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| Re: (Op-ed) Express bus fare should be lower (300450) | |||
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Re: (Op-ed) Express bus fare should be lower |
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Posted by checkmatechamp13 on Sat Nov 29 01:49:42 2014, in response to Re: (Op-ed) Express bus fare should be lower, posted by BrooklynTrain on Sat Nov 29 00:13:21 2014. First of all, that only applies to neighborhoods on Staten Island served by the SIR. In those cases, yeah, a ride on the SIR to the ferry is around the same time (or sometimes even quicker) than the express bus.But what about people on the northern and western portions of the island? In my neighborhood (and for this guy's neighborhood, Sunnyside), the nearest SIR station is basically at the ferry itself (technically, Grasmere is a little closer for both of us, but for the trouble of driving there, you might as well drive to the ferry). Meanwhile, the X17 gets right onto the expressway, and gets to Lower Manhattan in about 45 minutes, even less during off-peak times. You're also assuming all express bus riders have a car available. If you cut the X17 for me, I'm screwed. That's an extra 30 minutes at least to get into Manhattan. By the time the S44 gets to the ferry, the X17 would already be in Downtown Manhattan, and that's not counting the fact that the X17 connects to the (2)(3) and (A) express trains, whereas the ferry doesn't). Not to mention that off-peak, the express buses deal with less traffic, and are often more frequent than the ferry. The X1 runs every 15 minutes off-peak, compared to the ferry running every 30 minutes. The X10 & X17 in my neighborhood run every 20-30 minutes each, and you have a one-seat ride. And on top of that, you're literally talking about thousands of people driving miles and miles to reach the SIR. The nearest SIR station is 5-6 miles from my home, and that applies to many people living up and down the Richmond Avenue corridor. And to have to deal with the infrequent ferry service on top of that, many of those people might very well end up driving all the way to Manhattan. Between the traffic you cause in and around the ferry terminal (traffic can get bad along Richmond Terrace on days when there's heavy traffic on the Gowanus, and normal express bus riders start driving to the ferry), and the extra traffic on the Gowanus and in Manhattan, it is an incredibly stupid idea to eliminate all express service from Staten Island. Like Joel said, Staten Island service is relatively efficient. The weekday farebox recovery ratio is around 55%, and the weekend ratio is around 70-75%. The express service is actually more efficient than the local service on Staten Island (which hovers around 55% every day). But before people start asking for the local service to be cut too, keep in mind that the ratio is similar in parts of Eastern Queens and the Eastern Bronx. (Routes like the Q84, Bx8, etc run at similar levels of efficiency). |
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