A model of the three-door articulated buses soon to arrive on New York City streets. (Click to enlarge)

Throughout debate over the MTA rescue plan, upstate Senators refused to budge on their anti-payroll tax stance. These state representatives did not want to raise taxes for what seemed to be a very New York City-centric purpose. Transit proponents argued that the entire state would benefit from a healthy MTA, and today’s news out of Plattsburgh, NY, a small city on Lake Champlain approximately 30 minutes from Canada, shows why.

New York City Transit has just put in an order with Nova Bus for 90 articulated buses featuring a low-floor system and three doors. Nova Bus, a Quebec-based subsidiary of Volvo, has recently opened a plant in Plattsburgh, and that plant will produce these 90 buses.

These new buses promise to be state-of-the-art vehicles. They are set to be 62 feet long and will featuring motion-controlled rear doors. According to Mobilizing the Region, this order for more buses comes after a successful trial in the Bronx, and the 90 new vehicles will deployed along the city’s latest bus-rapid transit routes. Delivery is set to begin during the first half of 2010.

As reports from up north show, the MTA is more than just the economic driver behind New York City’s success. Nova will employ 172 New Yorkers in Plattsburgh, and by keeping this equipment order in state, the MTA is spreading it tentacles well beyond its service area.

My gym inhabits an old bank at the corner of 5th Ave. and Union St. in Park Slope. The building has a pair of mezzanines on either end, and the treadmills are lined up facing out the windows on the second floor overlooking the avenue. With a clear view of the B63 bus shelter on the Bay Ridge side of the street, while running, I watch people wait for the bus.

A few Fridays ago, an interesting story unfolded, and while most people wouldn’t think much of it, I thought the tale is a clear indication why New York City’s transit technology is out of date and in need of an upgrade. This sordid story starts at six in the evening. I walked to the gym and noted a larger-than-usual crowd of people at the bus stop. After stretching, I hopped onto the treadmill and noted that the throngs of people were still there.

As the minutes and miles ticked by, I was struck by the scene at the bus stop. Thirteen minutes into my run, no bus had shown up. I could see frustration on the faces of those waiting for the B63. Some stood with their grocery bags staring futilely up the avenue. Others were attempting to keep their children from dashing into the street.

Nine minutes later, as I cleared the 2.5-mile mark, people started to leave. An older woman with what I guessed to be a grandson hailed a cab to points south. The younger child was growing far too impatient to wait for the bus. Four minutes later, a mother and her son headed west on Union St., bound for the R stop on Fourth Ave.

By the thirty-minute mark, as I passed 3.5 miles, nearly everyone else had left. After a series of frantic phone calls accompanied with the exasperated arm motions of someone stymied on the way home, a twenty-something woman with red hair found a cab. Others started walking along Fifth Ave. They would try to get closer to home while waiting for the bus to catch up.

By the time I hit five miles at around 41 minutes, nearly all of the original commuters had found other means of transit. New bus riders had shown up to wait. Still, though, one woman sat there. She had been sitting there when I had arrived at the gym, and she was still there afterward. I had run the equivalent of the distance from the gym to 95th St. in Bay Ridge, and still one woman waited for the bus.

On my way home, I detoured by the bus station and asked her how long she had planned to wait. “A few more minutes,” she said with a laugh. For someone waiting over 50 minutes for the bus, she had a sense of humor about her. “I thought maybe 200 people are dead somewhere,” she said. She had a book, though, and didn’t mind waiting.

As I walked back home, I glanced up Fifth Ave. and saw not one but two southbound buses heading my way. The wait would be over, and no one would ever know why the B63 didn’t show up for nearly an hour at rush hour on a Friday. With no digitized arrival board and centralized system for announcements, bus riders in the city are left with that tried, true and not too useful technique of waiting and peering. One day, we’ll catch up.

As the political turmoil and debate over the future of the MTA recedes into the past of last week, I’m going to take some time today to talk about some future expansion plans for New York City’s transportation network. The later post will be published this afternoon, and both will focus on surface options rather than underground rail plans.

Our tale this morning starts in the Bronx with something called Select Bus Service. This program is a joint pilot effort between the MTA and New York City’s Department of Transportation. It features dedicated bus lanes and pre-boarding fare payment systems. It has resulted in a 24 percent decrease in travel times, and passengers along Fordham Road love the service.

Next year, as part of this so-called Phase I rollout, Select Bus Service will come to Manhattan. Sections of First and Second Avenues are slated for service. Now, as I’ve discussed now and then in the past, this bus rapid transit system along Second Ave. is a bit of a lightening rod. Opponents of the Second Ave. Subway see it is a viable and cheaper alternative to the expensive and oft-delayed subway line. In terms of capacity, though, a subway line trumps bus service, and for now, the two modes of transportation are both slated for the same avenue.

Eventually, Phase I will include service along Nostrand Ave. in Brooklyn, along Hylan Boulevard and into Bay Ridge from Staten Island and access to the Jamaica Center hub. Each borough will have its own Select Bus Service within a few years.

In an effort to expand the program to the five boroughs, NYC DOT recently announced plans for a series of workshops this summer in advance of Phase 2 of the Select Bus Service program. Streetsblog broke the news last week. The Department of Transportation will host seven workshops across the five boroughs in an effort to identify as many as 10 routes for future Select Bus Service.

As part of the pre-launch for Phase 2 planning, NYC DOT has released an unnecessarily large and poorly optimized PDF file explaining the needs of the city and the goals of the program. In a nutshell, DOT wants to target areas that are both underserved by preexisting transit options and areas that are suffering through overcrowding. They want to target high-traffic streets with the goal of reducing congestion as well.

There are though some obvious problems with the preliminary Phase 2 plans. The maps in the PDF are very borough-centric. While Staten Island SBS connects into Brooklyn and some Bronx service connects to Manhattan, rare are the buses that run legitimate interborough routes. Mostly, these Select Bus lines drop people off at preexisting subway stops and do not offer a real alternative for a ride through Queens and into Midtown.

I have a series of suggestions, then, for the planners of Select Bus Service:

1. First, these routes clearly, as I just said, need to be more than just feeder routes. A Select Bus route up Flatbush Ave., for example, should cross the Manhattan Bridge and run more than just a few blocks into Manhattan. It shouldn’t just be an easier way to get to the Atlantic-Pacific hub. It should be an easier way to get into Midtown.
2. At the same time, some Select Bus routes should be planned as subway connectors. Right now, the Fordham Road SBS service connects to nine different subway lines. Woodhaven Boulevard, for example, could support SBS that connects a series of subway lines and leads to JFK Airport.
3. The easiest way to accomplish point two would be to implement SBS along the Circumferential route. Such a route would intersect nearly every subway line and would bring riders from Brooklyn through Queens and into the Bronx faster than any subway could
4. Feed the airports. This is obvious.
5. Install physically separated lanes, priority signaling and automated lane enforcement efforts. The latter would require action in Albany.

New York City is clearly at a transit crossroads. It needs innovative leaders willing to lobby for plans that challenge the status quo. DOT and the MTA have a blank slate in the form of Select Bus Serivce, and how they proceed this summer will dictate the future of surface transit in the city for the foreseeable future.

Streetfilms, the video arm of Streetsblog, tackled the Bronx’s very own Select Bus Service recently. Nick Whitaker and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s Veronica Vanterpool took to the streets of Fordham Road to profile the city’s first foray into bus rapid transit. Bronx riders love this speedy and efficient bus, and as DOT and the MTA have ambitions expansion plans in the works, the rest of the city should soon too. Check it out.