BY SHIRLEY SECUNDA | Two weeks ago, state Senator Daniel Squadron issued a news release announcing that M.T.A. NYC Transit had agreed to assess service on the M5 and M21 bus lines. This claim hardly grazes the tip of a very rigid iceberg.
In fact, it barely touches Community Board 2’s call to restore several previously longstanding bus routes, voiced in two resolutions this past June and one in September, which were dispatched in response to the very serious needs and pleas of our community.
In 2010, three of these routes, the M1, M3 and M5, were significantly altered, and one, the M6, was discontinued, based on budget cuts, depriving the community of the well-placed bus service it had depended upon for years.
The M1 had run north on Centre St. to Lafayette St. to Park Ave. and Uptown, and south on Fifth and Park Aves. to 14th St., where it headed down Broadway to South Ferry. It now turns east on Eighth St. from Fifth Ave., ending at Fourth Ave., where it starts another Uptown trip at Ninth St.
The M3’s northern route had been from Ninth St. along University Place to 14th St., where it turned east and north again on Union Square East to head Uptown. This was shifted to Fourth Ave. where it now goes Uptown at Ninth St., like the M1, duplicating the starting place and route of not only the M1 but the M2, while robbing M1 and M3 users of their former accessibility and punishing them with long distances to walk that many find difficult or can’t handle at all.
The M5 had gone up Sixth Ave. and Broadway to 178th St., and down Riverside Drive, through the West Side and along Fifth Ave. to Broadway, where it turned west on Houston St. and terminated. It now extends down to South Ferry, still going far north Uptown, pinch-hitting for the missing M6. The result is an excessively long M5 trip, creating bus backups, bunching delays and 45-minute waits. It’s a longer haul to catch the bus, too.
We had expected that the old bus routes that served us so well would be reinstated, heartened especially when the crosstown M8 returned on weekends. After innumerable, unheeded requests and increasingly desperate community appeals, C.B. 2 held a meeting in June to gather people’s input and work to get the needed service back.
The meeting room was filled with people of all different ages and pursuits, including many with walkers, canes or in wheelchairs. The disabled, along with the elderly and infirm, are the one segment of our population (and a large one) that relies on buses as their only viable means of transportation. Fully dependent on convenient bus service, they’re stymied by the longer treks to reach it. Many of them expressed disillusionment with NYC Transit, whose actions, they felt, have disenfranchised them from getting around independently.
In addition, parents who bring their children to school on their way to work miss handy bus access to shorten their trips. Those who traveled on the M1 and M6 to FiDi for work now face more crowding and waiting with only the M5 to transport them. With the M1 route north from Lafayette and Centre Sts. gone, Soho and the Village’s Houston St. residents no longer have direct access to major transit, shopping and healthcare hubs, such as Union Square. Since a southbound bus on Broadway from 14th St. to Eighth St. no longer exists, Soho denizens shopping on 14th St. for lower-priced food and goods can’t easily get home with their heavy packages.
Some of these concerns were repeated at a town hall meeting Squadron led in July. The senator’s office then submitted a list of questions to NYC Transit, and the agency responded in favor of the status quo. C.B. 2, as yet, has not received a direct response from NYC Transit to the board’s three resolutions.
While C.B. 2’s resolutions didn’t include the M21, its infrequency, with long waits, is well known. We appreciate the efforts to remedy this, although linking the M21 to Uptown routes would involve riders changing buses more than once and extended waits for connecting them, less desirable than a direct Uptown route. We also appreciate the efforts for the M5, but recognize the need for C.B. 2’s own involvement.
C.B. 2 would welcome the opportunity to sit down with NYC Transit and our elected officials to discuss how our community’s bus service priorities can best be addressed. We hope that occasion comes soon.
Secunda is chairperson, Community Board 2 Traffic and Transportation Committee
