|
|
| Re: Question on Fifth / Madison 2 and 2A Routes, 1966-1969 (329418) | |||
 |
|||
| Home > BusChat | |||
|
[ Read Responses | Post a New Response | Return to the Index ] |
|
||
|
Re: Question on Fifth / Madison 2 and 2A Routes, 1966-1969 |
|
|
Posted by W.B. on Sat Jun 9 19:43:45 2018, in response to Question on Fifth / Madison 2 and 2A Routes, 1966-1969, posted by W.B. on Thu Jun 22 02:21:45 2017. Sorry about beating a dead horse (and equally sorry for the analogy, given the recent Belmont Stakes and Justified's Triple Crown triumph), but I have been leafing through snippets in Google Books of 1962-67 "Proceedings of the Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority - Relating to Matters Other Than Operation and Control," and from what I have been gauging (in my efforts to sift through key route changes for future Almanacs), apparently MaBSTOA, at the point Fifth and Madison each became one-way, had merged the FACCo and NYCO 2's into one singular route with two branches - a Seventh Avenue branch (designated '2A') that traveled all the way to 168th Street and Broadway after weaving through Seventh and Edgecombe Avenues, and a Lenox Avenue branch that went no further than 146th/147th Street on Lenox. (In the vein of characterizing the two branches of the 14th Street Crosstown as 14A and 14D, and at the onset of their ministration of the FACL/Surface Transit network, two branches of the 3 with the Convent Avenue branch referred to [but not on roll signs] as '3A' while the St. Nicholas branch maintained the 3 moniker.) Published minutes maintain that the total route mileage of the "Seventh Avenue branch" was about 2 or so miles more than that of the "Lenox Avenue branch," and apparently more popular (2A buses during rush hours came every four minutes, vs. every six minutes for the 2). Hence Times writer Fowle was quoting MaBSTOA itself when citing the route description as "Fifth and Madison Avenues via Seventh and Lenox Avenues." It may also explain how and why 2 and 2A wound up both stationed at the 146th Street bus depot (today, Mother Hale) when the one-way conversions took effect.The Lenox branch, as they referred to 2, was doomed as early as July 1967, when they first floated the idea of eliminating that route (while retaining the Fifth-Madison-Seventh 2A which became M2 during the big route numbering changes in 1974) and taking the 116th-to Lenox-at-147th part of the route and making a new branch of the M-101 Third and Lexington Avenues line with it. That it took a year and eight months to finally follow through (and start up the Third-Lexington-Lenox M-101A, today's M102) sounds like there was some kind of community opposition that gummed up the works - that, and the matter of there being no free transfers due to the 1962 FACL-TWU agreement that preceded the big strike that led to the MaBSTOA takeover. |
|
(There are no responses to this message.)
|
|