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| Re: Staten Island Fantasy Map (56k) (235095) | |||
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Re: Staten Island Fantasy Map (56k) |
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Posted by Osmosis Jones on Sat Jun 4 05:57:14 2011, in response to Re: Staten Island Fantasy Map (56k), posted by hank eisenstein on Sat Jun 4 04:54:44 2011. You see the difference in that post and the post you made before? Criticism is useless when not paired with suggestions.There's no point to a bus along Giffords Lane (or Nelson Ave) going to the Ferry. Both roads TOGETHER are slightly over 1.5 miles and have direct service to the Ferry at each end of them. (The 74 at the north end of Giffords, the SIR at the south end of Giffords/north end of Nelson, and the 78 (or 79) at the south end of Nelson) All of these options give a easy ride to a connection to the mall (or a direct ride, in the case of the 79), and the SIR is significantly faster than either the 74 or the 78 to the Ferry. (~24 minutes from Great Kills to St. George on the local train, vs. ~40 minutes for the 74 at 8am, and ~45 minutes for the 78 at 8am) There wouldn't be much of a time savings via either corridor with a limited to/from the Ferry vs the SIR. I understand your points, but what I'm trying to say is that I'm not relying on a Giffords Lane-Ferry ridership base to provide a foundation for my S77 route. It's a combination of the Tompkins Avenue-Ferry (my S78 would go up the faster Bay Street way to ease operations on one of the city's longest local routes), New Dorp Shopping Area-Giffords Lane (relief the S79 a bit), SI Mall-Giffords Lane, Greenridge Shopping Area-Giffords Lane, and to a lesser extent Hylan Boulevard-Ferry ridership targets I'm aiming at. I see you refuting by saying the S54 is fine in meeting the area's demands, but it really isn't and you can see it just by riding on it through the area. I came up with this idea because the X7 and X8 seem to do well on Giffords Lane, and I couldn't see why a local route that meets demand couldn't also attract as much ridership as they do. Tompkins Ave is already served by two routes, the 78 and the 52, with the 78 being the more direct route to the ferry (at least, north of Hylan Blvd) In my scenario it would be served by the S52 and S77. I don't see why Tompkins Avenue has 2 routes through Rosebank because it doesn't seem to draw many passengers when I ride through it, but I just gave it the benefit of the doubt being that it has 24/7 service & is served by 2 routes most of the day. SI Local bus routes are set up to serve the ferry, or feed the SIR, with the exception of the 89, 53, and 93 which feed the SIR and connect Brooklyn or New Jersey. It's simply not financially sensible or practical to connect every destination pair directly with a one-seat ride. My plan was really more about covering more of the island, and having those newly covered areas served with routes that can attract potential riders right away, in addition to relieving already overcrowded routes. I don't know why you're so hellbent on keeping a route system the same way it has been for the past 30 (or even more) years in an area like Staten Island that is growing by the day. There's a bigger picture behind my ideas than what you're trying to portray, with the exception of the entire S58 and St. George part of the S44, which were both poor ideas I'll admit. I'd rather have the money that would be required to duplicate existing services or give one-seat rides between every shopping center and the ferry to restore overnight service along Richmond Ave, weekend service along the routes that were recently cut, establish a limited version of the 79, and decrease headways on various routes, including service every 15 minutes on the SIR using two-car trains on the intervals that don't meet the ferry. Service every 15-20 minutes on many routes (particularly on weekends) instead of every 30-60 (the 51 runs at a 30 minute headway on weekends, with every other bus (hourly!) serving Ft. Wadsworth or School Rd) will go a lot farther toward increasing ridership than establishing many of your proposed routes. I don't know why you keep on saying duplicate, only my S73, S77, and S93 (which purpose is to give a faster ride to Brooklyn from the mall BTW, there's no reason why people should have to take a grand tour of Staten Island before getting to the mall) ideas would really be considered redundant, and only my S77 could truly be considered a duplicate route based on its purpose. Anyways, you're right in that service increases can bring more ridership to a transit system, history has proven that increasing service isn't always as significant as providing the service in the first place. The S40 is a popular route despite the nearby S46 having shorter headways (I was told before by another member here that the S40 had 15 minute headways before but buses were emptier), the M60 was a popular route even when it began despite had poor headways, and so on. The point of a transit system is partly to serve as many people possible, and although you can't ever be sure that either way would attract more ridership, I'd say that expanding a system's service area would be the safer way over its service frequencies. |
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