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| Re: Push to Replace Port Authority Bus Terminal (303741) | |||
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Re: Push to Replace Port Authority Bus Terminal |
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Posted by kcram3500 on Sun Mar 22 21:10:51 2015, in response to Re: Push to Replace Port Authority Bus Terminal, posted by TerrapIN StatiON on Sun Mar 22 16:46:20 2015. Any fare increase has an expected loss of ridership written into the projected revenue goal. There will always be a percentage of people who will just say "screw that" and drive.As for the subway transfer, the current version of that has also failed over time. Those who could save time by going to the GW Bridge terminal and taking the A to midtown have been ditching that choice for decades... to the point where no remaining NJT route to GWB has express service during rush hour. Example as to how much this has shifted: The PS-TNJ 86/NJT 186 duplicates the 167 from Dumont to Teaneck. The 86/186 then goes through Englewood and Englewood Cliffs to the GWB, while the 167 goes south to the PABT. In 1979, between 4:45pm and 7pm, the 86 had 20 departures from GWBBT, half of which (exactly 10) were route 4 expresses to Teaneck Road. At the same time, the 167 had 25 departures from PABT, all but the 7pm used the Turnpike but only 7 trips used Teaneck Road through Teaneck. All off-peak and weekend trips ran locally down Tonnelle Avenue. These counts are from the actual printed timetables, which I have in my collection. In 2015, the 186 has only 9 departures from GWBBT between 4:45 and 7, all local - a 55% drop in service. The 167/177 (the latter number assigned to new "super expresses") now has 41 trips (an increase of 64%), only 9 still use Queen Anne Road in Teaneck (which had been the original "standard" route), and all 167/177 trips use the Turnpike 7 days a week in place of Tonnelle. So instead of the faster trip via GWB and A train, the customers have "spoken" in favor of the one-seat ride to midtown, despite the regularly-occurring delays at 495 and the Lincoln Tunnel. Your suggestion to divert any number of these people to Secaucus and take the 7 in to the city would have to be beyond convincing, because now you're asking these people to funnel from dozens of buses/bus routes all into one subway line at any given 5-minute period in the morning, and similarly crowd into the 7 in Manhattan to get back to Secaucus before they can sit down in a seat for the rest of the trip. The price and trip time would have to be almost impossibly less in order for that funneling trade-off to be worth it for most people. Which would mean both NJT and MTA would have to lose money on the operation for enough people to be convinced. And right now, Trenton and Albany are not interested in making up the difference in those kinds of losses. |
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