This afternoon, I had to run an errand during lunch time. I left my office on 9th Ave. between 15th and 16th and walked over to 14th St. As I crossed 14th St. and 9th Ave., I passed in front of an M14D, waiting for the light to change so it could turn onto 14th St. For a brief minute, I thought about taking the bus. I didn’t have much time, and I had to get to 14th St. between 5th and 6th Aves. As I looked down 14th St., I changed my mind and hoofed it. I beat the bus to my destination by a full avenue block. No wonder the M14 always finishes near the top in the Pokey Awards. Anyone who thinks we don’t need dedicated bus lanes is fooling themselves.
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I know exactly how you feel! I have visited a few friends on a number of occasions who were working out of Chelsea Market. After I was done, I figured I’d hop on the bus across town to go to the east side whether for the train home or to another destination.
Normally I was in no rush & would just hop the bus & not care how long it took. However a number of times, I was in a rush & could not afford to have a sub 5 minute trip take 20 minutes. I am known as a fast walker but if things were as they should be, I should not blow a city bus by to the same destination across town.
You are right about bus lanes being needed sooner rather than later on major thoroughfares.
I was waiting for an M4 Limited at 57th and Madison this afternoon to take me home. No buses came at all for almost 5 minutes (this intersection sees the M1, M2, M3, M4, M30, and Q32). In the next 90 seconds, two M2 Limited buses came by, followed by three M1s – at the same time! After waiting for almost 25 minutes, two M4’s showed up at the same time.
Just another day trying to get home!
The barely-faster-than-walking trip from 23rd and 6th to 23rd and 11th was a big reason for me leaving a recent job. There are a billion things they could do to solve the crosstown bus issue…
– Dedicated Lanes
– Have crosstown buses only stop every other avenue (half the buses “even”, the other half “odd”).
– Create any system that allows people to do something that isn’t swiping their metrocard one at a time.
– Add another metrocard swiper on the back door.
– When a bus is behind, rather than letting four buses pile up, have one bus skip a whole bunch of stops.
I could go on…
…or just pass a congestion pricing system.
Be glad you don’t have streetcars, like here in Toronto. Imagine a bus, but it can’t change lanes to go around left-turning vehicles, broken down streetcars (frequent), and you have to walk across a lane of traffic to get to it (they don’t run in the curb lane, but the centre here). Yeah, I walk or cycle.
Not to mention how deafening are the screeching brakes of the buses as the lumber down the street, stopping every 10 feet.
We really need dedicated bus lanes on the major cross streets. Let’s see how things go with 34th Street this fall.
Dedicated bus lanes on all major cross town thoroughfares (57th, 42nd, 34th, 23rd, 14th, etc.) should be the first thing the DOT does. It’s sad that someone can out walk a bus!