Kingsborough Community College administrators have moved the drop-off location of the yellow school bus that shuttles students from campus to subway station and back, no longer allowing it on the school’s property. The new location has a local civic group fuming that the school is piling on more traffic problems along the problem-prone Oriental Boulevard.
The school made a decision approximately five years weeks ago barring the Safe Coach bus from entering the campus out of a concern for safety, said Ruby Ryles, the school’s spokesperson.
“Public Safety feels they can scrutinize students and others entering the campus on foot better than on the bus,” Ryles told Sheepshead Bites.
The solution they came up with was to begin dropping students off in the same turnaround the MTA uses at Mackenzie Street for its B1 and B49 buses. The problem is, they never asked the MTA’s permission, and the Manhattan Beach Community Group said they feel like the school snubbed them by not asking their opinion.
“They just do things without telling us,” said the group’s president, Ira Zalcman. “They’re in our community, but they never bother listening to our concerns. This has been going on for years.”
Zalcman said he notified the MTA to find if the agency okay’d the co-location. The MTA said absolutely not.
“MTA New York City Transit runs very frequent service out of that loop,” MTA spokesperson Deirdre Parker told Sheepshead Bites. “We feel there is not enough room to accommodate Safe Coach in addition to NYCT buses at that location. We are looking into our options which includes restricting the stop to Transit buses only.”
The school today agreed to move the location again – this time to Oriental Boulevard just outside of the gates. But they still won’t enter.
“The matter is now resolved,” Ryles said.
Not to the Manhattan Beach Community Group, though.
“Kingsborough almost capitulated. Almost,” Zalcman said when he heard the news. He pointed out that there No Stopping Anytime signs all along that stretch of Oriental Boulevard, which the DOT defines as “you may not wait, stop to load/unload packages or merchandise at curbside, or drop off or pick up passengers at this location.”
“We’re going to call the police station and we expect them to enforce all existing laws. They can’t stand there,” Zalcman said.
The problem, he claims is that it adds to traffic and safety concerns to have a large vehicle there, and to be unnecessarily dumping Kingsborough students into the community. He wants the school bus – and the MTA buses, for that matter – to drop off students on campus.
“It’s enough that we have cars sitting there all day waiting for students. We think they should have a waiting area that should also be on campus. The MTA turnaround should be on campus, the waiting area should be on campus, the yellow bus should be on campus” he said. “We have enough car safety issues in the community, and they just don’t want to listen to our concerns.”
Correction: The original version of this article incorrectly stated that the decision to discharge students off campus was made five years ago. It was five weeks ago, and the article has been corrected.
