With the completion of New York State’s 2012 legislative session, a variety of bills await Governor Cuomo’s signature. One piece of legislation (A4578A/S4313-B), whose passage by the Assembly and Senate represented a victory for community leaders and sustainable transportation advocates, would allow New York City to regulate where private, inter-city buses pick up and drop off their passengers. The bill comes three years after Tri-State released a report [pdf] that called for improved regulation of inter-city bus service on New York City’s streets.
The legislation authorizes New York City to establish a permitting system to regulate inter-city buses’ loading spaces, and would require applicants to provide company, bus stop, vehicle, and scheduling information, prior to receiving approval. The bill would also call for a consultation with the local community board before issuing a permit, though it does not require community board approval. To read all of the bill’s provisions, click here.
While some bloggers have expressed reservations about the bill, claiming that the regulation would drag down a burgeoning transportation industry, they overlook the importance of this legislation in maintaining local communities’ quality of life and keeping New York City’s streets safe and walkable. People live and work near the ad-hoc loading zones of inter-city buses, and since the industry’s boom, New York City communities and businesses have expressed serious dissatisfaction with buses idling curbside. A poorly placed bus stop can disrupt the safe flow of pedestrians, bring exhaust fumes, and otherwise turn a street from livable to unpleasant.
Over the last few years, the New York City Department of Transportation has tried to address these issues on a voluntary basis, designating some locations for bus drop off and pick up, but results have been mixed, with compliance low and enforcement poor. The costs of this inadequate regulation scheme have been borne by the community at large. Poor pedestrian conditions and air pollution impact everyone, regardless of whether or not they’re waiting for a bus.
While inter-city buses provide a vital resource to help get people out of their cars, without some order to their operations, their toll on local communities could soon overwhelm their considerable benefits. This bill will assist New York City in ensuring that the continued expansion of inter-city bus service occurs in a responsible manner that balances the needs of bus companies and the communities in which they operate.
So it’s all just a case where some residents and businesses “expressed serious dissatisfaction” and some “bloggers have expressed reservations” about the resulting bill? Now that a few people have expressed themselves, we can enjoy finding out how this crudely crafted legislation affects an effective new transportation mode enjoyed by almost everyone 16-40 years old who is not fabulously wealthy. Will the gripes of dozens be effectively “balanced” with the travel needs of multitudes? I await with baited breath.
Specifically, what exactly is “blogger” Lemmon’s defense for the regulation stipulating that the bus stops must be registered for particular vehicles in advance, when one of this business’s most important functions is to serve peak travel demand? They do so cheaply and far more smoothly than any other transport mode because they run extra buses around holidays. It is a simple, obvious solution to a problem that has plagued this boneheaded country for decades. Now you’re celebrating a new way to kneecap the practice, either because you don’t know it well enough to know that’s what you’re doing or because you don’t really care about it in the first place.
Of course, with “compliance low and enforcement poor” of the existing “inadequate regulation scheme”, it’s highly unclear how the muscular new regulation scheme is going to be well enforced and well complied with. A good government would solve the enforcement problem before it passes more feel-good legislation that will also be ignored. No doubt you will succeed in putting a few bus companies out of business, an interesting goal for transit advocates, but the problems that people complain about will continue. And they will all, forever, be ridiculously dwarfed by the problems caused by the personal and rental automobile use which intercity buses unarguably reduce.
Way to go, transit advocates and political allies! You have screwed up another thing.
Some of the basics of the bill are sound (but may not be necessary.)
For example, most cities regulate curb space, for auto parking, taxis, trucks, bicycle corrals and lanes, pedestrians (crosswalk locations), and buses. NYC DOT already assigns curb space/bus stops (by bus route or bus company) to the commuter buses that serve lower and midtown Manhattan. The inter-city buses are subject to the same regulations. That is simply enforcement. It is probably also legal to put time limits on the use of bus stops (no buses between 10 PM and 6 AM, for example). And, of course, the city can enforce double parking regulations for buses.
To require the identification of particular buses using the stop and to require a per bus fee, on the other hand, is ridiculous. I do not know of any city in the world that does so.
n8han makes the assertation that intercity bus is enjoyed by “almost everyone 16-40 years old who is not fabulously wealthy” is a overeach. I’m sure all those including myself who ride Amtrak would object to that sweeping overgeneralization. Amtrak pays to maintain its own stations and own infrastructure (and pays Metro North dearly where it does not) so of course its going to be more expensive. Then again it doesn’t have negative externalities like idling outside somebodies house or business or blocking the sidewalk.
n8han, if you has 495 departures per day in your neighborhood as we have in Hell’s Kitchen, with some of the passengers queues being over 500 people, with passengers urinating in your hallway , with ushers on loudspeakers 24×7 and with your business down by 50% because no customer in their right mind would come to your store, you would have a different perspective.
These buses play an important role in the transportation system , but they do not belong in the most expensive locations near the downtown transportation hubs. Just like low cost airlines, if people want to pay $1 to go to Boston then they can travel a bit further to catch that low cost bus.
Rob, Washington Boston and many cities in the US charge a much greater fee for buses to stop at curbside. the fee charged her is ridiculously low.
DC has recently begun charging intercity bus operators for their use of curbside parking spaces and also encouraged them to relocated most of their operations to the parking garage of Union Station.
Unfortunately the business model of the intercity buses assumes free or low cost use of public space often with little concern for the negative externalities of their success. The low cost intercity buses have greatly increased transportation options but they need to be better neighbors and support off-street terminals in major urban areas.
Christine – I was unclear in my comment above concerning a per bus fee. It is totally appropriate to charge a use of space fee based on the number of departures (as airports do) or use of curb space (as parking meters do). However, as I read the legislation, each vehicle in the fleet had to be registered, if there was even a chance that the vehicle would serve NYC. That is quite different from a per actual vehicle that used the curb fee (departure fee) as in some other cities or at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.