The 44 has been more frequent than the 4 on all sections of either route including Plumb Beach for like a decade or two

Wow, you just never give up.  All you do is criticize, criticize, criticize.

Look in a mirror. You criticize when the MTA cuts service and you criticize again when the MTA restores service. I’m only responding.

I am proposing to make the routes more efficient by combining the B2 and the B100 to reduce waste while inconveniencing the fewest numbers of riders possible.  But you won’t even recognize that.

Because I don’t think the savings will amount to much, if anything. As “bagels” points out, the same level of service is still needed during rush hours, except that you’d increase costs by running all buses to Mill Basin (currently only the B100 runs that far out). You’d also increase bus access times for current B100 customers west of Flatbush and you’d eliminate service to Kings Plaza.

If you’re suggesting eliminating service on the current B100 route west of Flatbush and on the B2 to Kings Plaza in order to pay for service improvements elsewhere, then you need to show that those service improvements are warranted (that is, that they’d get a lot of riders) and that the increase in access time for B100 riders and Kings Plaza customers is minor in comparison. Have you done that, or have you only drawn lines on a map?

The MTA has not yet revealed the exact routes of the service investments, the service span, or the frequency.  Judging from past experiences, new services are introduced at 30 minute headways and some without any weekend service and certainly no night service.

I highly doubt the MTA is proposing new bus routes without the expectation that they’ll be fairly busy – that is, warranting far more than 2 buses per hour, weekdays and weekends alike.

And if their budget situation changes, they could even be postponed or cancelled, so its a little premature to speculate.

The same can be said for all of the planned service improvements!

 

When did I ever say that? Restorations should get priority over new services.  Probably not all of the discontinuances need to be restored, but since a proper analysis was not done or at least not explained, it is difficult to tell.  The planning process was not transparent.  You can’t just say here are the criteria we used and here are our conclusions, which is waht the MTA did.  They needed to specifically explain how they got to their conclusions.

I think you mean that the MTA didn’t share a proper analysis with you. This may come as a shock, but the MTA is under no obligation to share its analyses with you. The planners have to be prepared to share an analysis with the President, and the President has to be prepared to share an analysis with the Board. You are neither the President nor a mamber of the Board.

If you’d like to see the analysis, file a FOIL report.

What I proposed was hardly fantasy planning. Costs depend upon the levels od service provided. On my web page I showed the actual service levels I was proposing.  

Levels of service don’t tell the reader how much each proposal adds to the operating budget. It’s impossible to determine whether a particular proposal makes sense without a cost.

Levels of service are determined by loads at the peak load point. Where are your ridership projections? A proposal for a new or extended or modified bus line without even a rough estimate of ridership is nothing. It is, as I said before, a line on a map. The core of planning is projecting ridership.

The MTA showed no interest in any of my proposals.

Because the MTA doesn’t have unlimited funds, and you consistently fail to make the case that your proposals are a good bang for the buck.

Why should I spend weeks working out new costs, when Operations Planning has the attitude that they are the experts and the only ones capable of doing planning and not willing  to listen to others unless there is a huge political outcry?

If you want to pretend that you’re a planner, you should take the time to work out costs and to project ridership, because that’s what planners do.

Operations Planning most certainly does listen to others. But listening doesn’t mean that everybody gets what they want – the MTA’s budgetary constraints are significant, and sometimes what some people want and what other people want are in conflict, and somebody has to step in and decide what’s best overall.

If you’re proposing something that increases operating costs, you need to make a strong case for it. How much does it cost, and how many people will benefit from it, and how great will the benefit be? This all needs to be quantified – otherwise it’s just lines on a map.

Yes, population growth in southern Brooklyn is weak today.  The growth period occured between the end of World War II through the 1960s, with only minimal changes to the bus routes.  The time for major changes to the routing system was then. There are major deficiencies such as the lack of a direct route along Fort Hamilton Parkway to Maimonides Hospital which has consistantly grown over the years.  Those deficiencies cause indirect and time consuming travel, discouraging bus use.  That’s on my website.  I didn’t mention it here because it does not involve Sheepshead Bay. So we address new growth over the past five years before we address growth that occurred 50 years ago?  That makes sense to you?

The bus network in southern Brooklyn is not perfect, of course, but neither is the bus network anywhere else in the city. I wouldn’t say that there are “major deficiencies” in the route layout (there are, in my opinion, major deficiencies in travel time and reliability).

Don’t forget that much of the post-WWII growth was far more automobile-centric than had previously been traditional for Brooklyn. That limits the market for bus ridership substantially, as – for better or for worse – it’s hard for transit to compete with the automobile where parking isn’t a major challenge or expense. The subway (with bus connections as necessary) carries many southern Brooklyn residents into Downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan, because it’s the best way to get there – but for trips elsewhere in Brooklyn, it’s usually faster and easier to go by car. The more people have cars, the fewer will use transit, and spending a fortune trying to perfect the transit system will have only a modest impact on ridership. Whatever the imperfections, southern Brooklyn has gotten by with what it has.

In contrast, much of the strong growth now – Williamsburg/Greenpoint, the Far West Side, the South Bronx – is not automobile-centric at all. Most of the new residents don’t have cars, and those who do have to put up with serious parking challenges. This is a very strong market of transit riders, and they use transit to get everywhere, not just to and from work.

If you don’t think that’s fair, I suggest you take a look at the bus service in any any other automobile-centric area. Southern Brooklyn has phenomenal service in comparison.

That is your opinion. How would you know how many riders the proposed routes would get?  You probably would have been against my proposed B1 too in 1978 which replaced the B21 and B34 and old B1.  The B21 ran every 15 minutes and the B1 every 20 minutes in rush hours.  The B34 ran every 10. The current B1 operates at 3 to 8 minute headways.  At least I have a successful track record when it comes to planning.  What kind of track record do you have?

Your “successful track record” ended three decades ago. It’s 2012 now. What planning successes have you had since 1978? The rest of us have moved on.

Yes. drawing lines on a map is easy, but I’ve done a lot more than that. My routes are based on 50 years of experience using, riding, and planning bus routes that were implemented and have been very successful but I don’t have to justify that to you.

No, you don’t have to justify it to me personally. But if you post an article on a blog, you should be prepared to defend it to your readers. More importantly, if you want any of these changes to actually happen, you need to defend them to the MTA. You haven’t done that yet.

Yet while you post your lines-on-a-map on a blog and refuse to give any quantitative backup, you complain that the MTA doesn’t share its analyses with you.

Is it your 50 years of experience that leads you to believe that Beverley gets much more ridership than Cortelyou? Because in fact the ridership at Cortelyou is twice that at Beverley.

(By the way, you were a planner for less than 10 years, not for 50.)

Not everyone in Marine Park has access to the B41 and B44 and most trips cannot be made on one or two buses or a bus and train(s).  Too many trips require double fare and three or more vehicles. People will resist making those trips by public transit.  

Marine Park is less than a mile wide (east-west). Virtually all of Marine Park is within a half-mile walk of either the B41 or the B44.

Marine Park is a relatively low density area with high automobile usage. Regardless of what you do with the buses, transit isn’t going to be very popular among Marine Park residents, except to go to Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn. Even direct bus service to Bensonhurst would take several times longer than driving, so why would anybody with access to a car take the bus? The existing bus service, while not perfect, is adequate for the relatively small number who don’t have access to a car.

You ask how much demand is there for access to Marine Park and Gerritsen Beach?  What about the demand to get from those places to the rest of Brooklyn.  I submit it is no less than it is from Sheepshead Bay or Brighton Beach where transit access is much better.

Sheepshead Bay and Brighton Beach are significantly denser than Marine Park and Gerritsen Beach. They also have subway service, so the bus routes serving the neighborhoods double as feeders from elsewhere to the subway.

When I proposed the B1 from Brighton Beach to Bay Ridge in 1975, you probably would have asked the same thing saying there was no demand.  Of course there wasn’t because it took four buses to make that trip or three trains via Downtown Brooklyn.  Now the B1 buses are always jammed and people are making the trip between Bay Ridge and Brighton Beach because the service exists and if the buses were more reliable, usage would even be higher.

I doubt many people ride the B1 from Brighton Beach all the way to Bay Ridge. The B1 has heavy turnover, with most of the traffic relatively short-distance. It’s a long, slow ride all the way across, but it’s a quick drive on the Belt.

No one is talking about saturating the city with services.  The distance between the B9 and B82 west of the Brighton Line is above what the planning guidelines allow and a bus on Avenue P and 65th Street rectifies that.  I am also proposing the 65th Street service be limited stop only to save on costs, so I am doing much more than just drawing lines on a map as you assert.

The N train fills the gap south of the B9. Running a limited stop bus along the same corridor as the N train is absurd.

You criticize my proposed SBS, but you think it is okay to run 5 minute service to the Junction and only 20 minute service from Plumb Beach to Sheepshead Bay Station as the MTA proposed, when most residents prefer the latter.

I think both lines should be scheduled according to demand at the peak load point, as per NYCT policy (and the policy of most major transit agencies). Plumb Beach is at the far end of both lines, nowhere near the peak load point for either. Bus service is not scheduled 

Did you ever have to make a bus trip in southern Brooklyn where you can get to the Gateway Mall in 15 minutes by car from Sheepshead Bay and at least 90 minutes by bus?

Who travels from Sheepshead Bay to Gateway Mall by bus?! Gateway Mall is designed for easy access by automobile, not by transit. Sheepshead Bay residents without cars do their shopping elsewhere.