Five months after the launch of Select Bus Service Bx12 in the Bronx, the Daily News reports, commuters continue to praise the time savings and travel ease of the new bus service, which uses pre-boarding fare collection and bus lanes to speed travel along the Pelham Parkway-Fordham Corridor in the Bronx:
“It’s much faster,” social work student Jolene Wright, 35, gushed on Fordham Road Wednesday. “You get to where you are going when you need to get there. Believe me, it’s good.”
That rave review is consistent with a recent NYC Transit rider survey that found 98% of SBS riders were satisfied or very satisfied, officials said.
The Bx12 Select Bus Service. (Photo TSTC.)
These benefits are pushing ridership numbers way up on the Select, which connects to seven subway lines and 14 other bus routes. The Select carries 30% more weekday riders (32,000 on an average weekday) than its phased out predecessor, the Bx12 Limited, and has taken 11 minutes off of what used to be a 58-minute trip from end-to-end, NYCDOT officials told the News. Total ridership on the Bx12 route overall (local and Select combined) has increased 10%.
It is important to highlight that the time savings currently contributing to SBS’ success are largely due to police and traffic agents keeping the lanes free of violators. However, this enforcement, though necessary, is not the most efficient use of taxpayer funds. Legislation to allow camera enforcement technology on buses, a simpler and more cost-effective mechanism, died in the Assembly Transportation Committee at the very end of the legislative session last summer, despite the NYC Council issuing a “home rule” vote in favor of the bill.
With the State Legislature again in session, bus lane camera enforcement is primed for re-consideration as NYCDOT expands bus rapid transit throughout the boroughs. The City has expressed its commitment to pushing this forward in the next legislative session. The report on MTA financing released in early December by the Ravitch Commission also calls for expanded bus service and bus rapid transit to ease capacity constraints on existing subway lines and to provide additional service to areas, especially in the outer boroughs, where subway infrastructure doesn’t exist. As the City’s transit service plays catch up with systems around the world, it is time to bring the system up-to-date with current technology.
You need to think of the person/time waste.
One ——— blocking a bus full of 30 people for just two seconds is equivalent to that one person being delayed for sixty seconds.
[Edited for language. -SH]
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