Select Bus Service

Now that the MTA and DOT have been offering Select Bus Service for nearly nine months, the agencies have a better picture of how it’s shaping up, and the early returns have been quite positive. This week, DOT presented its findings on SBS to Community Board 3, and DNA Info was there. According to DOT, trips have increased along the M15 by 30 percent since Select Bus Service debuted, and travel times by 15-18 percent.

Meanwhile, enforcement remains a key concern for the city. Enforcement officials had issued nearly 4700 fare-evasion summonses to riders through April, and lane enforcement cameras had resulted in 5800 ticketed drivers who were parked in the bus-only lanes. People too are safer as injury-causing crashes have dropped by 14 percent on both avenues between 34th and Houston Sts.

Yet, CB3 didn’t seem satisfied, and here we see the dangers of community boards in the transportation planning process. Community Board members say that gaps between local and express stops and the frequency of Select Bus Service stops “make it difficult for riders to choose between the two buses.” Their solution? More Select Bus Service stops. CB3 wants to see “regular and SBS bus stops be placed closer together or combined at locations to provide riders with more options,” and one rider asked for a stop at Allen and Delancey Sts.

If Community Boards had their ways, Select Bus Service stops would be just as frequent as local service, and that’s the problem. SBS works because the stops are far apart, and that sometimes means skipping busy locations. Already, there’s a stop at Houston and Allen and Grand and Allen. That’s only a distance of 0.4 miles. Adding yet another stop in there — two blocks away from Grand St. — is entirely unnecessary.

I’m happy to see Community Board consulted in the planning process. Neighbors should have a say on changes that will impact their lives. But at a certain point, the experts have to be allowed to run the service. Local and express stations aren’t closer together so that SBS buses aren’t stuck behind local routes. Station distances on the SBS route are far apart to allow buses to build up speed. That’s what makes the system work, and it shouldn’t be changed.

This great idea remains alive only on paper. (Image via NYC DOT)

In the wake of the death of the 34th St. Transitway, transit advocates have been down on the state of citywide bus improvements. Everyone in New York admits that buses are too slow, but an ambitious plan to bring physically separated bus lanes with dedicated rights-of-way to Midtown has been replaced by another half-hearted proposal to paint some stripes on the street and call it a bus lane.

With the demise of the Transitway, none of the Mayor’s plans to slowly bring bus improvements to the five boroughs will include a “best practices” approach to BRT. While pre-boarding fare payment plans will speed up bus dwell times, the vehicles won’t enjoy the benefits of a dedicate ROW. To improve bus service then will require stringent bus lane enforcement efforts and true signal prioritization efforts.

Over at Streetsblog, Noah Kazis took a few minutes to wonder about the future of BRT. He writes, in part:

It seems likely that without physical separation on 34th Street, there won’t be physical separation on any bus lanes implemented before the end of the Bloomberg Administration. The remaining routes in the city’s first phase of BRT rollout — on the Nostrand Avenue corridor in Brooklyn and Hylan Boulevard in Staten Island — are scheduled to debut in the next two years and do not include physically separated lanes…

“A number of the environmental and transportation groups are starting to recognize that the next administration after Bloomberg is going to have to answer to us on where they stand on these issues that have been wildly popular for New Yorkers,” said Kate Slevin of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.

Though a new physically separated busway is unlikely to be constructed in the next three years, said Joan Byron of the Pratt Center for Community Development, “Planning can happen and dialogue with stakeholders can happen that make it a lot more likely that the next phase is gets built and has those features.” Byron said she hopes that the BRT team at DOT can assemble a coalition along its next routes that can politically lock in full-featured bus improvements. “There are workers and residents and employers in the outer boroughs who would love to have this problem of a Select Bus route running by their door,” she said.

To get dedicated busways, the city will have to change its outreach approach. It’s going to have engage folks like Joan Byron of the Pratt Center and work with Community Boards to explain why dedicated lanes are necessary. It’s not enough to propose these improvements by fiat, but rather, DOT must educate New Yorkers who aren’t familiar with the rationale behind transitway improvements.

For now, the 34th St. changes are a set-back, but their ramifications echo into the future. It’s not too late to bring dedicated bus lanes to the city, but it will require stronger and more inclusive leadership than what we have seen so far. To improve the buses, we’ll need it.

Over the last few years, the MTA and New York City Department of Transportation have worked to make our city streets more bus-friendly. Left twisting in the winds of surface traffic, the current fleet is known more for the shleppiness of rides and for cross-Manhattan trips, being slower than walking. Select Bus Service — the city’s cross between bus rapid transit and glorified express service — has been designed to combat that stigma, and just five months after its first Manhattan implementation along 1st and 2nd Aves., Select Bus Service garnering both praise and criticism from the city’s politicians.

From the get-go, forces lined up against Select Bus Service in Manhattan. Due to the demands of drivers as well as construction work around the Second Ave. Subway area, DOT opted against the gold standard of bus rapid transit: There are no physically separated lanes. Instead, the city can enforce bus lanes through camera-based ticketing systems, and for parts of the route, buses do not even enjoy those bus-only lanes. Meanwhile, pre-board fare payment has come to the city as well, but as machines are often out of paper and enforcement has been cumbersome, paying before boarding hasn’t delivered the promised panacea of speedy buses. Things are faster, but they’re not yet fast.

Yesterday, City Council member Jessica Lappin, who represent’s Manhattan’s 5th District, unveiled a Select Bus Service report card, and she gave the new, speedier a B- after just four months of service. Lappin has been one of the more vocal proponents of faster bus service, but she also must balance that support with a community loath to surrender any parking spaces or curbside vehicle access. It shows in her assessment.

Lappin, who said there was “no excuse” for the service to receive anything less than an A, thankfully hasn’t given up hope after four months. “I am proud to have worked with activists and other elected officials to bring this service to the East Side and I still believe it can be a great thing for our community. but we aren’t there yet,” she said on Monday. “In some ways, the new service is working well, but other areas still need improvement.”

So what’s working well? Lappin, who solicited reactions from her constituents that ran the full gamut of “miserable” to “disgraceful” to “appalling,” highlighted speed as the main benefit. The buses have improved travel times by nearly 20 percent, and for that, everyone along 1st and 2nd Aves. is thrilled.

But Lappin dwelled on the negative as politicians are wont to do. The buses, she claims, are not accessible enough and earned a meager C- here. By her count, 56 percent of seats are not accessible for the elderly or handicapped because they are up a set of steps on the bus, and stations that are half a mile apart are not easily reached by those who cannot walk. To me, this is a strange thing to nitpick. Nearly all new buses have sections that aren’t accessible, and the SBS vehicles have low floors for easier boarding. As the MTA said, these buses are no less accessible than any others, and those who find the station spacing too great can still take local M15s.

The Council member also highlighted problems with fare collection. As I’ve detailed before, passengers left without proof-of-payment receipts have been ticketed aggressively and, shockingly, do not find the fine a welcome one. Some have complained that the MetroCard readers run out of paper, and although the MTA claims those machines are empty only 2-5 percent of the time, Lappin found that 10 percent of machines in her district were out of service. Thus, she gave this component a C. Meanwhile, enforcement efforts, which earned a B, cause buses to idle while cops check tickets, and thus, it slows down the service.

I’m honestly having a tough time wrapping my head around the East Side assessment of the Select Bus Service simply because Lappin readily admits that its significantly faster than the M15 local service. The point of SBS isn’t to stop every two blocks; it’s to offer speedier trips for those in a position to take advantage of it. Right now, politicians should be focusing on securing dedicated lanes, signal priority for buses and better bus lane enforcement. That is how a city can build a better bus service.