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| Attention all B36 Bus riders (312507) | |||
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Attention all B36 Bus riders |
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Posted by BrooklynBus on Sun Apr 17 08:10:47 2016 Appeal to MTA Board to postpone rerouting of the B36 from April 24th.Below is the testimony I will be giving Monday at the MTA. Please try to your best to attend the MTA Board meeting Monday April 18th at 2 Broadway in the 20th floor Conference Room at 10 AM. If DOT and the MTA do not agree to postpone this plan it will set a very bad precedent that DOT can do whatever it wants to without any community involvement when they believe the issue involves safety even if everyone opposes the plan as is the case here. Postpone B36 Rerouting Allan Rosen 4/18/16 BrooklynBus@Verizon.net My name is Allan Rosen, former director of MTA NYCT Bus Planning. I am here to speak out against the plan to reroute the B36 in front of Sheepshead Bay Station beginning April 24th as a result of traffic changes DOT intends to make. This plan was presented last June to Community Board #15 and was wholeheartedly rejected. Now ten months later it is going through. This is because Mayor DeBlasio has given DOT approval to ignore communities if they believe safety is involved. Yet this plan will make street conditions more dangerous for pedestrians, not safer as well as harming bus passengers. I realize the MTA has no choice in this matter other than to support DOT by lying to the public since the NYC DOT Commissioner is also on the MTA Board. So let us discuss how the MTA is lying. First, there is no severe congestion in front of the subway entrance. The congestion occurs on Sheepshead Bay Road between Jerome Avenue and Voorhies Avenue, a block ignored by DOT's proposal. All bus turning movements create conflicts between vehicles and pedestrians. B36 turns are no different. I quote from the MTA Staff Summary: ?The modified bus route would create quicker and more reliable service.? Quicker for the MTA but slower for the bus passenger. Let me explain: We need to improve public transit, not make it more inconvenient. Under DOT's plan, nearly 5,000 daily B36 passengers would no longer be able to get on and off adjacent to the Station, but now would have to walk an extra 270 feet in both directions and cross an additional street during all sorts of weather, while cabs will be permitted to pick up and discharge passengers right in front of the station. This will only encourage a greater use of taxis further increasing traffic congestion. How could 5,000 additional daily pedestrian crossings at Sheepshead Bay Road or Avenue Z make the streets safer for pedestrians? It just isn't possible and defies all logic. Similarly, the intersection of East 17th Street and Avenue Z will also become more dangerous because the numbers of vehicles turning there will increase by 25 percent. Every car now turning left from East 15th Street onto Avenue Z will have to make that turn instead at East 17th Street greatly increasing traffic congestion on Avenue Z between East 15th Street and East 17th Streets as well as northbound on Sheepshead Bay Road. Closing East 15th Street and turning Sheepshead Bay Road into a one-way will only move traffic from Sheepshead Bay Road to Avenue Z and from East 15th Street to East 17th Street making the streets more congested and dangerous. The B36 was designed in 1978 to dip down to the subway station in both directions for a reason, to better serve bus passengers. I should know because I was the one who designed that bus route. I convinced the MTA that the current route was better than simply having the route travel straight along Avenue Z since roughly half the passengers from each bus all day long get on or off at Sheepshead Bay Station. To have all these people walk extra distances might make the difference between them catching or missing a bus or train, possibly adding ten or 20 minutes to their trip. Bus and subway travel times need to be shortened not increased. DOT should not be allowed to do whatever they please without adequate justification or notice to communities, merchants and bus passengers. When the Manhattan Beach Community Group asked DOT to explain the changes last week to their group when first learning about them, DOT refused and was plain nasty about it according to the group?s president. DOT needs to prove how the streets will become safer, not merely allege that will be the case. They need to prove that traffic taken away from Sheepshead Bay Road will not merely be moved to Avenue Z and show how traffic volumes at Avenue Z and East 17th Street will be affected. The communities, merchants and elected officials are all opposed to DOT?s plan and are trying to get this April 24th implementation date postponed until this plan is discussed with communities and their questions answered. We do not live in a dictatorship or so I thought. |
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