|
|
| Re: Happy 10th SBSiversary! (329879) | |||
 |
|||
| Home > BusChat | |||
|
[ Read Responses | Post a New Response | Return to the Index ] |
|
||
|
Re: Happy 10th SBSiversary! |
|
|
Posted by BrooklynBus on Fri Jul 13 22:47:27 2018, in response to Re: Happy 10th SBSiversary!, posted by WMATAGMOAGH on Thu Jul 12 17:07:21 2018. Let me tell you about my experience yesterday on the M34 SBS . Once a month I take the subway to 34th and 6th and then walk over to 8th Avenue. I look to see if an M34 is coming. Most of the time there is none in sight and I walk to 8th before a bus gets there or we get there about the same time.Yesterday, I see an M34 SBS waiting at the traffic light so I get a receipt and get on the bus. There are only about 15 people on the bus and only about four got on or off, but rather than close the doors, the driver waits for about 30 seconds. I figured maybe he saw someone getting a receipt and he wanted to be nice. Then he starts moving no faster than five mph. I can't understand why he is going so slow but think maybe the signal mid block is red, so there is no reason to go faster. Once he passes it, he continues at the same slow speed. At 7th Avenue he stops and waits at least 30 seconds although no one is getting on or off. Then a bus dispatcher and another bus driver come over and start talking to the driver of the bus I am on. The dispatcher says, "I have no buses so take it easy." The driver answers: "That's what I have been doing." The other driver then chimes in: "Plenty of OTO," My driver says: " That's right." (OTO means Overtime Offset.) Then the driver continues again slower than 5 mph, barely moving. So I get up to see if cars or trucks are in the bus lane and I see the entire block to Eighth Avenue is 100 percent clear and the bus stop is on the near side, so it doesn't matter if the light is read or green and rather than getting there in 15 seconds or so, it takes him like two minutes. So I finally say to him. "I thought SBS supposed to be fast, so why are you going so slow? He answers: "Do you want to drive the bus?" People cut in front of you all the time." I said, "but there are no people or cars in front of you right now." Then he says. " Have a nice day." Then I made several more remarks and he answered all of them with " Have a nice day." Bottom line: with no waiting for the bus, a bus lane, zero traffic and a nearly empty bus. The two blocks from Sixth to Eighth Avenue took six or seven minutes, the same as walking speed. That is a far cry from a 15 minute river to river trip the MTA was initially promising when it first proposed SBS on 34th Street. It was easy to see what is happening here. The MTA blames slow crosstown travel times on blocked lanes or traffic, when the reality is the drivers are in cahoots with the dispatchers for them to acquire needless overtime while the passengers suffer. And you can tell me with a straight face that SBS is working? Well it sure wasn't working yesterday on 34 Street. |
|
|
|