Buses

A school bus driver struck and killed a woman who was riding a skateboard in the Melrose section of the Bronx yesterday.

Brooklyn's B44 bus carried more than 12.5 million passengers last year between the base of the Williamsburg Bridge and Sheepshead Bay, making it the city's fifth-busiest bus route. But the B44, which runs primarily along Nostrand Avenue, is notoriously unreliable and spends less than half of each run in motion. Half the time, it's stuck in traffic or at bus stops and red lights.

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.

A man who stepped out of his car onto Rockaway Boulevard was struck and killed by an MTA bus driver Sunday.

Since Scott Stringer left the mayoral field for the comptroller race, the mayoral candidates haven't spoken much about the Triboro RX, a plan to bring circumferential rail service to Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx using existing tracks and rights of way. But they have spoken highly, if not very specifically, of Bus Rapid Transit. And a few have zeroed in on the transit needs of outer-borough communities, where job growth is outpacing Manhattan, but commute times are lengthening.

Yesterday, Council Member Brad Lander introduced a bill that would require DOT, in consultation with the MTA and the public, to create a citywide master plan for developing Bus Rapid Transit.

Advocates looking to improve access for cyclists at the Staten Island Ferry terminals have run into a roadblock from DOT, and, facing an impasse, are pivoting to a different strategy that seeks to at least protect waiting cyclists from the elements. In the meantime, a bus shelter near the ferry terminal has been spruced up with a new mural, and livable streets advocates are working to bring play streets to St. George after an unsuccessful attempt this spring.

At a press event yesterday to announce service restorations and upgrades, the MTA also went public with a citywide plan to expand Select Bus Service. With tunnel-boring mega-projects consuming billions of capital dollars apiece, the agency is featuring low-cost bus improvements more prominently in its strategy to increase transit capacity.

Throughout the development of the 125th Street Select Bus Service project, local elected officials and community boards never came out in support of actual bus improvements. Instead, they cloaked their opposition in concerns about "process." Following yesterday's announcement from the MTA and NYC DOT that they will no longer pursue Select Bus Service on 125th Street, now is a good time to review that process.