As most of you probably know, the S62 (and its limited-stop counterpart, the S92) run the full length of Victory Blvd, from St. George to Travis. However, not all buses go as far as Travis. A good portion only go as far as the College of Staten Island.
What I want is for the CSI short-turns to continue down to Richmond Avenue. This would provide more frequent service for those looking to connect to the bus routes along Richmond Avenue, as well as take some pressure off of the S62s going to and from Travis. (Because currently, those are the only S62s that make that connection).
The S62 was transferred to the Yukon bus depot a couple of years ago, which is where the S44/94 and S61/91 terminate, just south of the SI Mall. So in the afternoon rush hour, you have a lot of buses that end at CSI, and then continue down Victory Blvd to Richmond Avenue, make a left on Richmond, and continue down to the depot. Now, along Richmond Avenue, the service is generally frequent heading towards the mall, so while it would be nice if the buses operated in service all the way down to the mall, it's not really necessary. However, what is necessary is for those buses to at least continue to make all stops until Richmond Avenue. Buses could drop passengers off at the southbound stop at Richmond & Victory (in front of Dunkin' Donuts), and then go out of service and make their way to the depot.
There are some S62s that terminate at CSI, and then start another trip towards St. George. I propose to simply extend those buses to Richmond Avenue. Buses would make a left from Victory onto Richmond, drop off their passengers, then make a right onto Clifton Street and take their break. (Conveniently, it's right by Dunkin' Donuts, so drivers can actually get a coffee on their break. Both the drivers and the passengers benefit from this!) And there's also other stores like McDonald's across the street, and a bunch of stores at the Coral Lane Shopping Center.
Now, obviously, the main purpose of any extension should always to benefit the passengers. But you have to admit that it's nice when it benefits the drivers as well.
So anyway, when the driver is finished with his break, he (or she) would go down Clifton Street, make a right on Jones, and then another right on Victory, making the first stop at the current eastbound S62/S92/X11 stop at Victory & Richmond (because Richmond Avenue is so wide, there's actually one stop by Dunkin' Donuts, and one on the other side of Richmond by the HSBC bank).
An alternative is to have the buses continue to Arlene Street, make a right, then make a right on Merrill and end by Moore Catholic High School (there's currently one trip per day that starts there, school days only). Then buses can start up, go down Merrill, make a right on Richmond, a left on Victory, and then continue their normal route. This would have the buses using wider streets, compared to Clifton & Jones, which are narrower. However, it would probably cost a little bit more money, and the amount of ridership generated from the additional distance traveled would be fairly low, so it would probably be better just having them end right at Victory & Richmond. (Keep in mind that this alternative would benefit me personally, by cutting a quarter mile off my walk down to Victory, so I'm being not at all callous when I say this).
The one disadvantage of this extension is that Victory Blvd between Richmond Avenue & CSI can get backed up in the eastbound direction, which delays the buses for people further down the line. However, during rush hour, there's the S93, which starts at CSI, so if the S62 is backed up, they have the S93 (which they can take into Brooklyn, or transfer to the S61 if they're heading east of Clove Road). For ferry-bound riders, there's a special shuttle from CSI to St. George, which runs nonstop, so most of those ferry-bound CSI students are taking that shuttle anyway.
Keep in mind that the S93 also serves all of the areas between CSI & Clove Road (and is set to get midday service next year), and then east of Jewett, you have the S61 & S66 to get to the ferry. So between all of those alternatives, you have some leeway to handle any possible delays on the S62.
On the weekends (Saturdays in particular, since there's no short-turns on Sundays), traffic along that portion of Victory is generally pretty light, and in addition, there aren't too many CSI kids (I used to take College Now classes at CSI on Saturdays). So the extension wouldn't have too much of an impact on reliability. In addition, if they tinkered with the schedule a little bit, it wouldn't require additional buses or drivers, and would cost very little.
However, while this is going on, there should be an increase in the number of runs going out to Travis. For starters, I believe that all runs leaving St. George from about 3:00PM to 4:30PM should be running to Travis. A lot of times, these buses run late because they have to deal with the loads from the ferry, plus everybody who wants to go to Travis. I've seen buses get to Richmond Avenue 15-20 minutes late because of delays due to crowding (well, traffic can get bad too in the area between Slosson & Jewett, but that's only part of the reason for the delay). At least by having more buses running to Travis, the crowds are spread out more evenly.
Then, apparently somebody thinks it's a good idea to have the buses coming from Travis arrive at St. George at 10:02AM, 10:32AM, and 11:02AM. The schedule should either be redone so that the Travis buses arrive 10-15 minutes before the ferry, or more buses need to come from Travis at that time. There's also a long gap between the 7:55AM S92 (which arrives at 8:37, catching the 8:45 ferry), and the 8:20AM S62 (which misses the 9:00AM ferry by about 5 minutes) Either the 8:23 S62 from CSI should start from Travis, or the 8:20 S62 should start a few minutes earlier, and run as an S92 to allow riders to catch the ferry. Actually, that might be a good idea for the 9:20, 9:50, and 10:20 buses (leave a few minutes earlier and run as an S92).
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