12
BROOKLYN WEEKLY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2019
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
A scheme hatched by transit offi -
cials to improve service along the
B54 bus route by removing buses
has not resulted in any tangible
benefi ts, according to straphangers,
who say they’re still enduring
long waits and that buses continue
to stumble into the route’s
Jay Street terminus all bunched
together.
“At Jay Street-MetroTech,
there will be like three B54 buses
and all the bus drivers... will take
a break,” said one attendee of a
Sept. 4 town hall hosted by Assemblyman
Walter Mosley (D–Clinton
Hill) regarding cuts to the B54 and
B38 bus routes. “Someone said
they waited 40 minutes the other
day!”
Transit offi cials eliminated
buses that formerly serviced the
B54’s Myrtle Avenue route earlier
this week, saying that, while riders
may experience slightly longer
waits, they could expect more
reliable service, as buses would
be more likely to arrive at stops
on time and that issues such as
bunching — a phenomenon where
long delays are followed by several
buses arriving one after the other
— would be less likely to occur.
Of course, the real reason for
the cuts to the B54 and 22 other bus
routes throughout the city was to
shave $7 million off the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority’s
operating budget, and when locals
complained that the silver lining
offi cials had promised didn’t materialize,
a rep for the Authority
simply blamed Kings County traffi
c.
“The fact is that our buses run
on busy city streets — our buses
are subject to traffi c that everybody
else is subject to,” said Andrew
Inglesby, Assistant Director
of Government and Community
Relations at MTA.
Commuters were invited to
fi ll out question cards ahead of
the meeting, and one disgruntled
straphanger claimed that the
MTA provides so-called “on-site
dispatchers” to manage bus traffi c
along the Queens side of the route,
but that the B54’s bustling Downtown
side doesn’t benefi t from
the extra help, and locals weren’t
thrilled by the revelation.
“Why would you have to call
someone to Jay Street if there’s an
issue — there’s always an issue at
Jay Street,” said Clinton Hill resident
Cheryl Edmead.
Another Transit Authority rep
admitted to the snafu, and blamed
the uneven distribution of dispatchers
on ongoing union negotiations.
“That has to do with unions,
to have dispatchers at both ends”
said Patrick Pitts. “That has to do
with a union issue and also availability.”
A spokesman for the union representing
the agency’s dispatchers,
the Subway Surface Supervisors
Dozens of transit riders slammed the cuts to the B54 and B38 routes, with one
saying that the agency needed to send more dispatchers to help buses navigate
the busy streets in America’s Downtown. Photo by Kevin Duggan
Association, did not return
a request for comment by press
time.
Inglesby said the agency would
consider providing additional
staff to the Downtown area to get
the buses rolling faster.
“We will can see what we can
do to at least have more crews
there,” he said.
He added that any issues with
the B54 or any other Kings County
route will be addressed by the
agency’s upcoming year-long overhaul
of the borough’s bus system,
which is slated to kick off this fall.
And all borough bus routes are
set to benefi t from a new command
center opening soon near the agency’s
East New York bus depot, according
to one Authority honcho.
“We are in the process of fi nalizing
plans to open our new command
center located in East New
York, which will bring to us all
kinds of tools that we can have at
our disposal to help manage service
and help reduce bunching,”
said Mark Holmes, chief offi cer of
the MTA’s Department of Buses.
BUNCH OF BULL
MTA scheme to prevent B54 bus ‘bunching’ fails