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MTA proposal
Co-op City Times / August 10, 2019 (Continued from page 1)
would start and end its route at the Pelham Bay Park subway station. This route would also shed nine stops in favor of faster, more frequent stops between those remaining. The only other ways out of Co-op City by bus would then be the Bx26 and Bx28, which would intersect with the Bx23 at Asch loop, the Bx30, which would intersect with the Bx23 at Dreiser Loop, the BxM17 — a new route that would take shareholders to downtown Manhattan via the Whitestone Bridge and Long Island Expressway — and the BxM7, the direct connection between Co-op City and midtown Manhattan that would remain unchanged under the MTA’s proposed redesign. In the ad hoc’s alternative to the MTA proposal, it is this last bus, the BxM7, committee members believe holds the key to keeping more than one bus running throughout the whole of Co-op City in such a way it represents a compromise between the routes in effect now — which, in several cases, the MTA has called redundant — and the authority’s June proposal, which shareholders have said is streamlined to the point of being punitive. More on that in a bit. In creating the counter to the MTA’s proposal, ad hoc committee co-chair, Aaron Carnegie, said the authority has failed to take the singular nature of Co-op City into account. “It is our belief that, for a bus system to be successful, it must sufficiently accommodate Co-op City customers and surrounding neighborhood customers alike,” Mr. Carnegie said. “The redesign plan must be more tailored to our unique circumstances and physical layout. Co-op City bus service must provide full coverage of all three distinct areas of our community, and our solution is a local and limited bus for all routes.” Instead of losing the Bx26, Bx28 and Bx30 to all of Co-op City except their brief dips into Asch and Dreiser Loops, the ad hoc committee proposes to have those buses visit all areas of the property in two forms, a local bus and a limited bus. In the case of the Bx26 limited, the ad hoc plan would be for it to visit all sections of Co-op City — it currently only services Sections 2 and 5 — before heading out for stops along Allerton Avenue and terminating at Lehman College. The local would start at the same place, Earhart Place/Erskine Lane, but would make significantly more stops — 33 in all on the way out, 29 on the way back — before terminating at the Bronx High School of Science. As for the Bx28, the ad hoc committee recommends the Bx38, which was split off from the Bx28 in 2010, be eliminated and the Bx28 be expanded to a local and a limited. The limited, which the committee said need only run during peak rush hours in the morning and evening, would make stops at Co-op City’s loops and then head out onto Gun Hill Road, terminating 18 stops later at the Fordham Center. The Bx28 local — which the committee proposes should run all day, including the peak hours covered by the limited, and on weekends — would travel the same route but with more stops both inside and outside Co-op City, 44 in all, and terminate in the same place as the limited. As for the Bx23, beleaguered in the MTA proposal, the ad hoc committee proposes it too be split into local and limited buses, each basically travelling the existing route but with the local making four additional stops in the Bay Plaza Shopping Center, something previously the purview of the Bx29, which, under the MTA’s proposal, wouldn’t venture into Co-op City at all, effectively cutting off public transportation from Co-op City to City Island. Adding the Bx29’s Bay Plaza stops to the Bx23, the committee said, would connect all sections of Co-op City with both Bay Plaza and the Pelham Bay Park train station, though it concedes the Bay Plaza stops should not be made during peak, rush hours on weekdays.
In an effort to keep a connection with City Island, the ad hoc committee proposes the Bx29, minus the Bay Plaza stops, run from City Island to Co-op City from Memorial Day until Labor Day. Like the Bx26 and Bx28, the Bx30 is considered an essential Co-op City bus. And like those lines, the ad hoc committee recommends local and limited versions of the route that would make its way throughout Co-op City before travelling to Pelham Parkway Station via Baychester Avenue and Boston Road. Those are the essentials. The ad hoc committee proposal also includes specific route plans for the Q50, a student shuttle for students going to 750 Baychester Ave., an express bus to the Soundview Ferry and Select Service Bus 12. Ad hoc committee co-chair Blossom Johns said it was important for the proposal to cast a wide net. “We shot so high,” Ms. Johns said. “[But] we have to meet [MTA] halfway.” In a proposal that appears to add buses without trimming routes, one might wonder how the ad hoc committee can claim that was done in the face of such an austere proposal from the MTA. The answer would appear to be in a section of the ad hoc proposal called “MTA: Use What You’ve Got” and it harkens back to the only Co-op City bus unaffected by the MTA’s proposal, the BxM7. “The BxM7 flawlessly serves a combination of six different areas of Co-op City for a short time every morning, without overlap,” the proposal reads. “Mimicking the tactics of the early morning BxM7 express bus and combining the use of the bidirectional pattern of the Bx23 easily maintains one-seat travel in all our areas on most of our routes.” In other words, though the committee proposes buses largely cover existing routes, they will do so in a way to be in different parts of Co-op City at different times without bunching up in one section or stop at the same time. This, the proposal postulates, achieves the MTA’s stated goal for its redesign of trading some frequency for one-seat travel, more coverage, less overlapping and speedier rides. Ad hoc committee members received the final version of the proposal Aug. 8. It will soon be sent to the MTA. While that’s going on, the committee has a few more tines on its fork. On page 13 of this week’s Co-op City Times, readers will find the ad hoc committee’s MTA bus survey, which shareholders may cut out, fill out and return to either their CSA office during business hours or CCPD headquarters in Bartow Center after hours. There’s also the protest letter ad hoc committee members have circulated, most recently during this past Tuesday’s National Night Out Against Crime, that shareholders can sign and return to the committee via their respective CSO for mailing to the MTA. Mr. Carnegie and ad hoc secretary, Leslie Peterson, reached out to a group of Co-op City building association presidents Aug. 8 to aid distributing those documents to as many shareholders as possible. Also on the horizon is an op-ed on the bus situation sent to the city’s major newspapers. Bob Liff of Manhattan-based public relations firm George Arzt Communications has been retained by Riverbay to help the committee draft the op-ed. But the big move was and is the counter proposal, which the committee hopes will find its way into Mr. Byford’s hands before long. The ball will then be squarely back in MTA’s court.