Buses

Sheldon Silver, the speaker of the New York Assembly and powerful leader of that body’s Democratic caucus, has a love-hate relationship with transit initiatives in New York City. He represents District 64 which encompasses Lower Manhattan, Chinatown and parts of the Lower East Side, an area very heavily dependent upon transit, and yet, his most notorious accomplishment over the last two years is the murder of congestion pricing when the MTA started warning about a looming debt crisis.

Unsurprisingly, then, Silver is at it again. This time, he has stripped a proposal to allow the MTA to implement camera enforcement of dedicated bus lanes from the state executive budget proposal. Gov. David Paterson recently proposed camera enforcement in his executive budget proposal two weeks ago, and the move was not without controversy. After all, the cameras for BRT enforcement purposes were originally shot down by David Gantt in 2008. Still, with the governor leading the charge, transit advocates had some hope this year.

The governor’s original proposal was, in the words of Streetsblog’s Noah Kazis, a “real game-changer” for bus riders. The bill would have allowed for camera enforcement on all 50 of the city’s bus lane miles and would have allowed for stationary cameras or those mounted on buses. Cars would receive summonses of up to $125 if they violated the bus lane laws.

The State Senate became the first of the state’s august legislative bodies to whittle away the camera proposals yesterday when they offered up a watered-down version of bus lane enforcement. Cameras, said the Senate, could be used only on existing bus lanes. The new SBS routes planned for the Upper East Side would not have been able to take advantage of these badly-needed cameras.

Advocates were unhappy. “Select Bus Service is the most important and promising project for bus riders in years,” Lindsey Lusher Shute of Transportation Alternatives said to Streetsblog. “The New York State Senate needs to revise their bus camera language and give SBS their full support. We expect the Assembly to do the same.”

The Assembly didn’t do the same; rather, the Assembly stripped the provision from the bill entire. Reports Ben Fried and Noah Kazis:

Chances to improve service on New York City’s dedicated bus lanes appeared to narrow yesterday, when Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and his Democratic conference rejected bus lane enforcement cameras in the chamber’s draft budget. Camera enforcement is one of the linchpins in the city’s strategy to put the “rapid” in Bus Rapid Transit. Without it, bus riders will remain stymied by traffic, even on Select Bus Service routes…

“Right now, bus lanes are routinely violated by many vehicles, resulting in chronic delays for hundreds of thousands of bus riders,” said Gene Russianoff, staff attorney for the Straphangers Campaign. “Using enforcement cameras in city bus lanes could turn that around, making bus service more reliable and helping to reduce congestion.”

Two years ago, bus cams died in the Assembly transportation committee, chaired by Rochester representative David Gantt. This time around, they were stripped out in the Assembly’s opaque budget process. One advocate in Albany told Streetsblog that rank-and-file Assembly members were unaware that the bus cam provisions had been slashed from the budget resolution as late as yesterday afternoon, hours before the resolution was unveiled and voted on.

Gantt has no veto power in the Assembly budget process, which the Speaker himself exerts enormous influence over. The budget resolution only had to clear a vote in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Upper Manhattan representative Denny Farrell, before the Speaker brought it to the full floor last night. “It’s our view that Silver maintains pretty tight control over the budget process,” said Laura Seago, a research associate at the Brennan Center for Justice and co-author of the 2009 report on Albany dysfunction, “Still Broken.”

I’m holding out hope that, during reconciliation, the Senate’s version with the watered-down camera provisions will pass. Otherwise, New Yorkers will be left stranded yet again by Sheldon Silver. When I find myself sitting in traffic stuck on a bus that can’t navigate its bus lane and can’t enforce dedicated lanes, I’ll think of Sheldon Silver and again remember how he doesn’t support transit initiatives in his own home town.

The latest DOT plans for the 34th St. Select Bus Service call for physically separated lanes. (Click to enlarge. Courtesy of NYC DOT)

Over the last few years, as the New York City Department of Transportation and the MTA have worked together to develop plans for a comprehensive city-wide bus rapid transit system, the proposals have all fallen short on one front. None of the routes set forth have included physically separated bus lanes. The 1st and 2nd Ave. Select Bus Service routes suffer from this flaw, and although DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan has long promised a true BRT network, she had not yet delivered those separated transitways.

Today, though, NYC DOT has revealed bold plans for the 34th St. corridor that include physically separated lanes from the Hudson River to the East River. Now calling it the 34th St. Transitway, DOT says the crosstown route will feature a “high quality right-of-way” including physically separated bus-only lanes, passenger boarding islands, a prepayment fare system, and “other bus operations improvements.” The route will be used by local and express buses and should speed up cross-island traffic by 35 percent.

As Streetsblog noted today, 34th St. was ripe for this type of ambitious planning. The route will connect with subway stops at Lexington Ave., Herald Sq. and the Penn Station stops at both 7th and 8th Aves. With the ARC Tunnel under way, even more people will be pouring into Penn Station and the surrounding streets as well.

Furthermore, as Noah Kazis noted, this is a very pedestrian-friendly plan. “Running bus service in both directions along one side of the street allows for wider sidewalks and pedestrian refuge islands, according to an analysis of different options for the corridor,” he said, referring to DOT’s Alternatives Analysis screening report. “Compatibility with loading and deliveries was also a make-or-break factor — the configuration maintains curbside access to one side of the street along the entire route.” It is, for now, unclear what type of barrier DOT would employ to ensure that cars do not stray into the bus lanes.

The Department of Transportation, which hopes to attract federal money for this project, warns that these plans are still in their infancy. The agency still has to conduct an environmental review, hear public input on the design needs for the corridor and study necessary changes for the city’s truck route network. Still, these plans deserve praise because they truly represent the bus network the city must implement to realize faster and better Select Bus Service.

After the jump, a few cross-section views of the proposed 34th St. Transitway.

Meet the latest addition to New York City’s extensive bus fleet. The Nova Bus LFS, which debuted in mid-January along the Bx12, is being called the bus of the future by New York City Transit. First announced last June, these articulated buses feature three doors, low floors and clean engine technology. Better still, this vehicle was built by workers in Plattsburgh, New York, and it truly is a product of the MTA’s state-wide impact.

Right now, the bus above is one of the 90 Transit expect to receive. These new buses will run along the city’s Select Bus Service corridors and these buses were designed with an eye toward speeding up bus service. “This is the perfect operation for a low-floor bus with three wide entry/exit doors,” Joseph Smith, Transit’s senior vice president at the Department of Buses, said. “Our SBS service is designed to move large numbers of people quickly and efficiently. Adding one door and subtracting two steps helps to accomplish that.”

The MTA recently provided a fact sheet about the new bus model, and it seems to be a nice one. The LFS is 62 feet long — or slightly longer than the standard subway cars on the lettered lines. It can fit 54 seated customers and another 58 standees for a total capacity of 112. “Boasting corrosion-free outer skin panels and frame along with improved fuel economy from its clean diesel engine and smart transmission, this technically advanced bus is expected to cost less to operate and maintain during the course of its service life,” Transit’s release said. It also features a rear window — a relic of buses from decades past when the engine components did not block the back.

With the addition of this bus to the fleet, the MTA is moving ahead with its plans to support the bus system and make it more than the inconvenient transit step child. The low floors allow for faster street-level boarding and combined with the pre-boarding fare payment systems, should help speed up what can be painfully slow bus service. Now if only the city would propose those physically-separated bus lanes.

After the jump, a view of the inside of the Nova Bus LFS with the rear window barely visible in the back. All photos courtesy of New York City Transit.

Kicking and screaming, the New York City bus network will be dragged into, well, the present. The 34th St. route features countdown clocks for buses, and the MTA and the city’s Department of Transportation are working together to plot the rollout of Select Bus Service throughout the five boroughs. None of this will work, though, without proper bus lane enforcement.

Last week, while speaking with Richard Brodsky and the Assembly Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder started beating the drum again for bus lane enforcement. In interviews shortly after he received the MTA nomination, Walder stressed the need for these cameras, and he was at it again last week.

“I simply don’t think that the MTA ever made bus lane cameras a priority. In fact, I don’t think the MTA has made buses a priority quite the way that we’re doing today,” he said. “One of the things that I’ve tried to say from day one is that buses are an under-utilized, untapped resource in New York. We can do much more with it, and we’re making it our priority to do that.”

Of course, the State Assembly has long been a reason why the city has not yet implemented bus lane cameras. Back in 2008, David Gantt, a Rochester Democrat, torpedoed a home rule measure that would have allowed the city to use cameras to enforce the bus lanes. Since then, however, the Assembly has ceded ground on red-light cameras, among others, and Walder is optimistic that they will allow for proper bus lane enforcement as well. “I recognize the issues about privacy,” Walder said. “The Assembly, the legislature, has gotten over those issues with red light cameras. There’s no reason why we can’t get over those issues with the bus lane enforcement cameras.”

Meanwhile, a City Council measure could slow down the DOT/MTA bus lane efforts as well. At the end of the year, according to a recent Streetsblog report, the City Council passed a bill mandated a 65-day review period for all “‘major realignments of the roadway,’ particularly the addition or removal of a lane of traffic or parking on more than four blocks or ‘1,000 consecutive feet of street.'”

This move is one designed to allow for more community input in DOT roadway planning, but DOT is not bound to alter plans in the face of community reaction. On the one hand, this law should eliminate any sense of paternalism that may stem from DOT unilaterally deciding how the streets should be laid out without consulting businesses and community boards. On the other, vocal minorities who seem to obsess more about parking than they should may earn too much of a say in the process. Streetsblog isn’t concerned that this measure will materially impact too many DOT plans.

In the end, these two efforts — camera enforcement and the need for dedicated lanes — highlight what is missing from the Select Bus Service plan and what the city needs to have a truly effective higher-speed bus network. I’ve seen cars driving down the 34th St. in the new bus-only lanes, and I’ve seen buses stall traffic when they have to navigate around double-parkers and other vehicles idling in bus lanes. Without dedicated lanes and without an effective enforcement means for those lanes, buses will be subject to the whims of New York City’s painfully slow surface traffic.

Walder knows that better bus service is both cheaper and more immediate than building out new subway lines. He knows that buses can be deployed to bring people into the city’s central business districts or to subway hubs. Right now, we view the buses are an inconvenience that can sometimes get us where we need to go but are mostly utilized by the aged and infirm who can’t negotiate subway staircases. In a few years, buses can be an accepted part of the city’s transit network, and with true bus lanes and enforcement measures, that vision could be one step closer to reality.