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| W.B.'s Bus Almanac for December 1st (336696) | |||
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W.B.'s Bus Almanac for December 1st |
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Posted by W.B. on Sun Dec 1 20:47:13 2019 December 1, 1940 - The Book of First Runs Manhattan, New York Fifth Avenue Coach Company A new bus route, No. 22 - Fifth and Eighth Avenues via Riverside Drive, is launched on this date, for FACCo riders to travel to and from Pennsylvania Station. This route - another variant along the lines of Fifth Avenue Coach's 5 and 19 lines - runs from 168th Street and Broadway via Riverside Drive, 72nd Street, Broadway and Columbus Circle to Eighth Avenue all the way through to Penn Station, then onto 30th Street to Fifth Avenue en route to its southernmost terminus at Washington Square. It is not known how long this route - part of which duplicated the route path of "affiliated" Eighth Avenue Coach's 10 - Eighth Avenue-Central Park West line - was in operation, but it was not featured in the 1941 edition of Hagstrom's map of Manhattan bus and trolley lines, and would certainly have been kaput when restrictions on bus route operations imposed by the U.S. Office of Defense Transportation (ODT) began to kick in starting in 1942. The only known photo with the 22 route number was of experimental bus 2500, taken around late 1940. (Source: "New Bus Route to Start." The New York Times, November 29, 1940.) December 1, 1942 - The Book of Wartime Restrictions Washington, D.C. United States Office of Defense Transportation A new edict issued by the ODT takes effect on this date, requiring bus companies in five U.S. cities including New York to reduce bus mileage by 15 percent in order to conserve fuel and tires for the war effort, and to divert passenger traffic "from rubber to rails" including subways, elevated lines and even what streetcar lines were left. Announcement of this directive was made on November 10. During the time this restriction was in effect (until its rescinding on November 1, 1945), both individually and in tandem with other ODT edicts, a handful of New York bus routes went out of service permanently, notably FACCo's 9 - Fifth Avenue-57th Street-Broadway-72nd Street, and Surface Transportation System's M-107 - 180th-181st Street Crosstown Shuttle and Bx-49 - Parkchester-West Farms lines; plus a few others in which regular service was ended and would return after the war either as rush hours only or one trip a day (NYCO's 9 - Seventh Avenue & 8th Street and 22 - Pitt and Ridge Streets lines). One major casualty of these ODT orders was overnight, or 'night-owl' bus service. Other routes in the other boroughs would also be affected in ways that would resonate long after the war ended. (Sources: "Manhattan Buses to Cut Service 15%," The New York Times, November 11, 1942; "Cut in Bus Service Delayed for Week," The New York Times, November 29, 1942; " 'Owl' Service Cut By Bus Companies," The New York Times, December 1, 1942; "5th Ave. Buses Drop Late Night Service," The New York Times, December 5, 1942.) December 1, 1942 - The Book of Wartime Service Changes Manhattan, New York Comprehensive Omnibus Corporation East Side Omnibus Corporation Avenue B & East Broadway Transit Company In accordance with Office of Defense Transportation (ODT) mandates which take effect on this date, changes to the following bus routes of the companies below are hereby implemented: Comprehensive Omnibus - M-1 - Madison-Chambers: Headway between buses increased from 5 to 7 minutes - M-7 - 65th Street: No buses between 1 A.M. and 6 A.M. East Side Omnibus - M-13 - First Avenue: No buses between 12:45 A.M. and 6 A.M.; short-turn buses' northern terminus cut back from 116th to 96th Street - M-15 - Second Avenue: Same bus schedule; truncated to run between 96th and 14th Streets - M-11 - York Avenue-57th Street: Hours of service reduced from 5 A.M.-midnight to 6:30 A.M.-10 P.M. Avenue B & East Broadway - M-8 - Grand Street: No buses between 12:14 A.M. and 5:30 A.M. Monday-Saturday, and 12:12 A.M. and 5:46 A.M. Sunday - M-9 - Avenue B: No buses between 1:03 A.M. and 5:12 A.M. weekdays, 4:22 A.M. and 5:02 A.M. Sunday, and 1:44 A.M. and 5:46 A.M. Monday (Source: " 'Owl' Service Cut By Bus Companies." The New York Times, December 1, 1942.) |
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