Will Letters From Two Uptown Electeds Get DOT to Restart 125th Street SBS?

The plan for 125th Street Select Bus Service died on the vine after a lack of support from community boards and elected officials. But now, Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito [PDF] and State Senator Adriano Espaillat [PDF], along with council candidate Mark Levine, are asking Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan to restart plans to bring SBS to the crosstown route.

In their letters, all three note that the vast majority of area residents are car-free, that SBS would deliver significant improvements to thousands of crosstown bus riders on a notoriously slow route, and that SBS has the potential to bring more customers to businesses along 125th Street.

Shortly before DOT and the MTA pulled the plug on the SBS project last month, Community Board 11's transportation committee voted [PDF] to reverse a supportive resolution it had passed earlier in the spring, rejecting SBS unless the M35 bus to Randalls Island -- an unrelated bus line -- was rerouted. Neighbors had long complained about the route's passengers hanging out at the busy corner of Lexington Avenue and 125th Street.

In her letter urging DOT to restart SBS planning, Mark-Viverito backed a proposal to move this bus stop, though she did not condition her support of SBS on the stop's relocation. "I have heard the concerns of El Barrio/East Harlem residents regarding the placement of the M35 bus stop," she wrote. "The alternate proposal to move the stop in front of the Pathmark is one that I support."

I asked Mark-Viverito why she had not spoken out publicly in support of SBS as the project was being attacked and scaled back earlier this year. "We had made very clear in conversations throughout the debate around the 125th Street SBS that we supported the project," Mark-Viverito said in a statement. "When the DOT released a scaled back proposal for SBS, it still kept the project whole in El Barrio/East Harlem, which is the area that I represent."

When DOT cancelled SBS, the agency said it would be implementing other bus improvements on 125th Street, but there has been no further information about what those changes might be or when they would be implemented. "We received the letters from the elected officials and will be responding," DOT spokesperson Nicole Garcia said via e-mail. "We still hope to work to improve bus service throughout the corridor in dialog with the community."

This post has been corrected to note that CB 11's transportation committee, and not the full board, voted on resolutions regarding 125th Street SBS. At no time did CB 11's full board express an opinion on the project.