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MTA pushing back door bus exits

By Matthew Sweeney | msweeney@am-ny.com

May 2, 2008

To speed up Bus Rapid Transit trips even more, the MTA is going to encourage riders to exit from the back of the bus only.

Back-door-only exiting is a pilot program that will be tried out on the longer, accordion-style buses on the BRT route along Fordham Road in the Bronx.

"We'll start there and see where it goes," MTA CEO Elliot Sander said at a meeting of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council earlier last month. "We agree that people should leave through the back of the bus." Drivers will ask riders to exit through the back door at stops -- but passengers still can leave from the front if they choose to. People exiting from the front of the bus is one of the most common complaints heard at the Straphangers Campaign, said Gene Russianoff, the group's chief attorney.

"The whole point of BRT is to find ways to shave minutes from the run," he said. "The idea of getting people on quickly is thwarted if you have to wait for people to get out."

The BRT, also known as Select Bus Service, will begin running June 29, on the Bx12 route, between Co-op City to the IRT station at White Plains Road.

The experiment faces some practical limitations, however. Sometimes passengers have to leave through the front door because the bus is crowded or due to age or handicap. Also, in the future, BRT is supposed to allow riders to board in either the front or back of the bus after they pay the fare at the bus stop.

Then there is the challenge of getting riders to change their long-held habits.

"This is a city where millions of people pre-walk to their subway exit," Russianoff said, referring to the habit of riding in the train car closest one's subway stairway exit to avoid walking down the platform at the end of the trip. "It's the same thing with buses."