Express Distress

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has reorganized its network of Express Bus service between Staten Island and Manhattan, announcing 21 new consolidated routes. Two of these planned routes will bring as many as a dozen large buses into Battery Park City each rush hour.

The SIM7 and SIM33 routes are slated to exit the Hugh L. Carey Brooklyn Battery Tunnel each morning, turning right onto West Street and then turn left into Battery Park City at Murray Street. At that point, they will turn right on North End Avenue and right again on Warren Streets, exiting the community once more onto West Street.

The same buses will reverse these paths at the end of each day, during the evening rush hour, entering at Murray Street, turning left onto North End Avenue, and left again on Vesey Street, before exiting the community once more at West Street.

The rush hour frequency of both the SIM7 and the SIM33 routes will range from six to 12 buses per hour.

The new routes will send as many as a dozen large buses, like this one, into the community each morning and evening rush hour. During the morning peak travel time, these buses are slated to pass directly in front of P.S. 89 and I.S. 289.

The morning route will take buses directly in front of P.S. 89 and I.S. 289 at a time when hundreds of students are arriving at both schools. The morning and evening routes will both bring large vehicles into already-congested local streets. In this context, the MTA’s plan raises questions about pedestrian safety and traffic congestion within Battery Park City.

Both the SIM7 and SIM33 routes are designed to connect Staten Island residents with Greenwich Village. (At their northern-most points, each route circumnavigates a loop bounded by Sixth Avenue, 14th Street, Broadway, and Houston Street, before turning around and heading back to Lower Manhattan, and then Staten Island.)

The one-block detour through Battery Park City appears designed to allow riders who originated in Staten Island to disembark in Lower Manhattan. But stopping large buses on West Street during rush hour would further clog that already-congested artery, so MTA planners seem to have decided to deviate from a straight-line path to their ultimate destination by putting a quarter-mile notch in the routes of SIM7 and SIM33.

The MTA announced the new Express Bus routes from Staten Island into Manhattan on Wednesday, and is slated to implement the plan by August of this year.