Select Bus Service and other changes on Nostrand Jan 2013+

Yesterday morning I had to meet up with some folks in Bed-Stuy. I walked there, but decided to hop the 44 back as the sidewalks were treacherous. I was at Lafayette Avenue when I saw a bus 2 blocks away. I waited only to have the bus fly past us as it was a Select Bus. Rather than stand out in the snow and rain, I decided to start walking. Walking down Nostrand I noticed most of the people waiting for the bus were either elderly or had small children, and had chosen to wait rather than walk. At Quincy Street, I looked up to see another bus coming. It was another Select. Continued walking. Reached Fulton Street and a third Select Bus passed me by. At Dean/Pacific a local bus finally caught up with me. By this time I had decided to stop at the grocery store on St. Marks and so I let the bus go. I estimated that it took me 20-25 minutes to walk from Lafayette to St Marks and all the selects that passed me by were almost empty, while the one local bus was pretty full. I was surprised that the MTA decided to allow the trains to all run local but continued to have express service on the selects when the streets were pretty icy and impassable.But this is progress, no?

The MTA is only concerned with proving the "success" of their Select Bus Service. The SBS can run relatively quickly, but mostly it runs fairly empty. It's the same way with the SBS along 1st and 2nd Avenues in Manhattan. If you happen to need a LOCAL along these routes, you can wait a long long time. Once, standing in front of NYU medical center on 1st Ave, I waited a half hour for a local. Considering that there is no bench at this stop and that numerous people exiting NYU might be less than agile/strong, this is not all that considerate of the MTA. Still, they flout their wonderfully "improved" numbers ... as long as you want to go the way THEY prefer.Of course, the DOT has cooperated by bumping out sidewalks and painting the bus lanes. (Boy, Sadik-Kahn LOVES painted lanes!).There was no need to bump out the sidewalk; along 34th St in Manhattan, as well as along the sections of 1st and 2nd Avenues, they have the same ticket machines with no bum-out whatsoever. A total waste of money!!

Okay, French Chips (between bergen and Dean) has closed and has be replaced with Chop Chop grub shop. (?) . Great menu. open for 6 or 7 am to 10pm!! Check out the menu. Bagel place between Atlantic and pacific open. They provided the grub for the Friends of Brower Park executive committee group this morn. Deli on Bergen and Nostrand , across from CT Muffin, previously the starlight bar, then a lame deli, then a deli with too much smoking paraphernalia has closed down. Time for something good there.

565 Nostrand was also gutted and there's work going on there. Any thoughts?

Back to the SBS (I suppose we should really have two different threads here) 

Has the DOT finally rebuilt and repaved all of Nostrand? That's a large part of what's been screwing up traffic on that street for years.