WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES NOVEMBER 30, 2017 21
City bus system in 'crisis' mode: Stringer
BY ANGELA MATUA
AMATUA@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@ANGELAMATUA
City Comptroller Scott Stringer
released a study analyzing the
city bus service and is arguing
that major changes need to be implemented
to make the system more
reliable.
The report, titled “The Other Transit
Crisis: How to Improve the NYC Bus
System,” found that bus ridership has
lost 100 million passengers in the last
eight years. The average bus in the
city’s system travels slower than buses
in the 17 largest bus companies in the
country, with an average speed of 7.4
miles per hour on local, express and
SBS routes.
The bus service in Queens fared
slightly better than the service in
Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx
with average speeds of 8.1 miles per
hour. Ridership in Queens also rose
by 1 percent from 2011 through 2016.
Employment growth within Queens,
Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island
has risen by double digits since 2006
but Manhattan only saw a 5 percent
increase in growth since then. Many
residents are also commuting within
their home borough or to another borough
that isn’t Manhattan, making reliable
bus service even more imperative.
Queens saw a 34 percent employment
growth between 2006 and 2016,
but in neighborhoods with plenty of
job opportunities, the bus service was
infrequent.
For example, in College Point where
there are 13,851 jobs according to the
Census Bureau, only one of seven bus
routes had high frequency service
going both ways. Four routes were
considered low frequency traveling
both ways and two routes were considered
high frequency traveling in
one direction.
Evening service in neighborhoods
with a high concentration of healthcare,
retail, food services and hospitality is
also lacking, the report found. In neighborhoods
like Forest Hills and Glen Oaks,
where half the jobs are in industries
requiring staff seven days a week and
24 hours a day, bus service plummets
by more than 60 percent between rush
hour in the morning and the evening.
Select Bus Service, which was implemented
in 2008 to address some of
the issues with service including slow
speeds and ineffi cient routes, “has
introduced eff ective, replicable innovations”
that should be implemented
system-wide, the report found.
But the report also says that implementation
has not been reliable and
that there are design fl aws. Five of the
The city comptroller released a report criticizing bus service in New York City.
nine routes implemented before 2016
lost ridership aft er they were turned
into SBS routes. Ridership also decreased
by 0.2 percent on all nine lines.
The Q44, which was implemented in
2015 and runs through Jamaica, saw a
2 percent decrease from 28,139 riders
in 2015 to 27,712 riders in 2016.
The frequency and speed of SBS buses
also does not diff er much from buses
that follow local routes. SBS buses
arrive every 4.9 minutes during rush
hour while local buses arrive every 6.7
minutes. While the average speed of an
SBS bus is 8.7 miles per hour, a local bus
travels 7 miles per hour on average.
One of the design fl aws, according
to the report, is the distance between
bus stops. The MTA Bus Company
guidelines outline a spacing interval
of 750 feet between each stop. On 10
routes, bus stops are located more than
1,200 feet apart, which is problematic
for seniors and riders with disabilities.
The Q10 (1,362 feet), Q35 (1,641 feet)
and Q100 (3,560 feet) rank among
the routes with the highest distance
between each stop.
Bus routes with the shortest average
distance between stops also have
slow and unreliable service. Seven
of the nine bus routes with less than
650 feet between stops saw a decrease
in riders between 2011 and 2016. The
comptroller suggested that the MTA
conduct a “top-to-bottom review” of
spacing across all of its bus routes. In
total, the report made 19 recommendations
to improve the service.
Gloria Chin, a spokesperson for the
Department of Transportation, pointed
to the mayor’s announcement that
the city would add 21 new SBS routes
within the next 10 years. There are a total
of 15 SBS routes so far, with the latest
one implemented along Woodhaven
and Cross Bay Boulevards in Queens.
Chin also said the city has worked
to create new dedicated bus lanes in
highly traffi cked corridors in neighborhoods
such as downtown Flushing. She
added that while the city was “grateful
to get the support for all these eff orts,”
some of the recommendations he made
will require his “active assistance.”
“For example, given his support for
dedicated bus lanes, we look forward
to working with Comptroller Stringer
to advance state legislation for additional
bus-lane cameras among his
File photo
former colleagues in the state legislature,”
she said. “The new bus shelters
that he recommends will also require
that we modify existing contracts and
make new city expenditures — and so
we will appreciate the comptroller’s
support in expediting those changes.”
Offi cials for the MTA argued that
“the bus network has never been more
dynamic than it is now.” They also said
that outer-borough ridership has
transferred to subways due to “new
populations that are increasingly
traveling to Manhattan for work and
leisure” using the subway.
“The bus system and our riders
are the victims of a crisis,” said MTA
Chairman Joe Lhota in a statement.
“Traffi c congestion and New York City’s
consistent inability to manage traffi c
fl ow and enforce existing traffi c laws
on its streets is killing our bus service
and hurting bus riders. The proper
and progressive way to deal with the
scourge of traffi c is for everyone to
support a responsible congestion pricing
plan. Traffi c congestion is keeping
the most reliable and advanced bus
fl eet in recent history from moving
as effi ciently as it can and should.”
