New bus routes excite Bronx residents
Tracing a line with her pointed finger on the map of redesigned bus routes, Riverdale resident Joyce Myra flushed with excitement when she saw the streamlined route for the BxM2 express bus.
“Right now it goes down 5th Avenue and stops at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and then cuts across to the West Side” said Myra. But in September, if the proposed change is accepted, the bus will no longer travel across the east side and Central Park, neighborhoods with congested local streets. Rather the BxM2 bus will operate via Inwood to the Henry Hudson Parkway, then to Riverside Drive, stopping near 82nd Street where Myra does a podcast.
“It’s going to go all the way down Riverside Drive which is very convenient for me,” she said. “Normally, I walk over to the 1 train. This way, I can just walk around the corner and get the bus to go home.”
Launched in August 2018, the final Bronx bus network redesign plan is expected in September as part of a plan to transform New York City mass transit, after Governor Andrew Cuomo declared an emergency on the city’s subway system in June 2017.
Bronx has 27 bus routes with proposed changes. According to the draft plan, the redesign will provide more direct service, improve spacing between bus stops, provide more crosstown connections and speed up buses.
George Kaufer, 24, who lives in Staten Island but comes to Bronx to see his friend, said riders prefer the subways because they can be more reliable, while the buses are vulnerable to traffic congestion.
“It comes down to enforcing the HOV [high-occupancy vehicle] lane for buses,” said Kaufer. “Whenever it’s enforced, it moves beautifully, but when there’s traffic in the regular lane and one person in a car decides to go to the HOV lane … nobody goes anywhere.”
Myra and Kaufer were among about 70 people who attended a community conversation Thursday evening at InTech Academy in Riverdale, Bronx, with city transit President Andy Byford. He said bus ridership has been declining since 2016 in the Bronx, even though 60 percent of the residents depend on public transportation for their daily commutes.
“People are leaving the buses in droves,” Byford said. Bus routes were designed decades ago and have not kept pace with the changing needs of bus riders, he said.
Byford, a former chief executive officer of the Toronto Transit Commission who was brought in a year and a half ago by Cuomo, said the plan also includes improvements to subway service and accessibility for disabled passengers. The subways will have modernized signals and new cars, he said.
Participants at the meeting mainly asked about the proposed bus route changes, overcrowding on trains and buses in the morning, and fare evasion.
However, Bronx resident, Leon Hogan, who commutes by train, suggested the transformation plan should include measures to keep the subways clean. “There should be a system to clean the cars and stations, especially the elevators,” he said. “The elevators are disgusting and filthy.”
