Drive to Speed Up Bus Service

By JOSEPH MODICA

Public transportation advocacy groups around the city on Thursday pushed for dual-door bus entry and other moves to streamline service, less than a week before the transit board was set to look into Metrocard replacement programs.

At a press conference in front of MTA headquarters transit unions, riders associations  and other groups proposed changes like moving the fare box out of the bus and  next to bus stops where riders can pay their fares beforehand, allowing the city to totally remove the paying process inside of buses and freeing up both front and back doors, and sensors that let rider “tap” their bank cards to pay fares. This move would reduce congestion and speed up wait times; buses spend 22 percent of their time at stops, says Rider’s Alliance, a New York based advocacy group.

Riders now enter through the front of the bus and pay while riders exit through the rear. Deputy Executive Director Tabitha Decker called this method “outdated” and said that the transit authority was slow to exploit modern technology. According to Decker, all-door boarding will not only result in more customers, but  be safer for drivers, who often have to confront fare-beaters. The group also claims that streamlining the bus system would benefit communities where the subway doesn’t serve them.

“The subways are delayed, the buses are delayed it makes it very hard to get around the city” said New York State Senator Michael Gianaris. “[All-door boarding] will help riders, it will help workers,” he added and went to call this solution “common sense.”

Other cities have tried this system with some success.

In May 2016, Seattle transit authority fully released a 24/7 dual-door system and street-side fare boxes on specific bus lines, called RapidRide. Using sensor technology, a rider taps a bus card and simply walks in- or  pay the fare street-side. This program extends the 2012 program, when dual-door boarding took place only between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. Buses that used a dual-door system reduced idle time between 5 to 19 percent says a study done by McGill University in Montreal.

Organizers said that the new streamlined system would attract more riders and  alleviate the cost of retrofitting the over 5700 buses in the the transit authority’s fleet with sensors and improvements.

The next board meeting was scheduled for Oct. 26

Photo by Joseph Modica