louisville, KY tried that. They converted the city's equivalent of Main Street into a pedestrian-only route. It was an attempt to revitalize the downtown. What they found, however, was that they had taken a sick patient and nearly killed it. Traffic is part of the urban landscape. The trick is to manage it, not ban it.
1
Yes, Columbus, Ohio, has a new "improved" bus system. Well, it may be "improved" for someone who wants to rush to Polaris, but it is a disaster for an elderly person who wants to go to the doctor or to the grocery store. We bought a house years ago near one of the main bus lines, the #2. Until this change we only had to wait 6 or 7 minutes for the next bus if we just missed a bus. Now, thanks to the #2L, which doesn't stop near our location we have to wait at least 15 minutes for the next regular #2. In fact, it may be even longer.
Another problem is caused by some routes we used being changed. A bus that used to go into the hospital area on the North Broadway bus just rushes by on North Broadway. If you are in a wheel chair that makes the hospital stop unavailable as there is a flight of stairs that must be climbed to get to the hospital. Not an improvement for me.
8
@Lallie Wetzig Inexcusable to re-design a bus stop and not make it Accessible. I hope Columbus, Ohio wakes up and joins the 21st. century ASAP.
That stop outside the hospital has been in use for a while by some bus routes, and the hospital has never been motivated to build a ramp and proper access for that stop. I cannot imagine that is going to change now.
My guess is that the change was made to avoid a lot of time lost going in and out of the hospital and the traffic at the lights just outside the hospital on a very lightly used portion of the route.
The #1 bus might go to the "inner" hospital bus stop on some or all of its runs, and one can transfer by staying on the #2 about two more miles and transferring near campus. This is not ideal but far better than having no bus option.
The old Morse route was split into an east half and west half. The North Broadway bus may do the same at some point, and one logical turn around point is the "old" accessible hospital stop. An open question is whether the North Broadway bus will still exist in a similar form in a few years given the light ridership. At least one can count on the popular #1 and #2 bus routes staying active in the long run.
Two things would help enormously: congestion pricing, and truly dedicated bus lanes (i.e. other types of traffic are physically prevented from using those lanes). This would greatly speed up the busses and attract riders to them, reducing the congestion elsewhere in the system. Too bad NYC can't be reconfigured around an efficient and truly workable bus system -- the model is Curitiba Brazil, but hardly anyone has ever heard of it; aspects of the Curitiba model have been copied in other places though, including Los Angeles, to good effect, and some could be applied in NYC.
And please stop with the idea that bicycles are an effective solution. Bikes are great for those who are young/strong enough to use them, when the weather is nice. Fine. But when the weather is bad, the majority of those young and strong bike riders switch to other forms of (public) transportation which thus need to be there to carry the load. And that bad-weather switching doesn't help pay much to pay the transit system's bills, so in the end it's actually a form of transit parasitism engaged by the holier-than-thou bike rider set.
26
Perhaps there is a practical or at least comfortable limit to the number of people that live in the same place, especially when many of them try to converge in a smaller sub-area every day--and at the same time. Yes, population density can justify mass transportation, public or private, but at some point that density can overwhelm any transportation system.
3
@Bob Krantz: There may be, but the fact that there are larger metros than NYC that have more efficient mass transit (Tokyo springs to mind) makes me think that NYC hasn't reached that point. (Also, if too many people are converging at once, what can one do to spread them out more? Tax incentives -- or just PR campaigns -- for flexible hours for office workers?)
1
I've avoid the express bus for years the reasons articulated in this article. It takes me about an hour and 15 and hour and 20 minutes to get in the city the old fashioned way using either the bus/ferry or the SIRR/ferry.
Staten Island should really consider expanding SIRR service. The railway was the best thing about living on the south shore for a commuter. I got to the ferry in 25 minutes, which was about the same time it would take to get to the Ferry from mid-Island via bus.
10
@sunzari the north shore train tracks would be perfect. they were in use decades ago, but now run through/alongside largely minority neighborhoods. The problem would be parking, but there is plenty of empty land that could be redeveloped for parking.
2
Instead of slowly phasing cars out of the city like in Northern Europe (low emission zones, replacing parallel parking spots with bike lanes, slowing down cars and eliminating traffic lights so walking and biking becomes faster etc.), we doubled down on petrol city with Uber and Lyft.
The result was entirely predictable.
35
@Liz Which is extra tragic, since so many new yorkers love bikes.
1
We really needed all those bike lanes that are mostly empty. Why are the needs of bike riders more important than the majority of citizens? You can't have an economy, restaurants need deliveries, etc. without some decent transportation. On the West Side, why were bike lanes placed on the most commercial streets and not West End Ave or CPW or Riverside Drive? Traffic on Columbus and Amsterdam has increased exponentially. Thanks politicians!
12
Actually I like the bike lanes!
And buses never get stuck in a bike jam. Buses get caught in a car jam, cars usually “filled” with one person. And buses have been getting caught in car jams for decades, well before those dastardly bike lanes.
It’s pretty clear which is the problem, and it isn’t the 18 inch wide bicycles,
The problem is the 6 foot wide, 2000 pound living rooms on wheels we call cars.
2821
12
@Lisa
Majority of New Yorkers don't own cars.
And placing bike lanes on commercial streets makes a lot of sense since bikers can (and do) easily hop off their bike, lock it up, and walk into a store or restaurant to buy something. Drivers can't do that without either winning the on-street parking lotto or causing a traffic problem by double parking.
3
A related issue - long-distance buses like Bolt, Greyhound etc are also impacted on by traffic.
Weekends are often worse when (April-October) there are countless street closures every weekend due to street "fake fairs", bicycle events, charity walks, marathons, and parades.
The routine closure of NYC streets for "entertainment" impacts all buses - regular MTA, express, commuter and long-distance.
Also, addition of bike lanes has slowed bus transit.
It is clear that bus users are considered fourth class citizens. In NYC, everything else - cyclists, street fairs etc - trumps the needs and rights of bus users (taxpayers too)
14
New Yorkers should have monorails like they have in DisneyLand circling and crisscrossing Manhattan and environs. but no. We have an economic and political policy that says we need to manufacture and develop more and more weapons of war. That's where the priorities and our monies go to-war and war machines and coming soon a Space Force. Meanwhile people are roasting, crammed in tight, delayed and literally everyday victims in the NY Subway system-maybe it was great in the 30's when they were built but we need to use our American genius to develop modern mass transit. The time has come.
16
Busses sit in the same traffic as everyone else--same delays from accidents, construction, rubber-necking, etc. RAIL is the way to go. If you want to get somewhere on time...
7
@Hmmm
Rail, sure, as long as you don't have 85 stops. For the moment, alleviate the time by reducing express stops to 12 between origin and destination. Have fifty shuttles serve the dozen stops.
2
@Chris Kox 85 rail stops would get you from the Cloisters to Far Rockaway, with stops to spare.
NYC should license the computerized routing system used by UPS to determine the most efficient way to get from point A to point B without making unsafe left-hand turns. The solutions are out there. No point in reinventing the wheel.
14
66 to 85 stops to seat 57 passengers for an express?
maybe software to reserve a seat and determine efficient pick up points would make the route more efficient.
K5 students are expected to walk up to a mile to their central pickup or to school, on roads with no sidewalks in the commuter areas upstate, but the city folk with sidewalks only go 0.4 mi...4 blocks. Seems like central commuter pickups should be a mile apart, where the traffic permits.
9
Study how we do it in Chicagoland. Fabulous public transportation in the city and the burbs as well!
4
@Andy and yet the area is still haemmoraging population despite this admittedly great infrastructure.
1
@Andy The Chicago with Lakeshore drive, 8 lanes of traffic cutting off and ruining the entire lakefront, gassing joggers and people biking to work in the process? Or the express way to O’Hare, 24/7 traffic jams? No thanks. I think we’re better off taking cues from Europeans cities.
1
@Andy Depends where you live. It's been taking me 45-60 minutes to commute from Lakeview East to the Loop lately.
Extending the 1-line from Bowling Green through Governors Island and Red Hook to a terminal in Staten Island would generate enormous economic opportunity in these areas and for the people who live there.
1
@AGuyInBrooklyn
The 1 train terminates at South Ferry. Bowling Green is on the Lex, 4&5 trains.
If you look at demographics for NYC since 1712, there are only 2 years with negative growth. Maybe NYC is just full now, at least in the sense that it's reached its limits based on our standard operating procedures since the 1950s. Why is a commute still something that is necessary every day? For millions, this is no longer really necessary. Companies and employees that learn how to succeed with more of a remote working model will win in the 21st Century. It's pretty ironic that those working offshore actually have a better work-life balance since their commute is alway virtual.
4
The city could solve part of this problem rather quickly, at least for some people.
The vaunted NYC Ferry does not serve Staten Island. It should not be that difficult to put up a parking lot by Lemon Tree Park (Google Maps is your friend) where there is already a fishing pier that a ferry dock can be attached. NYC Ferry needs to get more boats and fast.
That trip from the southern end of Staten Island would take about 40 minutes to go to Wall Street, a bit longer if the boat make a couple of more stops along the east shore and at St. George.
As far as the new bus system, there are pieces that are working okay, but there are quite a bit fewer runs and longer headways in some cases that are not going well at all.
8
All express buses are wheelchair accessible, but most express bus drivers do not know how to move the seats or use the lift. Many riders rightfully resent the extra time, up to 20 minutes, an untrained driver takes to get us on or off when we instruct them. Train the drivers! And passengers, stop harrassing wheelchair users for what the MTA needs to fix. It's not our fault we use a wheelchair and need to take the bus.
Jean Ryan, President, Disabled In Action
38
@Jean Ryan Thank you for making that comment, I drive an accessible taxi sometimes and it really takes some practice to use effectively and to learn the different type of mobility chairs. I think they might get the training but if you don't use it, it's really scary the first few times and nobody wants to make a mistake.
11
They are switching to low floor ADA busses the new MCI bus and the new dual layer bus which have flip up ramps!
"you could fly to Florida in less time"
Not if you add in the time getting to and from the airports, waiting in the security lines, waiting for your luggage. etc.
11
@Joan P Amen!
The fundamental trade-off is the fewer stops that the buses have to make the longer most people will have to walk to their buses. Not sure what the breakdown is on the percentage of people that would prefer to walking longer distances for a faster trip once on the bus and those that would accept a longer trip for a stop closer to their homes. Hitting the sweet spot where most everybody walks a reasonable distance and yet travel time is substantially reduced will be difficult. Also, it seems that this is just a rejiggering of existing resources when areas in Staten Island may need more buses that run more frequently (which of course would cost more money).
7
@Schneiderman Totally fair, but there are just some places where the bus stops are way too close together, and when combined with the dwell time at stops and traffic signal patterns, they just CRAWL.
Specifically on the closeness, the uptown M5/M7 busses make TWO stops on Central Park South between 7th and 8th Avenues. Total waste! Until recently the southbound M5 made TWO stops on W 72nd St. between West End and Broadway -- at least they moved the latter around the corner to ON Broadway so now the downtown M104 and M5 stop at the same place which is just so much more logical.
2
Well, sure, if you eliminate stops service CAN be faster. Why not just have the bus start from point A and not stop at all until it reaches its final destination? Having to serve the public is so pesky - make the elderly and disabled walk further!
4
The city is making it very hard for older people to get around. Very few can walk five blocks to a subway station and down two flights of stairs. Taxis are more and more expensive with fees always being added. Now buses seem ridiculously slow and crowded. Meanwhile we hear talk all the time about the need for more bike lanes. In other words:older people get out!
4
I commute from Staten Island to east midtown Manhattan on weekdays, walking or taking a cab (or now sometimes a Jump bike or Lime bike) to the ferry and then taking a Citi bike up the protected East River bike path.
What is needed are a number of improvements undertaken together: 1) more protected bike lanes (its dangerous to weave in and out of traffic when they are regularly blocked by parked cars) and 2) enforcement of traffic laws protect pedestrians and bikers, 3) congestion pricing on cars, 4) better regulation of Uber/Lyft (in the works now that new licenses are capped for a year), 5) better bus routes, 6) more ferry services, all of which will 7) alleviate subway overcrowding.
We need all these improvements to provide safer streets and more humane commutes for everyone.
12
@Another NYC woman must be nice to live so close to the ferry that you could walk. how about the rest of the Island?
"Transit officials said they have also identified congestion hot spots throughout the city — a major cause of bus delays — and are working with the police to increase enforcement of traffic rules and to cut down on cars blocking bus lanes and double parking, among other measures."
If you block a bus lane in New York City, the chance of incurring a fine is infinitesimal - you're more likely to win the lotto than experience NYPD enforcement action. There is no real price to pay for committing infractions....lane-blockers do not get towed! Freight and delivery service companies have factored fines into the cost of doing business.
Our City needs to think much much bigger. There should be 30 ferry ports ringing the coast of Staten Island, launching dozens of ferries - an armada! - every 10 minutes from each port. Short-and-Speedy bus service from the existing bus stops to all the ferry ports.
We need real leadership, real political will, to usher in a real urban transportation revolution our City so desperately needs. Enough of the crisis-thinking, band-aid approach to change. So much of the current, tired thinking really amounts to too little, too late.
36
@lowereastside
The city probably hesitates to two illegally parked vehicles lest they incur the wrath of the police and fire unions whose employees seem to have carte blanche to use the site streets as their free parking lots.
1
For those “express buses,” the biggest bottleneck is the Gowanus Expressway...
1
This is at least the third article in the Times with the term "failing subways". It is straight from Trump's vocabulary. The Times is utterly captured by Trump.
And it isn't true. The subways bring many people successfully to their destination every day.
29
@Reader 0001
Oh, please! The NYC subways are a disgraceful leviathan!
Have you ever read Plato's Allegory of The Cave? It only the people who refuse to take in the bigger picture, who refuse to remove their blinders, who refuse to speak relative to other world subway systems, who contend that New York does not have "failing subways".
2
@Reader 0001 Try telling that to the folks that live in Eastern Queens who deal with the subway way failures and the likes almost on a daily basis
1
@Reader 0001
They may get to their destination "successfully" but that does not mean they get there on time, in a clean, properly air conditioned subway car, and after enduring a sweat drenched wait on a dangerously overcrowded platform! Yet again, the Trump analogies in every single thing is inapt and silly.
1
I noticed the new “SIM” bus route signs yesterday on Water Street in Lower Manhattan. I hope they work out. Change is hard, but so is a three-hour commute.
1
@Practicalities
There is no place on Staten Island ( even hard by the Outerbridge) that is more than 90 minutes from Water Street by ferry and local bus or SI Railway.
The MTA upcharges for a “one seat commute” that takes twice that time.
The express bus concept was a scam from the beginning. Take it from a born and raised Staten Islander who commuted to HS in Manhattan for four years in the 1970s.
1
In Philadelphia we have Septa, which is wonderful. NJ Transit in South Jersey is great, but only in populated areas. Impossible to get to Medford Lakes by public transport.
2
With the population of NYC at record levels what's needed is a comprehensive infrastructure upgrade. A new Hudson River crossing for rail, a new Hudson River crossing for vehicles, and a new East River crossing for vehicles to supplement the new East River LIRR crossing.
Upgrading the Cross Island Parkway to eight lanes will allow for two dedicated lanes to the Southern State and Belt Parkways to the south and the Whitestone Expressway and Throgs Neck Bridge to the north.
Extending the fourth lane on the eastbound Southern State from exit 18 to exit 19, adding a fourth land on the westbound side from exit 19 to exit 17, and eliminating the roller coaster "dead man's curve" between exit 17 and exit 18.
Adding a fourth lane in both directions on the Grand Central Parkway between the Clearview Expressway and the Cross Island Parkway.
And there is always the Long Island Expressway.
They came up with the funds for Boston's "Big Dig", NYC deserves the nothing less.
5
@mlb4ever
Adding additional lanes to any urban roadway - especially in any of our north east corridors does nothing to alleviate traffic. It simply INCREASES traffic.
What we need are new ways to move large amounts of people comfortably, conveniently and quickly....none of which we have now.
We should be demanding the REMOVAL of traffic lanes to create space for high speed rail. We should be demanding high-capacity, high-speed hydro travel from dozens and dozens of new micro-ports all around Long Island and the coasts of Connecticut, New Jersey and New York State.
OMG, for wont of truly progressive leadership in our ideas-starved metropolis!
3
@mlb4ever
Time to stop housing new immigrants in the densest city in the USA. What's wrong with Canton, OH. Many people living in NYC do not need to be here. There was the huge tragedy with the family on welfare from Maine, where the subsidies are less generous.
PS most people under 20 and over 75 should not be driving anyway. The next innovation -- Google cars properly implemented -- ride sharing -- could solve the one person one car problem . Smart cars also allow more cars in the same space... Just saying..
@mlb4ever Good Idea, however much of the NYC budget ($8 BILLION), yes Eight Billion, is used to pay for municipal pensions.
Generally speaking, as a bus rider, I can tell you pretty much all buses around the NYC area make a way ridiculous number of stops. If people need bus service, they will make it an extra few blocks to a common-point stop. Hopefully this will be sorted out.
13
Every form of public transportation in America is embarrassing and in shambles. I am still amazed that voters continue to reelect the same politicians who allowed this to happen while they zip by in their motorcades or private planes. This is no different than when royalty would have their carriages racing through the streets and trampling peasants who got in the way. Yet still the other peasants would wave and bow down to them.
110
I drive once a week from Vermont to Brooklyn. It takes me 3 hrs for the first 180 miles then, from the Whitestone to Flatbush, 17 miles, it takes anywhere from 1 to 2 hours.
I would be more than happy to drop off my car somewhere around the bridge and hop on a bus or whatever else could take me to my destination in the same amount of time.
It would be one fewer car in the street and parked by the curb but it would have to be at least economically neutral.
20
@farmer marx - Or how about if the city built a giant garage right on the West Side highway or the FDR and offered cheap spaces to Manhattan residents. You could take the subway, get in your car, and exit Manhattan quickly, without the hassle of local street traffic.
2
@farmer marx
Absolutely right. Time to charge people for parking their cars all over Manhattan!! at the very least. (Why are their ground level parking lots with public housing?? Why not a tall parking garage -- and why parking at all IMO??
In the city a car is a luxury, not a necessity or should be that way. Rental cars should be cheaper than they are.
No matter what you do getting from Staten Island to midtown is ninety minutes on average. MTA needs to cut that time in half. Either connect Staten Island directly with a train or get a fast ferry to midtown.
6
“ In Manhattan, buses no longer try to do it all — winding through Lower Manhattan and then Midtown; there are now designated buses making stops in one area or the other, but not both.”
I don’t see how cutting a route in half helps.
Sure, it keeps buses closer to schedule, since each bus experiences only half the congested spots for a route cut in half it makes everybody get off the bus, wait at the stop for the “second half” bus, then get on that one, and still experience the full route of congestion ( or switch to another mode of transportation, eg taxi or subway, if available at the midpoint)
1
Bus lanes are clogged with delivery trucks and Uber drivers waiting for passengers. Install cameras and fine drivers. There should be congestion pricing in Manhattan. There are too many single passenger vehicles and all of this has been made far worse by the massive proliferation of T plate vehicles.
44
@Michael - Then how exactly will Manhattan residents be able to receive the numerous packages of stuff they have ordered?
1
And now, the city council wants to put reduce the services of Uber the only reliable source of transportation left in NY. How the richest nation on earth, in history, could tolerate a third world transportation system is a testament to a country who continues to erode the public good in the name of private gain.
21
This is why politicians in NY and NJ spend all their time going after Trump, the same Trump they use to wine and dine with. It deflects attention from their corruption and incompetence.
On the plus side attention is finally being given to transportation. When cuts to transportation were made to working class and poor communities no one cared. In many instances transportation was rerouted or for developers to help them sell their products. Or services were cut in one area and enhanced in another.
Think of it as the transportation version of redrawing congressional districts. It was done to favor a few and created a disaster. The contamination has now spread to areas that thought they were immune and now everyone suffers. The only question that remains is who will fix it and will it ever really get fixed to benefit the majority or just the few.
3
It looks as if MTA is catering to one sector of the population, the able-bodied middle class and upper class people on their work commutes. We have to take extra care in overseeing MTA's restructuring of bus service that everyone else doesn't suffer even more than they are now. NYC and NYS have not been shining examples of equal services. Even under Dinkins, the poor neighborhoods of color lost a huge proportion of the sanitation service. I wouldn't trust MTA to restructure fairly.
7
It is painful to keep reading the same kind of articles for years in the Times or social media, unhappy riders even created a page on FB , what is amazing to me is that it takes years ,even decades to have an organization like the MTA to find solutions, no logic applied for all those so called leaders , the country of America walked on the moon in 1969 , now 50 years later we cannot find good ideas to resolve a bus transportation issue, we hired the head of the MTA from other country, we talk about fixing the problem within 3 to 5 years , what about by Christmas ?
This is exactly why we need to vote and believe in the millennium, I would bet that if you changed all the MTA board and replace them by younger and fresher minds the problem would disappear in 3 months , what's on the way is politic , union donations to politicians to finance campaign.
This issue will follow the governor for years to come, especially 2020.
It is a disgrace.
9
The traffic maps are the same every workday. Too many vehicles (particularly those with only one passenger) on a highway infrastructure incapable of supporting such volume.
10
honestly will all the computing power we have today you're going to tell me that some room full of software wiz'z can't put together a program that takes all the data from current traffic data, subway stop locations, peak ridership and so on and model what the most efficient and productive routes would be? We can send rovers to mars, probes to Pluto Pluto, unlock the mysteries of subatomic particles but we can't lay out bus routes that make sense?????
53
@Costantino Volpe
Astronauts and physicists are not unionized. Mars does not have graduates of Trump U. arguing for an express bus route in front of buildings they just bought, nor does it have incumbent residents demanding their bus stop stays put. Leaving hotly contested systems nearly "as is" is by far the path of least resistance.
1
In fact, why not make it a global open-source challenge? Let the best minds in the world work on it!
1
My first advice to all commuters would be to leave Staten Island, my second advice would be leave New York. High taxes, high rents, high property prices, terrible services, public transportation, roads, etc. You have to really love bagels, because that is the only things that are better in New York!!
29
@Robert Franz : gun control is also better in New York, as is education.
10
@Robert Franz I love the people, the community, and the access to the arts. I'm auditioning for 3 choirs this upcoming few weeks. What other place would I be able to do that?!
5
@Robert Franz - You really don't know a bagel until you leave NY!
1
The last time I flew from Chicago to New York (several years ago), the total time of travel - from leaving my door in the South Loop to arriving at my destination in midtown via Newark took as much time as it would have taken me to drive.
No joke. 7 AM to 7 PM - 12 hours. Could have gotten there with my car in that time.
A large portion of that involved the bus ride from Newark to Midtown.
72
@Chris Fortunately, the airport situation has gotten better thanks to Air Train -- but only if Manhattan is your destination. I used to do that bus ride when I had to fly out of Newark, and the the normal 45 minute bus ride occasionally would take an hour plus, and I recall a couple of 2 hour trips. That said, if I still lived on the west side I might just choose the bus to Newark due to convenience but in rush hour PATH or train is the only way to go.
7
@Chris No joke, that’s how long it takes me to get from my home in DC to my place in LONDON, door to door.
1
@Chris Why would you take a bus from Newark to midtown anyway? There's a NJ Transit rail stop right at Newark Airport; just a few short stops and you're at Penn Station. Frankly I wish it was as easy to get from other cities' airports to their downtown, as easy as it is to get from Newark to Manhattan.
3
The one tried-and-true method for keeping buses moving, which has been successfully applied in cities like Bogotá? Separated, Dedicated bus lanes.
No need to cajole the Police Department to enforce no double-parking in the express bus lane if concrete curbs will prevent it from happening in the first place, 24/7.
The express bus lanes in Manhattan have never worked because they’re not actually physically separated from normal car traffic.
Maybe with the L Train shutting down, the MTA should give it a try with a truly dedicated bus lane over the Williamsburg Bridge, and see if more people might actually use the bus?
159
@Nick P Bogotá also shows the limits of bus rapid transit (BRT). Stations are extremely overcrowded. Buses run reasonably smoothly but nothing you would call fast. The dedicated lanes, one in each direction because they're overlays and you can't take more lanes from non-bus traffic, are very fragile: one stalled bus and everything goes to heck. Feeder buses, which will always be necessary, are back to square one in terms of efficiency. I am a big boosted of Transmilenio as the system is known, but most Bogotá resident would punch me in the face if I questioned their contrary view.
I think we have shown that bus lanes can’t work in NYC. A better approach might be to just close some well chosen streets to busses all together. Then busses could run almost like subways.
Exactly - Bogota’s express bus system is a marvel. Key not just dedicated bus lanes but pre-boarding payment and quick loading/disembarking from raised boarding platforms. Easy to copy.
1
I used to board an express bus on Staten Island at 5:15 AM so I could go to the gym before work. At 5:40 AM I would be sitting in a traffic jam on the Gowanus, but the HOV lane was empty because it didn't open until 6:00 AM. Every year traffic in Manhattan would get worse, even at that hour. Finally I retired. I loved my job but the commute wore me down.
59
Same thing at the entrance to the queens midtown tunnel....the HOV lane is blocked and sits empty for about 45 mins...and a whole lane in the tunnel (!) sits empty as well, all just in anticipation of the eventual 6am opening. Maddening.
2
The example of the Staten Island express, taking three hours to go 40 miles, is an average speed of only 13 mph. Why would any able person choose that over a bike that can be ridden with ease at 15 mph on flat ground? And by traveling one's own route, it's likely to be far shorter than 40 miles!
I think far too many American adults view bicycles as toys rather than their real purpose: very efficient transportation machines. Perhaps a speedier transit system would include "bike and rides" where people from outlying areas could bike to a bus or train that is truly an express?
69
How about if you’re over 70 like me?
How about if it’s raining, snowing, freezing, boiling, dark as in nighttime dark out there?
Bike lanes are hardly ever used. Just look around and it’s not because people are lazy and thus not moral beings.
Bike lanes are an inefficient waste of limited space on city streets.
51
@Upstate Guy Would you really feel safe riding a bicycle among huge buses, trucks, taxis, etc. in NYC? I have tried it; and it is very dangerous.
57
I live in Silicon Valley. I was at the meeting years ago when the local gov't announced there would be a new light rail system. It is now the most expensive rail system in the US per passenger mile and the slowest, averaging 11 mph. At that meeting they displayed a poster showing the new train traveling down the sidewalk. I am not kidding! There are several blocks in downtown San Jose where the train goes down the middle sidewalk. Google 'San Jose Light Rail Sidewalk' and look at the images.
It's insane and the whole system is an example of bad government. If there is a crowd waiting for trains (ie after a Sharks game) they will take the trains off one line and use them on the crowded one and leave the passengers on the other routes standing there. The whole system is full of stupidity (to use the emergency you first have to dial in which station you are at. The numbers or on a faded poster at the station. Really, in the middle of Silicon Valley you can't have an emergency phone system that knows which phone - within the closed system - the emergency is being called in from. It's just insane and so poorly done.
9
Close some well chosen major arteries to and from subway stops to everything but buses in the outer boroughs. The buses can then run very quickly, free and clear of traffic and lane obstacles. It would almost be like adding subway lines over night. This would be very unpopular among car owners and probably business owners, but it could be the game changer that we need.
66
The Uber Lyle mentality has made it worse. I worked in NY for a decade. Smaller buses and more of them going more routes and ban cars except taxis.
Big delivery trucks blocking streets need to have early hours before 7am to operate
111
Buses will never make sense in New York until we implement congestion pricing to ease traffic in Manhattan and eliminate much of the street parking which both clogs streets and encourages extra traffic because people circle and circle looking for free street parking. Until then these redesigns will be lipstick on a pig.
184
@Big Cow Also it would help to allow right turn on red after 10 PM. Waiting at every light when looking for parking on nearly deserted intersections is wasteful and adds to backups
4
@Big Cow
Not to mention enforcing existing double-parking rules! I am not talking about double parking during street cleaning because there are still the same number of lanes. I mean stopping any time, any place to run into a Bodga and get a pack of gum. I do not know of any other city where people routinely double park with impunity. Double parking is dangerous, selfish and illegal, we must do more to stop it!
8
@Karen - Without double parking, it would be nearly impossible for UPS to deliver packages in Manhattan. Hear that, all you doorman-building residents who get a dozen packages a week? You're the problem!
2
It's a nice idea, but I'll believe it when I see it. They been talking about modernizing the bus routes since I moved to the city in the early 90s, and they are still the slowest motor transport I have ever seen in any city. You wait forever for one to show up (stuck in traffic somewhere, of course), then when it finally does, it's packed to the gunwales, the stop takes forever because there's always someone who doesn't have a card, and when it finally lumbers off, it moves at a snail's pace. There's a good reason Uber and Lyft and Via have become commuting staples: they get you where you're going in a reasonable amount of time. I have friends (personal trainer, dog walker) with clients all over the city, and they can't afford 2+ hours to go crosstown and up 10 blocks. The subways are falling apart and way too unreliable, and the buses literally take forever. People don't have that kind of time, at least not if they're trying to get to the next job. So great, overhaul it, whatever, but don't expect people to start relying on it until we can see actual results.
75
Uber and Lyft are a good part of the problem.
64
Ridiculous. Eliminate Uber and Lyft and NY’s transportation systems will continue to be outperformed by other major cities. The only real difference would be that Uber and Lyft would be gone.
@Betty Boop Uber and Lyft are simply the new taxi system. Congestion pricing would alleviate the issue, but public transportation needs to offer similar efficiency.
1
Eliminate single passenger cars from entering Manhattan. Build more commuter train lines, monorails and consider the hyperloop technology. We need bike lanes from all the outer commuter towns and tie them to the city. Either a bike rider can make it from a rural town to a hub, or ride all the way from the 'burbs to Manhattan on a bike.
I am quite looking forward to the end of the Petrol Age. I hope it ends before we do.
183
Yes, make the parent and the kids peddle to the metal as it rains, snows and pours. Sounds good to me.
“Hey kids, we’re going to the movies in Manhattan, saddle up!”
Bike lanes are for people under 30 during daylight and good weather. Everyone else is pushed aside for them. And by the way, few bike riders in Manhattan use them when available. And then they often ride against traffic.
34
@Shawn Bayer I ride 35 to 50 miles a day, with 100 mile rides on the weekends. I'm in my 50s. Most people are lazy, especially Americans. A mix of human powered vehicle lanes and ubiquitous public transportation will reduce congestion, improve air quality, speed up the time people spend getting into Manhattan. Our family takes the train into the city and public transportation when we get there. If we drive into Manhattan, we do so with a full vehicle, never entering the island with a single passenger. I never take cabs or Uber. They are slower than walking. I take the subway or walk wherever I go in Manhattan. Your argument is stuck in the 20th century.
2
@Shawn Bayer People in their 50s, 60s, and beyond bike, too.
However, because we have a broken healthcare system, people like me who are capable of biking to commute (and I did it all the time living in Manhattan) do it less because even when it's sunny out, a bike accident can be extremely costly.
Bike lanes are needed along with commuter bikes that come with adjustable helmets and day-glo vests.
Hot dog bikers are out there, yes, but there are plenty of bikers just trying not to get killed by bad drivers, especially those coming off bridges or the highways and in their aggressive, mindless mode.
You can get to Manhattan faster from Port Jervis, NY, on the Pennslavania border, than Staten Island.
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@Kenneth
You can get there faster if you build your own canoe and walk.
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The solution is obvious: how did our predecessors get from Staten Island to Manhattan? the WALKED. Or biked. Or took a boat. or horses. On jogged. It is high time the Americans get off their behinds and start moving!
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Please tell me how to walk from Staten Island to Manhattan. They spent years redesigning the Verrazano and didn’t put a bike or walking path. It’s a car dependent borough.
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@Yulia Berkovitz
They took a boat... no bridges... Manhattan and SI are both islands...
1
seems to me that each borough needs streets/avenues devoted ONLY to buses : no cars, trucks bikes or anything else....
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@Michelle Neumann. We have many (though not enough) bus/taxi lanes in Paris and it DOES make it easier to get around the city. Above all, these lanes are highly monitored so no one else dares drive in them or else they risk a high fine as well as losing points on their driving license.
7
I arrive at 11 PM Sunday to EWR after a 12 hour flight. I decided to take a cab home (an expensive indulgence) instead of the airtrain and NJtransit to NYC. Two hours later, I was still not at home due to back up on the NJT and GWB - no accident... just Sunday volume. Its not acceptable. The bus would have been just as slow. So, while am now a big fan of train and other public transit, I know in Manhattan it is still easier to drive to a broadway show than take the A train. So improvements are sorely needed
5
A simple solution I that may work is to make it mandatory to yield to buses the way you yield to emergency vehicles like ambulances and police. Bus lanes already force drivers to yield to buses by prohibiting them from ever obstructing a bus, but where there are no bus lanes, buses often have to wait for vehicles to allow a bus onto an onramp or other merges and turns. Forcing other drivers to yield would make buses move more efficiently and have a negligible impact on individual commuters.
3
The QM16 and QM 17 express buses from Rockaway to Manhattan in the morning and then from Manhattan back to Rockaway in the evening is a 2 hour nightmare. Why are they even called Express Buses in the first place? I've never seen such slow service in my life.What a disgrace. And to add insult to injury the QM 16 and the QM 17 express buses don't run on weekends. Unbelievable!!!
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@sharon5101
Rockaway is two hours by train/subway. Express subways would help... if possible.
The Far Rockaway A train is an express train. But the Rockaway rule still applies--Rockaway to anywhere takes 2 hours. Rockaway has always been a public transportation nightmare.
People should walk more. 18 blocks is not that far, and would be a good daily exercise.
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@Maverick You must be young and in good health and don't carry a brief case or handbag or love the challenge of an 18 block walk in the rain or when the sidewalks are icy.
I worked in Manhattan for 40 years and when I was in my late 20's 18 blocks cost time, but when you are 60, 18 blocks is an ordeal and at 70 I called a cab for 18 blocks. Now in my mid 80's 18 steps without a walker is the best I can do. What's easy for the young and fit as a measure assumes that all commuters are young and fit. They are not.
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I wish the bicycle advocates in Silicon Valley would get Sheldon Bunin's point. Alas, they will only figure this out when they become 70 or 80 themselves.
2
In other words older people should get out. Great idea: New York will be a place with over-priced, unregulated apartments and store rents where you work for a few years and then move out when you have kids or get too old for the wonderful bike lanes. Sounds like a soulless city.
5
This is what's considered urban planning "progress" in America 2018: Re-drawing bus routes.
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Needs use of mathematical modelers and urban planners too ...
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@A. C. - My mathematical model shows that NY City cannot possibly work....
2
People vote Republican AGAINST "government" ..THEN want changes in our country that only GOVERNMENT can accomplish, not private industry. ONLY government spending of our tax monies to improve our lives can create ( for instance) efficient bus-only lanes, create more bridges to lighten the crazy traffic backups on the GW bridge, light rail as seen in many other countries that zip people into work past backed up cars on highways. Vote for people that will invest in America's infrastructure FOR REAL...who DON'T give away our tax mony to the rich or to Apple, who make sure the wealthy pay their fair share.
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@MEDICINE MAN
I am reasonably confident that the Republicans do not run transit in NYC nor in the State - other than that - booo Trump.
@MEDICINE MAN NYC has a Democrat for a mayor and a governor and they fight with each other because neither wants to take responsibility for fixing the transit system.
4
@MEDICINE MAN: As the early history of the NY subway and countries like Switzerland, cited in another comment, make clear, it is a combination of good governance and civic responsibility on the part of both individuals and private corporations that fixes problems like this and at this point we are 0 for 3.
Just throwing money at a government that is mismanaged and corrupt won't do it.
Thank you, MTA. This overhaul is long overdue. Please note: the X28/38 which services the "transportation desert" of Dyker Heights, Bath Beach and Coney Island in Brooklyn has too few buses at night. After 9:00pm, there are only THREE buses, 1.25 HOURS apart. Your data will show they are sparsely used. Make no mistake: It's not because we don't want to use the bus. It's because NO ONE wants to wait on a cold/hot street corner for over an hour to catch the next bus! And, taking the "D" train is a draconian and cruel alternative.
12
It has forever been a dynamic to watch while New York City has always jammed 2 pounds of baloney in a one pound bag, but this cannot turn out well.
I've been hanging in the country. I can't take it anymore. The Amtrak bridge on the Hudson is out. Empire service leaves from Grand Central now and the delays are costly to riders who Amtrak continues to punish with smaller amounts of economy seats with no end in sight.
So extensive was the damage from Hurricane Sandy much of the subway is either in constant repair or soon to be closed. This makes little rides such as the last I took from Bergen F stop to 23rd St. Manhattan into adventures over an hour.
So when we drove into Manhattan to do some clean up in our building's basement infested with waterbugs that chewed up our belongings in storage the adventure was so rattling we didn't have to swear an oath never to do it again.
I don't like being shoved in like 2 pounds of baloney. I won't be a part of it. I don't even want to watch. It ain't funny.
5
Let’s not suggest that the scheduled time of 2 hours and 33 minutes is fast or anything to applaud?
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@Joe Larson. A century ago it would take 2 days for this journey. Stop complaining.
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@Yulia Berkovitz
But it’s not a century ago. Do you want to go back? There are other circumstances during that era that i am sure you would not enjoy.
1
@Yulia Berkovitz Except it wouldn't take 2 days a century ago. If you look at train schedules from 1900 for e.g. you would see that train times were actually the same as today plus they went to many small towns all over the place. It's equivalent to people driving Model T's on dirt roads today.
1
I commute by bus from Rockland County NY to midtown (approximately 35 miles) The trip routinely takes 1 hr 45 mins to 2 hrs 15 mins.
I just returned form visiting various cities in Switzerland using buses, trams and trains in Zurich, Bern, and Lausanne. Their commuter lines are clean, safe and remarkably on time and efficient.
The Swiss obviously continue to invest and reinvest in their country and we obviously do not.
Upon my return to Newark Airport and traveling the crumbling highways home I could not help think, “American exceptionalism” is a laughable oxymoron.
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@James Ruden The distances in those cities are shorter as those Swiss cities are more compact. You are comparing apples with Swiss cheese.
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@Phil
OK, you win on distance.
How about the reinvestment part of the equation?
New York and New Jersey like to pretend transit is a business, a reliable revenue source they never have to put money into.
In both states, commuters are product to shuffled about as convenient, and ignored.
Now that Pudge Christy is history, how 'bout we talk about that new tunnel again, for example?
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@Phil
Try Tokyo, London, Paris, Seoul or virtually any other major world city and @James Ruden's point still stands.
19
Given the inefficiencies of this socialist model (e.g. no modifications in decades) it seems regrettable that the city is seeking to curtail Uber and restricts most taxis. SIers need more options, not less.
6
“Socialist,” lol. When that epitome of conspicuous consumerism and capitalism, the auto with ONE person in it, causes 99% of you traffic problems. Nice try.
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I live on Staten Island and I use the express bus to commute to my job in downtown Manhattan. I’m not sure who theses changes were meant to benefit, but so far, it’s made my commute far worse. There’s a gap now between 7 pm and 8:30 pm when there’s no bus to take me home. I literally don’t know what to do. I tweeted at the MTA, I called the borough president, I’m leaving this comment. I can’t be the only one who leaves work at 7 or 7:15 in the evening.
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@Rls Default to taking the ferry and local busses..sometimes its the only sane way of getting home when the express (repeatedly) fails
2
The bus system will still be hobbled by the fact that the city is clogged with single passenger cars. Midtown is a parking lot on most days. We desperately need congestion pricing to reduce traffic.
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@Eustace Tilley Congestion pricing and make some of the lanes bus only lanes.
21
Yet we try to ban Uber et al — guess who is funding that?
2
@Eustace Tilley - Most of the congestion is in fact caused by delivery and construction vehicles. Sure, you could charge them, but they'll just raise rates, and the cost of goods and services for Manhattan residents will go up.....or Amazon will tell you that you have to pick up your package at the 158th St depot!
2
The key phrase here is, "You can't please everyone." Such sentiments don't alter the needs for changes and streamlining, but when dealing with such high numbers of people, what are the options? There aren't many.
3
@Cone
Maybe. But cities with far higher population density - Paris and its adjacent communes, to name just one of more - seem to do a better job with public transportation than New York. And at lower cost, too, as reported in these pages.
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@MWR
Paris doe NOT have more density-- essentially a low rise city. And Paris at rush hour is bumper to bumper...and kilometers out of the city -- to the end of the RER. and there are many buses that run once an hour and not on Sundays.
PS no longer so cheap to use the RER/metro system.
@Make America Sane Paris is now the preserve of the wealthy and their subsidized children and dependents. Tourists come to gawk at the boutiques and museums and usually only see the upper classes and the select lackeys they allow in from the banlieue to do the dirty work.
1