Idling NJT Buses Moved from 10th Ave to Lincoln Tunnel

BY ZACH WILLIAMS | Afternoon rush hour on 10th Ave. remains frantic, but New Jersey Transit (NJT) buses no longer queue there before entering the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

NJT announced to Community Board 4 (CB4) on Sept. 17 that a partnership with the Port Authority (PA) would better manage the NJT fleet, which transports thousands of daily commuters in between the bus terminal and New Jersey. Agency buses will now linger within the Lincoln Tunnel until PA traffic enforcement gives them the go-ahead to drive to the bus terminal, NJT officials said.

CB4 Chair Christine Berthet — who is also co-founder of the Clinton Hell’s Kitchen Coalition for Pedestrian Safety (CHEKPEDS) — told Chelsea Now that the new cooperation between NJT and PA indicates fresh momentum for addressing pedestrian and traffic issues on the avenue.

“I think we’ve seen a big change, this change of buses is enormous in perception and in reality,” she said.

The announcement follows at least two CB4 requests to address problems arising from the dozens of NJT buses which illegally idled on 10th Ave., forming a line in the far Eastern lane that often stretched for four or more blocks. Letters concerning the issue sent by CB4 in January 2014 went unanswered, Chelsea Now reported on Aug. 14. CB4 also wrote to NJT about the issue as far back as 2010.

“We feel the inaction is unusual and not appropriate for a major bus company,” reads the January 2014 letter from CB4 to NJT.

However, the transit agency took a different posture at a Sept. 17 private meeting with CB4, which also included representatives from the NYPD, the PA, the city Department of Transportation (DOT) and private bus carriers such as Peter Pan and Trans-Bridge Lines. The meeting focused on the traffic situation around the bus terminal, according to Ernest Modarelli, co-chair of the CB4 Transportation Planning Committee.

“Out of the meeting, CB4 learned that there was some confusion on the part of the bus companies caused by miscommunication by the NYPD which would have one traffic agent directing buses down a street, and another officer issuing tickets to buses for using a residential block. NYPD said they would look into the issue and try to correct the miscommunication,” he wrote on Sept. 28 in an email to Chelsea Now.

Collaboration among these groups resulted in the announcement from NJ Transit that they would end the practice of using 10th Ave. as a de facto bus staging area, according to a NJT spokesperson. The change — implemented on Sept. 15 — will also improve the efficiency of the NJT fleet by reducing by 25 percent the driving time of its fleet as well as helping to reduce traffic congestion during rush hours, the spokesperson added.

Under the plan, NJT buses will remain in New Jersey longer before journeying through the Lincoln Tunnel towards the bus terminal. PA traffic police will then send the buses north rather than south, according to a PA spokesperson.

“Therefore they enter the terminal without traversing the city streets,” wrote a Port Authority spokesperson, of the plan, in an email. “[The plan] is still in the early stages and it will be reevaluated as conditions dictate, but so far it has been successful.”

The spokesperson declined to provide information on how many PA police officers were deployed to the area as part of the plan, nor the cost. Such data is not made publicly available, the spokesperson added in a subsequent email.

The situations often credited with causing traffic delays and accidents remain common on 10th Ave. Vehicles drive through red lights and pedestrians cross the street outside of designated crosswalks. Buses turn right at the intersection with W. 40th St. on their way into the aging bus terminal that is largely blamed for the overall traffic problems at the bottleneck of 10th Ave.

The immediate blocks to the south as well as side streets were clogged with buses and private vehicles around 5 p.m. on Sept. 26.

Pedestrians dashed across the avenue in between interstate buses and large industrial trucks. Sedans swerved around buses, which blocked intersections during red lights. There was plenty of honking while an unidentified man presented an obscene gesture to the bus driver of an otherwise empty double-decker sightseeing bus, which had turned towards the man before stopping abruptly in the crosswalk just before it would have hit the pedestrian.

There were no NJT buses idling along the avenue, but those from Coach USA assumed NJT’s former position albeit in much smaller numbers. One Coach USA bus idled near an MTA bus stop at W. 37th St. and 10th Ave. for at least 30 minutes before leaving, far exceeding city and state limits on idling vehicles. Along W. 39th St. parked buses from private carriers clogged the southern shoulder of the westbound street.

But signs of progress were apparent as well.

The MTA’s M11 bus had mostly ceased stopping at the stop at W. 37th St. due to the NJ Transit buses which had previously idled there as a matter of course, as Chelsea Now reported Aug. 28. Nearly one month later, three passengers waited for the M11 there, which was largely unimpeded by nearby idling private carrier buses.

Then an upsurge of buses heading north swarmed the stop, though the space immediately in front was still unoccupied. Two M11 buses would drive past on their way uptown. Just when it seemed that some things never change, a third M11 bus easily served the stop once the traffic subsided about 10 minutes later.

A few blocks north, four NYPD officers observed traffic while nearby a NJT official did the same, though the latter declined to offer details to Chelsea Now about what he was doing there. Despite the ongoing challenges, CB4 members expressed optimism that traffic forces are negotiating a turn for the best.

“Hell’s Kitchen [from 30th to 39th Sts.] has been transformed from a bus parking lot back into a neighborhood, and my neighbors and I hope the initiative is a permanent solution,” Modarelli added in the email.

In the past year, other progress has been made in addressing dangerous traffic conditions, Berthet added. A DOT study of Hell’s Kitchen’s traffic conditions, released last spring, resulted in numerous changes on Ninth Ave. such as delayed signals and increased turning signs.

“Now what we’re seeing is a lot of the results from the study of Hell’s Kitchen,” she said in a phone interview.

Neighboring Community Board 2 approved a resolution on Sept. 18 calling on DOT to conduct a similar study of Seventh Ave. between 14th and Canal Sts. Conditions there are similar to those on Ninth Ave. before the changes.

“Complete Streets type redesigns, such as the kind that would be addressed in the requested study, including such improvements as pedestrian safety islands with landscaping, protected bicycle lanes, dedicated bus lanes, and traffic lights with leading pedestrian intervals or split phase timing have resulted in notable decreases in crashes and injuries on other NYC streets,” reads a draft version of the resolution provided to Chelsea Now.

On Seventh Ave., at least four lanes of traffic are thick with cars, buses and trucks during rush hours. Automobiles routinely drive into a designated bus lane. Bicyclists compete for space with automobiles and car doors alike. Pedestrians islands — a method employed on Ninth Ave. to safeguard pedestrian crossings — are non-existent.

Street redesigns reduce injuries to street users, states the resolution, which cited recently released DOT statistics indicating that injuries on Ninth Ave. have fallen 58 percent following the study.

The resolution asks that a similar study be concluded within six months. The resolution as approved by CB2 could not be obtained by press time.

A DOT spokesperson said in an email that the department is reviewing CB2’s request.

CB4 will likely take up the issue of asking DOT for a traffic study of Seventh Ave. in October, Modarelli and Berthet both said.

Implementing changes takes time, according to Berthet.

“We are making progress and there’s a lot of small incremental progress which is hard to see,” she said of ongoing efforts.