BusTalk

[W.B. Fishbowl]

16 years ago today, on June 27, 2010, budget cutbacks led to numerous bus lines along all five boroughs, and subway routes, being eliminated or heavily cut back. A few that stick out in my mind:
- The M train, previously Myrtle-Nassau-West End, is rerouted north of Essex Street to the 6th Avenue line and then the Queens Boulevard line via 53d Street, to 71st-Continental Avenues. Strange that it would take a budget cutback to reactivate the Chrystie Street spur between the BMT Nassau Street and IND Sixth Avenue line - as the Aug. 27, 1976 cutbacks that eliminated the K route led to that connection being hibernated for the next 33 years and 10 months.
- The M1 bus' northbound transition from Park to Madison is shifted from 39th Street and Park Avenue to 25th Street and Park Avenue South, and southbound it is extended all the way to Fifth Avenue up to 8th Street; in so doing, they unwittingly ended up replicating most of the old FACCo #1's southbound route from 135th to 8th Street. Ironic, as the M1 so changed, operationally, was the old Madison Avenue Coach/New York City Omnibus/Fifth Avenue Coach Lines - NYCO Division route that in turn was descended from the city's first streetcar route that was started up by the New York and Harlem Railroad in 1832. As well, the M2 and M3's northbound routes now travel all along Fourth Avenue between 8th and 14th Streets.

Numerous express buses were also discontinued, notably the X90 (formerly X23 and, before that, M23X).

[NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629]

W.B.:

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Talk about "wiping the slate" clean......these subway and bus services should NOT have been abandoned/cut back.

Then again, WHEN did the "Em-Tee-Yay EVER do ANYTHING to truly IMRPOVE service toots long-suffering customers?

On the subways, the removal of so many switches and crossovers over the years great decreased the level of operational flexibilty, for starters......

"NYO"

['CC HUDSON TERMINAL"]

[W.B. Fishbowl]

There was a far more comprehensive look at those cutbacks by Yours Truly on BusChat:

http://www.subchat.com/buschat/read.asp?Id=351014

Plus, on the subway side at SubChat:

http://www.subchat.com/read.asp?Id=1649316

Didn't see anything, as yet, about what IRT lines got cut or truncated . . .

[NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629]

W.B.:

Thanks for the links; will check these out later.

The MTA really "cut off their nose to spite their face" many years back, when they removed the crossover just south of the Wall Street (#2/#3) station; this crossover allowed trains from uptown to (if need be) switch over to the uptown track, and head back up to the Bronx again, if there were disruptions in Brooklyn.

Your's Truly recalls that crossover well, many years ago.

I well recall several times (after the crossover was removed), in later years, when there were serious service delays in Brooklyn, and ALL Brooklyn-bound trains were either stalled or re-routed to the Lex.....PM RUSH CHAOS!!!!!!

Talk about sacrificing operational flexibility......for WHAT, I have NO idea.......

"NYO"

["INTERBOROUGH RAPID TRANSIT"]