Increase Staten Island - Brooklyn bus efficiency

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  Figure 2: Commuter density

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  Figure 3: Density of employment for SI commuters

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  Figure 1: Current commute to Downtown Brooklyn

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  Figure 4: Density of employment with an overlay of subway lines and stops for N/R

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  Figure 5: Proposed destination change for S53

Inspiration

Chris Whong's mother-in-law has to go to Downtown Brooklyn from Staten Island via Manhattan (see Figure 1).

What it does

Re-routing S53 and S93 buses to better connect Staten Island with Downtown Brooklyn, utilizing I-278 within Staten Island and 59 St N/R Station in Brooklyn.

How I built it

We plotted the population and employment data of both Staten Island and Southern Brooklyn, and identified the dense areas. Figure 2 indicates that the three Cross-Bay Bridge routes: S53, S93, and S79 SBS serve some of the most dense areas of Staten Island. Figure 3 shows the destination for Staten Island commuters based on employment density, and indicates that Industrial City and Downtown Brooklyn are the top destinations for commuters.

On MTA's bus ridership website, we found that there's an increasing demand for S93 (+25.5%), which connects College of Staten Island to Bay Bridge via local route. Since the major demand comes from College of Staten Island, we proposed to re-route S93 via I-278 SI Expressway. This will decrease the travel time about 15min. The Eastern Staten Island section will still be served by S53 and S79 SBS.

We also found that the destination at Brooklyn is not efficient enough. All three buses stop by 86 St, which is only connected to R train. We proposed to extend S53 to stop at 59 St, which is served by both R and the express N train. This is bring more commuters to Downtown Brooklyn faster, without transferring from Manhattan (See figure 4 and 5).

In details: Brooklyn routing improvement: S53 Diversion to 59th street saves times for both vehicles and riders Current Routing median travel times from Verazzano entrance: 8.7 minutes bus + 5 expected wait time + 6 minutes local subway travel New Routing median travel times: 5.3 minutes bus = 3 minutes vehicle saving per trip / 14 minutes travel time savings per trip

Staten Island routing improvement: S93 diversion from Victory Blvd saves time for both vehicles and central S.I. riders bound for Brooklyn Current Routing along from CSI to bridge along Victory Blvd: 24.7 minutes median New Routing along Gannon and SI Expwy: 17 minutes estimate = 8 minutes vehicle and passenger savings per trip Improved transfers from S54/57/61 (Seaview Hospital, western Todt Hill)

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Extra consideration:

S93/62 /53 streamlining step a) S93 will become streamlined to better serve the 2/3rds of it's riders by eliminating victory blvd stops and rerouting the line to instead serve N/S gannon ave serving residential areas and retaining connections to manor rd and bradley ave for S61/57/54 then via HOV express to bay ridge giving riders a much faster ride.

There are also connectivity upgrades that can boost productivity of routes like the S89 .

S89 would be extended beyond the HBLR 34th station to the Newark airport then to optimize the SI routing to eliminate duplication with the S79 SBS. The S89 south of SI mall will get eliminated and S89 will reroute to SI university hospital replacing the S51 between seaview ave and grant city. The S89 will travel via Richmond hill road to grant city linking to bus routes in New Dorp. S89 will gain full-time service now taking SI residents to the airport.

Due to earlier modification of the S76 the S57 will be rerouted in new dorp to Oakwood replacing the S76 in that area while maintaining links to the SIR at New dorp.

In addition the S57's routing in new dorp will be transferred to a truncated S74.

In order to boost reliability the S74 between 5:45 am and 11 PM will be broken up to improve reliability. The S56 will be extended westward via Huguenot SIR then express to bricktown mall via Korean war veterans parkway. Then the SI mall portion which duplicates the S79 & 59 will be removed and S56 will go to New dorp SIR with boosted frequency.