Select Bus Service

Yesterday, Council Member Brad Lander introduced a bill that would require DOT, in consultation with the MTA and the public, to create a citywide master plan for developing Bus Rapid Transit.

At a press event yesterday to announce service restorations and upgrades, the MTA also went public with a citywide plan to expand Select Bus Service. With tunnel-boring mega-projects consuming billions of capital dollars apiece, the agency is featuring low-cost bus improvements more prominently in its strategy to increase transit capacity.

Throughout the development of the 125th Street Select Bus Service project, local elected officials and community boards never came out in support of actual bus improvements. Instead, they cloaked their opposition in concerns about "process." Following yesterday's announcement from the MTA and NYC DOT that they will no longer pursue Select Bus Service on 125th Street, now is a good time to review that process.

Well, this takes a lot of chutzpah. After blocking measures that would have sped bus trips for tens of thousands of people on 125th Street every day, State Senator Bill Perkins now claims he supports Select Bus Service.

Reactions have been rolling in since DOT and the MTA announced this morning that they are canceling plans for Select Bus Service on 125th Street.

Facing opposition led by State Senator Bill Perkins, NYC DOT and the MTA have cancelled the plan to bring Select Bus Service to 125th Street in Harlem. The plan, which was trimmed in half in May, cutting bus lanes out of West Harlem, has now been shelved. As a result, tens of thousands of daily bus riders in Harlem are still condemned to travel at speeds that are often slower than walking.

Yesterday marked the launch of Select Bus Service on Webster Avenue, speeding transit trips on a critical north-south corridor that lacks convenient subway access. To keep buses in motion, NYC DOT and the MTA upgraded the Bx41 route with dedicated bus lanes, pre-paid fare collection, and all-door boarding. Bus bulbs will be constructed at SBS stops along the route next year. The introduction of faster, more reliable transit on Webster Avenue will speed trips for 20,000 daily riders on the Bx41 and complement the city's plan to foster more intensive mixed-use development along the corridor.

The Bronx is set to receive its second Select Bus Service route along Webster Avenue and Melrose Avenue. Within a quarter-mile of the route, 61 percent of residents commute by transit, according to DOT, and nearly three-quarters of households are car-free. While buses won't run in the center lanes -- an alignment that Chicago is pursuing on Ashland Avenue because it leads to fewer conflicts with car traffic -- the dedicated transit lanes will extend for more than four miles, from East 167th Street to East Gun Hill Road.

The elimination of flashing blue lights on the MTA's Select Bus Service vehicles is probably the most absurd transit setback of the past year. Since New York state law limits the use of flashing blues to volunteer firefighters, the MTA caved in to pressure from Staten Island pols and took them off SBS buses this January.