Restructuring the S74/S78 in Tottenville

Restructuring the S74/S78 in Tottenville

    The S78 is officially the longest local route in the city, in terms of distance, at nearly 20 miles long. To put that into perspective, the X10 is around 24 miles long (the northbound and southbound distances are slightly different), and it's an express route.

    The S78 is also a very unreliable route, in part due to its length. The long route leaves little chance of recovery in the event of a delay. If a bus is delayed due to traffic or some other reason, chances are that it's going to stay late unless you have Mario Andretti driving the bus or something. And depending on the time of day, that bus might become even later as crowds build up further up the line, increasing dwell times (the amount of time the bus spends at stops picking up and dropping off passengers). The issue might be alleviated a little if the next bus ends up catching up to its leader (meaning they split the loads), but you still end up with a long gap in service. The S78 runs every 15 minutes for most of the day, so 2 buses coming at once probably means that there's been a gap of 30 minutes or more. And you're probably going to feel that gap all the way until the end of the line. So if the end of the line is 10 miles away, well, that's a lot of people who are going to be delayed). Combine that with the low frequencies, and that compounds it further (if a bus runs every 5 minutes, 2 buses coming at once means there's been a 10 minute gap. If a bus runs every 15 minutes, 2 buses coming at once means a 30 minute gap).

    The S74 faces a similar issue, except that the fact that it doesn't have to deal with the Hylan Blvd traffic makes it a little better. (However, the S74 is a little less frequent than the S78, so it still has its share of long gaps in service).

    My solution is to make both routes a little bit more reliable by reducing the distance that both of them travel, like so. The S78 would get cut back to Tottenville, with the S74/S84 extended to Tottenville in its place. You may notice that this sounds similar to the pattern that operated prior to Spring 2011, which it is, except there's one major difference: The route the S74/S84 take in order to access Tottenville.

    The S74/S84 take a really outdated routing down on the South Shore, that hasn't kept up with the development patterns down there. (Well, it has kept up a little bit, because it serves the Bricktown Mall, but that's about it). If you look at a map, you'll see that the S74 actually bypasses a denser neighborhood (Woodrow), in favor of serving a less-dense neighborhood (Charleston). And worse, it takes the long way around to bypass it, which increases costs and discourages ridership. Back when the Arthur Kill Correctional Facility was open, it was justifiable, but now that it's closed, there's no reason for it to take the long way around.

   With my plan, you'll see that the S74 goes straight through Woodrow (or whatever you want to call that area over by Bloomingdale Road. It's too far north to be Pleasant Plains, and too far east to be Charleston, so the only other area I can think of would be Woodrow) en route to the Bricktown Mall, and then continues down to Tottenville.

    This rectifies a couple of problems. For starters, it gives everybody east of Woodrow quicker access to the Bricktown Mall, as well as Tottenville (and vice versa: It gives Tottenville residents quicker access to pretty much everywhere along the S74 route). Secondly, it provides a full-time route in the area along Bloomingdale Road south of Woodrow. (The S55 runs weekdays only, and I have other plans for that as well)

    Unfortunately, it means that the areas along the northern part of Bloomingdale Road, and the whole industrial/forested part of Arthur Kill Road (including Charleston) would lose service. For the people along Bloomingdale Road, one alternative is to have S74 buses run down Correll Avenue, running right through the heart of the residential portion of Rossville. The only problem with that is that you lose the direct connection with the S56, but I don't think there are that many Rossville residents making that transfer. (For what it's worth, the main reason somebody would be making that transfer would be to get to Tottenville High School, but I have a different proposal that would create a direct north-south route along Huguenot Avenue, which would solve that issue).

    Otherwise, if buses continue running down Woodrow Road, residents of northwestern Rossville would still technically be within the MTA's guidelines of being within 0.5 miles of a bus route. It's just that it would be better if they made it by a wider margin, and the bus service was more conveniently located.

    For riders along in Charleston, for starters there are really very few of them. A good portion of that route is literally just forest. The community should work together with the MTA, to see if there's a way to provide service only at times when it's needed. So for instance, if all of the businesses start a new shift at 3PM, there could be an S74 trip (say, one from each direction) that passes through a little before 3PM. Otherwise, they'll just have to make their way down to Veterans Road West to catch the bus.

    For S78 riders, their service becomes slightly more reliable, because buses don't have to deal with that stretch of Arthur Kill Road north of Tottenville. From what I've seen, it doesn't get too much traffic, but as I've said, it's one more stretch of road for delays to compound on. By giving that section to the S74/S84 (making both routes shorter), that will help alleviate delays on both routes.

Expanding the Hours of the S96

Expanding the Hours of the S96

    The S46 is the 4th-busiest route on Staten Island, and the third most cost-efficient (the only ones ranked higher are the S48/S98 and S53/S93). Similar to the S48, it has a lot of turnover (though I'd say slightly less than the S48), and definitely sees its share of crowds.

    What I'm proposing is to expand the hours of the S96, which is the limited-stop counterpart to the S46. I would expand it to run from approximately 6AM - 6PM eastbound, and approximately 12 noon - 10PM westbound. (Unlike the S98, it wouldn't run Saturdays).

    In order to keep costs down, I would reduce the frequencies of the S46 to every 15 minutes instead of every 12 minutes. I would also short-turn those buses at Grandview & Forest. With these savings, I would add S96 service running every 20 minutes, with midday buses serving both the Teleport & West Shore Plaza.

   By doing so, this concentrates service where the demand is greater. South of Forest Avenue, service is reduced from 5 buses per hour to 3, while north of Forest, service is increased from 5 buses per hour to 7. Keep in mind that south of Forest, a significant number of patrons will see increased service overall, with the restructuring of the S66 I proposed. (Also keep in mind that I use the S46/S96 south of Forest Avenue very often, because that's my neighborhood, so I'm not reducing service willy-nilly). And of course, keep in mind that for passengers going to points east of Port Richmond Avenue, they would have a slightly quicker ride (assuming they're traveling to a limited stop, of course).

  So here's an approximate schedule for the service: After the current last bus at 8:06AM, the next bus would be at 8:26AM from the West Shore Plaza, serving the Teleport, and then continuing to St. George. Buses would continue every 20 minutes until the last bus at 5:26PM. In the meantime, the 8:20AM S46 would be replaced with the 8:26AM S96, and 8:27AM S46 would start at Grandview & Forest instead of the Teleport. (Its start time would be at 8:35, which is the time it currently passes by Grandview & Forest). The S46 would then run every 15 minutes thereafter until 5:35PM, after which it would resume the current schedule (so the next bus would be the 5:37PM departure from the Teleport, and so on).

   Westbound, buses would run their current schedule until 12:00 noon, and then the S96 would start service every 20 minutes, while the S46 would run every 15 minutes to Grandview & Forest. This pattern would continue until 4:00PM, when the current schedule would resume.

     Keep in mind that this is exclusive of whatever trippers start running around school dismissal times (in other words, those trippers would be unaffected by the change in schedule). Also, I would convert the 7:00AM departure from St. George to an S96. (So the westbound span would be a 7:00AM trip, and then 12 noon to 10PM).