What This Blog is About

What this blog is about

What this blog is about

As you all know, Staten Island's transit network is in dire need of improvement. There are some serious deficiencies that will require a large amount of capital investment to fix. For instance, we lack a direct subway connection to Manhattan. In order to get off the island, we either need to take a slow, infrequent ferry (which often requires transfers on both ends of the ferry trip) or take the express bus and deal with congestion on the roads (not to mention the higher fare). If you're "fortunate" enough, you may be able to take the S53/79/93 into Brooklyn, but even then, that still requires crossing the bridge into another borough.

In addition, there are whole swaths of the borough that lack any type of rail service entirely, because they aren't near the SIR. Again, another issue that would be solved with properly-designed North Shore and West Shore rail lines.

Those projects are years off into the future, and I'll likely make future posts devoted to discussing them. For now, however, I want to discuss low-cost ways to significantly improve Staten Island's transit system in the short-term (and for that matter, in the long-term), and that is by improving bus service. Now, an improvement doesn't necessarily just mean running more buses, but also restructuring bus routes to make them more efficient (both in terms of getting more people per bus, and bringing those people to destinations they actually want to go to in a faster manner). 

How many times have you heard somebody complain "I'd like to take the bus more often, but it takes too long?". Well, in a lot of cases, it's because the bus routes are too indirect: They meander all over the place instead of taking people directly to where they want to go. Depending on the specific area, that may require additional transfers. Both of those things discourage ridership, which means that the MTA runs the bare minimum amount of service, because they don't like running empty buses (which further discourages ridership).

Now, I don't like seeing empty buses either. Remember that our fare dollars and tax dollars are paying for these routes, and if you're going to pay for the costs of bus service, you might as well get the most use out of it. Now, I could understand if Staten Island was some small rural town (or heck, even a small suburban town) with a low demand for transit, then you'd have to have the attitude of "Run these buses with a handful of people on them, or leave those handful of people without service". But that's not the case. We have almost 500,000 people in this borough. Our nation's capital has about 600,000. Our borough is larger and more dense than entire cities like St. Louis & Pittsburgh. There's a ton of untapped potential in our bus system as far as both serving underserved neighborhoods, and getting more people onto the system.

Why has the system not been living up to its potential? Because the MTA is a very slow agency to change. There are routes operating based on the travel patterns of 50 years ago, and haven't adapted to the new development patterns causing shifts in travel patterns. That is exactly the problem this blog sets out to highlight. 

Keep in mind that I am actually trying to bring some of these proposals to fruition, starting with one in my own neighborhood. With the $58 million in additional revenue the MTA recently came into, now would be a good time for an investment in Staten Island's transit system. I've started with the one in my own neighborhood, and apparently, logic and statistics don't work on them, and apparently, all this community support (with the petition) has only got me so far, so I'm going to have to kick it up a notch by getting the media's attention, and possibly organize a rally so that the MTA can (literally) hear Staten Island residents screaming for better service.

As far as these proposals go, if you live in one of the neighborhoods that would benefit from one of them, and you want to start a push to turn that proposal into reality, go for it! If you want to start a petition, or start contacting your elected officials, or even start  a rally, I'll offer whatever support I can give. Remember: We have strength in numbers, and if there's multiple people drawing their attention to multiple issues (versus just one person drawing their attention to these issues), there's a much better chance that these proposals will be implemented and service will improve.