Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Tdorante10
Wait times on the Q55 (Ridgewood-Richmond Hill via Myrtle Avenue) will be reduced by three minutes on Saturday mornings, according to MTA New York City Transit.
By Michael V. Cusenza
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to enhance service on five bus routes—including two borough paths—affecting a total of 65,000 customers to ensure ridership demand is met adequately and to operate citywide bus service more cost-efficiently and effectively while netting annual savings of $2.1 million, the MTA announced Thursday.
According to Craig Cipriano, acting president of MTA Bus Company and senior VP of New York City Transit’s Department of Buses, the agency is increasingly adding vehicles with longer buses equipped with better technology and customer-facing amenities on high-ridership routes that travel on streets that accommodate larger vehicles. By implementing these 60-foot articulated buses, more customers can be accommodated in one vehicle, thereby significantly increasing service without adding more vehicles to already crowded city streets.
“We are more nimble and responsive with the way we manage our bus operations and use new fleet technology, which results in better and cost-efficient service for our customers,” Cipriano added. “We will be looking to use more of these new state-of-the-art articulated buses as they are delivered, putting them on popular bus routes so that more of our customers can benefit from our modern new fleet.”
According to the MTA, for schedules to be implemented in January 2020, New York City Transit plans to adjust service on five routes, including:
- Wait times on the Q55 (Ridgewood-Richmond Hill) will be reduced by three minutes on Saturday mornings.
- Service will be added to the Q28 (Bayside-Flushing) route on Sunday mornings, reducing wait times by three minutes.
- Longer 60-foot articulated buses will replace 40-foot standard buses on the B46 Select Bus Service route (Kings Plaza-Williamsburg), increasing capacity from 85 customers per bus to as many as 115 customers per articulated bus. According to MYCT Department of Buses, operating these longer buses reduces the number of vehicles on the street. Due to the longer length, some stops will be extended to ensure that the buses can fit within the stop space without interfering with traffic, intersections and driveways or create a safety hazard for customers, pedestrians and motorists. No stops will be removed.
- S53 (Port Richmond-Bay Ridge) service will be added during weekday evening peak hours and on the S93 (College of Staten Island-Bay Ridge LTD) during weekday morning peak hours, reducing wait times for both by a minute during those intervals. These two routes run between Staten Island and Brooklyn over the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.
Additionally this week, the MTA announced that seven Long Island Rail Road stations and four Metro-North Railroad stations will be made ADA-accessible as part of $1.5 billion in station improvements under the proposed 2020-2024 Capital Plan.
Six of the seven stations are in Queens: Forest Hills; Hollis; Hunterspoint Avenue Station in Long Island City; St. Albans; New Mets-Willets Pt Station in Flushing; Locust Manor; and Copiague Station in Suffolk County.
The MTA last week released the 2020-2024 Capital Plan that proposes investing $51.5 billion into the region’s subways, buses, and railroads over the next five years.
