Waiting At the Median Bus Stop, You Wonder When the Next Ride Arrives
Another day passed when Gregory Lim spent about 35 minutes on a Q52 bus back to Woodhaven from E train on Woodhaven Boulevard station. Sometimes, an hour. “The frustration is that my route is not that long but it moves slowly,” he said.
Lim is one of the more than 30,000 public transit commuters along Woodhaven Boulevard, relying on Q52 and Q53 buses to travel between southern and northern Queens. To solve the congestion, the Department of Transportation and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority have been studying and pushing the Select Bus Service at the median road, replacing the two buses currently running on the curbside. But citizens in the neighborhood have rallied against the new design over the past years, with doubts that it may double pedestrian injuries and slow down the service lanes.
Despite a petition signed by more than 2,000 residents in Woodhaven in October opposing the project, the DOT and MTA moved forward with the construction, starting from relocating the slips for left turns to the cross of Jamaica Avenue and Woodhaven Boulevard. “It was a done deal since the beginning two years ago,” said Philip McManus from Queens Public Transit Committee, an organization formed by a group of citizens who work to improve transit options in Queens.
Although the Community Board 9, which is in charge of Woodhaven, has had back-and-forth meetings with the DOT and MTA, it does not have the power to influence the final decision. While the construction has kicked off, what do Woodhaven residents need to be aware of when monitoring the updates?
Bus frequency remains unknown
The government praised the SBS as the New York City version of the Bus Rapid Transit system, which has already been widely adopted by other metropolises, including Guangzhou, Greater Boston Area, Mexico City, and Cleveland. It’s part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s NYCOne plan and also Mayor Bloomberg’s legacy PlaNYC 2030. Currently, 10 routes of the SBS have already been in service. Mayor de Blasio plans to have 20 of them in place during his tenure.
The existing deployment of the SBS in other parts of the New York City gives dedicated traffic lane to buses along the curbside, but the median stop design will be the city’s first.
“Yet we have no idea how many buses will be running. What’s the plan for frequency?” MacManus said, “If the design indeed increases the road efficiency, then we need more buses and drivers to maintain such high frequency. Do we have that plan and budget?”
So far the only response from the DOT and MTA regarding the SBS frequency is that “the Q52 and Q53 SBS will operate on a similar schedule as the existing Q52 and Q53 Limited.”
“I take the Q53 mostly off hours, but it is always unpredictable,” said MacManus, “The waiting time can take 5 to 30 minutes.”
According to Chris Van Eyken, Senior Planner and BRT expert from the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, the typical frequency of a Bus Rapid Transit system is around every five minutes, especially during rush hours. “If it goes up above every 10 minutes, people will start to complain.”
But even for existing SBS in the New York City, maintaining the frequency at every five to ten minutes is still a demanding task.
In Manhattan, the SBS now runs on the 23rd and 34th streets in both directions. The only time that the frequency falls in between the “typical” range — every six to seven minutes — is during off-work rush hours, i.e. 6–7 p.m. on weekdays.
For other periods, the waiting time could range from 15 to 30 minutes. Arguably, riders in Manhattan have the option to take the subway, which may lower the demand for bus ridership during peak hours. But public transit riders in Woodhaven rely solely on bus services to travel between northern and southern Queens.
“It will be a waste of money if such a long road remains mostly empty,” McManus said. “Even if they have the budget, they won’t care about us. All their focus is on Manhattan.”
According to the National BRT Institute data, the Fordham Road — Pelham Parkway SBS in Brooklyn is at the same length as that in the First — Second Avenue in Manhattan. Though the average ridership in the Manhattan route is around 45,000, 10,000 more than its counterpart in Brooklyn, the number of vehicles running on the First Avenue is around 50, twice than that available in Fordham Avenue.
“Manhattan naturally has more people but also with a better subway connection,” McManus said. “But if you live in near the Forest Park, you are stuck with buses. Good luck with that.”
The missing simulation scenarios
According to Eyken, the BRT simulation model is a useful method to forecast traffic volume, number of buses and suitable bus frequency. It is vital for adjusting how the dedicated lanes for the BRT may affect other service roads in different situations.
According to the public presentations released by the DOT in December 2015, the department used modeling software to monitor existing traffic on Woodhaven Boulevard. Such model forecasted that the general traffic volume will continue to increase and that the dedicated bus lane will reduce the congestion. However, the model did not fully disclose any alternative scenario, and therefore any contingency plan for unexpected situations remained unknown.
In fact, the DOT has had a series of presentations with CB9 since 2015. The latest comment from the DOT regarding the traffic transit model was in December last year, saying that “The revised model is currently in development based on draft plans and community feedback.” But such topic has been dropped off since January 2016 and was not mentioned in the recent meeting with CB9 in September 2016. In the meantime, the project has begun.
Most of the sustainable BRT systems worldwide have adopted a series of traffic modeling in various stages of the project progress. For instance, the City of Eugene Oregon analyzed a variety of scenarios before putting the BRT plan into construction, including what was called the Bus Lane with Intermittent Priority. Taking reference from Melbourne and Lisbon, the simulation model forecasted the average transit time, bus frequency and intersection delay, based on different scenarios, such as one dedicated bus lane, a temporarily bus-only lane, as well as whether the left turn is allowed.
Safer or more dangerous?
Pedestrian and rider safety is another major concern for Woodhaven residents which is subject to debate. “Waiting on the median stop only exposes our residents to a higher possibility of getting injured,” said Martin Colberg, the President of Woodhaven Residents’ Block Association. “We welcome things that can benefit us. But we don’t feel assured about the safety of this design.”
The cross road witnesses two injuries in average every month from 2009 to 2015, according to the New York City government data. Five fatalities happened in the same period.
“I have crossed the Boulevard several times, and I don’t feel comfortable,” said Eyken. “The danger came from the naked median divider. If you were caught in the middle because the light changed, you have nowhere to hide.”
Eyken said that the median bus design would widen the divider with irony fences and blocker at the end of the divider, which should prevent vehicles from running over the median side.
But one big reason why pedestrians would be caught in the middle is that of jaywalking. “It’s not the right thing to do in the first place, and the law enforcement should be even more strict on this,” McManus said.
Jaywalking is common in New York City. Mayor de Blasio advocated Vision Zero after his appointment in 2014. So far no official record has shown that strengthened law enforcement has helped decrease the jaywalking issue if there was a strict law enforcement at all.
“Either way, jaywalkers will still jaywalk.” said Eyken, “But at least a widened median bus stop can give them a shelter if they were caught in the middle.”
According to the latest DOT’s proposal, the 2016 Fall implementation first started with relocating the slip for left-turns to the cross road of Jamaica Avenue and Woodhaven Boulevard. The bus stop construction will commence in 2017. By early December, the slips for left turns on both directions of Woodhaven Boulevard were completed. The 2017 Implementation will include three median SBS stations on Jamaica Avenue, 91st and 101st Avenues, as well as two median local bus stations at 85th Road, 89th Avenue.
