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).