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Hate the bus lane on Nostrand? Get ready for SBS Utica. The B46 - Page 3 — Brooklynian

Hate the bus lane on Nostrand? Get ready for SBS Utica. The B46

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Comments

  • mugofmead111
    mugofmead111
    I can see why the DOT would have done that on Flatbush and Atlantic - to improve traffic flow. 
  • whynot_31
    whynot_31
    edited June 2014
    One can accomplish a left on Park Pl from Flatbush if one goes right on 7th ave, then left on Park, then waits for the light to cross Flatbush.

    Most taxi drivers don't know this "secret"

    I suspect that section of Flatbush will get SBS by 2017.
  • southeast
    southeast
    With all these restrictions and limitations on main streets, I really hope they start with a speed bump campaign on side streets.  All the local drivers are going to figure out routes which circumvent the jams and speed restrictions/enforcement causing increased traffic and speeders trying to make the lights on side streets where it is common for families, children, and the elderly to walk in perceived safety.  This has been bothering me for some time now.   http://www.brooklynian.com/discussion/44257/process-to-request-a-speed-bump
  • homeowner
    homeowner
    See, that's the problem I see with all of this. Its taking primary streets, and reducing the amount of traffic on them causing additional traffic on secondary and tertiary streets. Blocks like Herkimer Street which see predominantly local traffic will now be used as primary streets for traffic looking to get from Atlantic into Crown Heights. From Utica, its going to make Crown Street, and President Street which are 100% residential streets the main streets for traffic needing to go west which can no longer turn onto Empire or Eastern Parkway. All this may make the bus on Utica move faster, but its not going to make life better for people living on those streets.

    I would think that you'd want to encourage slower movements on tertiary and secondary streets, and quicker movement and better flows on primary streets. But it seems as if DOT is undertaking the exact opposite tact.
  • southeast
    southeast
    @homeowner Couldn't have said it better myself.  I actually live on one of the "100% residential streets" you mentioned.  In addition to safety, the noise from all the traffic coming through impacts quality of life - more honking, cars with loud music, the sound of all the engines when vehicles are all bunched up waiting for the light, etc.  The closer you are to the corner, the worse it gets.  Summer is particularly bad.
  • whynot_31
    whynot_31
    edited June 2014
    DOT seems to believe that many trips are discretionary.

    IE if the arterial streets are made slower, drivers will forego the trip, not take other streets.

    It seems to imagine drivers as driving for leisure.
  • southeast
    southeast
    @whynot_31  Drivers, like anything else, will take the path of least resistance.  If you want to cause drivers to forego the trip, you need to address all routes.  Any local will tell you, as I'm sure you know, side streets are not necessarily slower, even prior to all these "improvements."  All the DOT is doing is moving the danger; swapping one problem for another, and in my opinion, a bigger one.
  • whynot_31
    whynot_31
    Yes, transportation is a system: One can not make changes to one part, without expecting the other parts to be effected.

    People might reduce driving privately owned vehicles if driving becomes really painful, but this process can be sped up by finding out why they presently drive.

    ...then, do things like create public transportation tailored to those needs.

    It is a difficult task: Cars have some inherent advantages over public transit.
  • nothinlikeabklyngirl
    nothinlikeabklyngirl
    @homeowner, When I read this I was glad to see them giving some attention to some of the improvements I think are getting short shrift in the overall safety discussion, such as pavement upgrades, traffic signage and marking upgrades, mid-block crossings because of the long distance between signals, and addressing insufficient pedestrian crossing time. Then I got to the bottom of the article and guess what else they want to do? Eliminate left turns, lol. http://kensingtonbk.com/transportation/ocean-parkway-safety-plans-include-pedestrians-islands-more-crossing-time
  • morralkan
    morralkan
    I haven't visited this thread in awhile, but I find the discussion interesting. whynot, southeast,  and homeowner have pointed out some major flaws with the DOT/MTA plans. This dynamic duo seems intent on declaring "success" even if that success is dubious, even if everything they do is wrong. For example, they tout the quicker travel times of the SBS buses while never mentioning the much longer travel and waiting times if one has to take the local bus along the same route. 

    About 18 months ago, DOT decided that Eastern Parkway needed right turn lanes (lanes which "disappeared" right after the corner) and also painted a lane-wide, yellow-striped no-man's-land down the middle of EP. Now, as a result, any given midday, I can stand on EP and see west-bound cars backed up from one corner  3/4 or the entire way to the next corner, waiting for the light to turn. The result: more pollution along EP (idling cars still emit exhaust); far more jaywalking on EP (why not? they've encouraged it and there's a nice wide space to stand in the middle of the street while waiting for a lull in traffic and anyway, you can easily walk between the backed up cars); and more cars now traveling on the parallel side streets (yeah, we really wanted more traffic in front of our houses). I can tell you that there is a LOT of traffic weekdays during morning rush hour on President St in front of my house.

    No left turns does not mean that people will suddenly decide to leave their cars at home or jump on a bicycle, skateboard, or scooter. It means more traffic on the adjacent residential blocks as people make 3 right turns to get where they want to go. On formerly quiet streets, where children and their parents could reasonably expect they were pretty safe (unlike Prospect Park W or EP), the likelihood of accidents increases. Deaths are bad, but being seriously maimed is not exactly a walk in the park either.

    DOT/MTA seems intent on reconfiguring streets with more and more concrete (e.g. bump-outs) under the assumption that no one will later want to spend the money to undo the damage this dynamic duo has wrought, not even when their theories have been proven wrong and misguided. De Blasio and Trottenberg (rah rah Visions Zero!) will never admit any mistakes just as their predecessors, Bloomberg and Sadik-Conehead, never did. All four seem to think they walk on water.
  • homeowner
    homeowner
    One other issue that isn't being addressed, by either the SBS or Vision Zero is that at the same time truck and car traffic is being pushed off main routes onto local streets, DOT isn't performing maintenance or regular pothole repair as it is, and pushing more cars and trucks onto these streets only exacerbates the situation. At the same time they are doing completely non-sensical "improvements" like the speed bumps on Park Place between Rogers and Nostrand. The street is in such bad condition, that traffic routinely moves as 5-10 mph as cars avoid sunken patches, protruding manholes, and holes in the asphalt. While there is a school on the block, the speed bumps are just a waste of money as traffic is already slow, and they will simply need to be ripped out and replaced whenever repavement or total collapse of the street occurs (whichever comes first).
  • whynot_31
    whynot_31
    edited June 2014
    I have noticed that the SBS lanes on Nostrand/Bedford doesn't seem to be getting a lot of compliance.

    Some cars are traveling behind the buses for several blocks.

  • Dawndew
    Dawndew
    There are less cruising cars along Nostrand with chatty drivers double parking to talk to freinds on sidewalk and traffic moves smoother for me. I used to avoid this Ave but not anymore.
  • whynot_31
    whynot_31
    edited June 2014
    I wonder if the SBS bus lanes on Utica will have that same effect.

    BTW, I suspect car drivers are willing to only follow the buses (not be in front of them).

    I think the buses only have ticket cameras mounted on the front, and car drivers are wise enough to realize this.
  • morralkan
    morralkan
    The DOT is most interested in painting the streets. For some reason, on the south side of EP, where part of that median is for bikes, DOT painted E-W and W-E arrows at the intersections. Considering that the bike traffic along this median is minimal, why did they think this was necessary? Even those "sharrows;" I have absolutely no idea what purpose they serve. To tell drivers that bikes may be found sharing the traffic lane? They have the right to share those lanes anyway. Just a waste of time, money, and limited (I'm assuming) DOT human resources. Those arrows wear out pretty quickly from the motor vehicle traffic using those same lanes. Of course, the DOT can trumpet a huge SUCCESS saying, "Look at how many more miles of bike lanes we've added!"

    I can't wait until deBlasio and Trottenberg are just a bad memory, sort of like indigestion after bad sushi.
  • southeast
    southeast
    I had to run an errand down Utica today.  The place is a zoo.  They are going to need some serious enforcement.  I saw, at least, 15 cars making illegal the turns.  The traffic was horrendous with double parked cars and trucks (in the future bus lane) most of the way.  There is going to be a steep learning curve; in particular, for all those livery cabs and dollar vans that spend most of their day on Utica. 
  • whynot_31
    whynot_31
    edited July 2014
    Nostrand Avenue is certainly less of a zoo than it once was.

    At the moment, I will not comment on whether that is better or worse for residents, but will point out that a clear bus lane took a massive ticketing blitz to accomplish.

    http://crownheights.info/nyc-news/448237/dot-agrees-to-relent-on-bus-lane-ticketing-blitz/#comments

    Apparently, the DOT is now telling drivers that most of those tickets don't need to be paid as a result of errors on their side.

    "According to City Councilman Chaim Deutsch, while it was clear that drivers who drove in the bus lanes deserved to be ticketed, problems arose when those $115 tickets arrived not days, but months later. Further compounding the problem, due to an error in the system, drivers were sometimes issued multiple tickets for every block they drove in the bus lanes."

    "Deutsch contacted both the DOT and the Department of Finance, who agreed to waive all tickets, except for the initial offense, issued between March 17th and July 25th on the B44 SBS route. Refunds will be issued to those who have already paid for multiple summonses."

    Nostrand wasn't the first SBS lane that DOT created. It seems each time a new lane is created, drivers and DOT repeat the same mistakes.

    It is as if they have never been to other parts of the city.
  • crownheightster
    crownheightster
    As a car-owning resident who walks on Nostrand every day, I definitely appreciate the new calm on Nostrand. I like being able to walk on the sidewalk and not have double or triple-parked lines of cars idling and mucking up the air quality and causing angry motorists to blow their car horns every 30 seconds.

    Although, some of the calm on Nostrand has to be because so many businesses have closed. New businesses, open!
  • southeast
    southeast
    As a car-owning resident ....
    Shhh... You shouldn't say that too loud... ;)
  • whynot_31
    whynot_31
    edited July 2014
    Yes, large number of vacant stores on "our stretch" of Nostrand certainly has contributed to its calmness.

    However, even outside of CH (in stretches where gentrification warehousing is not happening), the street is calmer.



  • homeowner
    homeowner
    @whynot_31, you and Duke need to take a walk up Nostrand into Bed-Stuy where the construction is occurring. It's like downtown Fallujah between the dust, the constant backup of cars through the portions that are one lane, and the need to constantly cross from one side of the street to the other to avoid the stretches where sidewalks have been closed or taken out completely to allow for the repairs. The only thing calm in that area is the cash registers of the stores affected by the construction.
  • whynot_31
    whynot_31
    The dog's name is Dude, not Duke.

    I attribute the mess by the G Train to the sewer repair work, not the SBS.

    I was actually thinking of the stretch of Nostrand south of EP.

  • crownheightster
    crownheightster
    I felt the need to establish that I was not opposed to cars. :)
  • whynot_31
    whynot_31
    Only a few posters on this board seem opposed to cars, others just want alternatives to be available.

    Long Island will soon join in on the fun: http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/study-bellone-rapid-bus-plan-would-cost-78-million-1.8928856

    It should be interesting to watch there, because (unlike NYC) buses have long been thought of as the way poor people get around.

    ....can LI get its head around the idea that "worthy people" want to ride the bus, and should get to inconvenience cars due to the positive effects?

  • morralkan
    morralkan
    I don't think the idea of buses will really catch on with most people on Long Island. Unless there was a HUGE outlay of money to establish lots and lots of new bus routes, and to maintain them till the idea "caught on," people are going to stick to their cars. It's like expecting people in Bergen Beach or Hollis and Jamaica Estates to suddenly want to hit the buses. As I remember, they were recently cutting back bus service out on the island. People are not exactly lining up to wait a half hour for a us to come. The only person I know on the island who uses the buses doesn't drive because she is legally blind and goes around with a guide dog.

    As to Utica Avenue, it may be calmer now, but that is primarily because it's so crowded that cars and buses barely move. I'm not quite sure how that helps with pollution, but I'm sure some hipster can explain it to me.

    Finally, as to Nostrand, the stretch north of Atlantic is a true horror show. Even when they are done, those bumped out sidewalks will only make traffic worse. There's absolutely no reason or purpose to them, at least not a logical one. You have SBS buses all over Manhattan without a single bump-out. In the meantime, though, what normal person wants to open a business located where it is hard to get to? But Polly T (and Sadik-Khan before here) doesn't give a damn about that. 
  • southeast
    southeast
    Drove down Utica a couple times over the past week.  I like it (so far).
  • morralkan
    morralkan
    You drove down the area just north and south of EP ?
  • southeast
    southeast
    I drove south of President.
  • whynot_31
    whynot_31
    In addition to getting a SBS lane, Utica is going to become a Slow Zone.


    ...ticketing Dollar Vans is going to be like fishing in a barrel.


  • southeast
    southeast
    Seems like a zero sum game.  Before the SBS and related redesign, one couldn't drive more than 20mph (during daylight hours) due to all the triple parked cars and Dollar Vans being erratic.  Now, with the redesign, if one somehow gets the chance to move any faster than 25mph, nope; it is taken way.
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