By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
LOWER EAST SIDE — A pair of new bus stops just off Grand Street are rankling local residents who don’t want buses taking up valuable parking spaces and say they are getting ticketed without warning for parking in former curbside spots.
The new bus stops were installed on the FDR Drive and Lewis Street just north of Grand Street on June 24 to accommodate the rerouted M21 line, which runs crosstown along Houston Street. The stops are part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s sweeping service changes this June.
But residents say that a lone bus stop sign on a single pole without any “No Parking” signs is not adequate warning for drivers used to parking on the streets where the new stops are.
Business owners also say the bus stops are hurting their sales.
Aaron Lichter, 51, owner of a 30-year-old Torah repair and religious goods store called A-1 Sofrim Inc., said he's lost about five spaces in front of his building at 473 FDR Dr. and has seen a drop-off in business because “people are afraid to park.”
Lichter said that the new bus stops have specifically hurt his tourist and delivery traffic.
“It’s killing the whole street,” he added. “I don’t see people waiting for the bus.”
A security guard at 473 FDR Dr. in the East River Cooperative building said that at least 20 residents have asked him about the new stops and complained that the city didn’t warn tenants they were coming.
“They’ve been telling me it’s random,” said Jonathan Foy. “I tell them I didn’t know.”
Henry Cooper, 66, a resident of the building for the past 30 years, noted that the new bus stops do not even include a schedule of pickup times — making them useless for many riders.
Beyond that, Cooper added, nobody in the neighborhood was consulted on the changes.
“They did it a little sneaky,” he said. “The community itself should have some more say.”
Around the corner on Lewis Street, a similar mid-block bus stop has taken away about four or five parking spaces that residents used to rely on.
“Parking is very limited in this area,” said Iris Talavera, 48, a resident of 568 Grand Street for the past 25 years, who was giving her daughter parallel-parking lessons on Lewis Street next to the new signage on Monday afternoon.
“I don’t know why they made that a bus stop. It’s a very short block.”
Talavera explained that in addition to the lack of parking in the area — it took her 15 years to arrange for a permanent space near her apartment — riders have plenty of other transit options nearby that can get them to the same destinations, or at least connect them with the options they need.
“I don’t see the purpose of it,” she said, noting that most straphangers would grow impatient with the M21’s minimum 15- to 30-minute wait times in between buses and simply walk a couple blocks to catch another ride.
“If you want to utilize it, it’s a long wait,” she said.
Local Councilwoman Margaret Chin said that she has reached out to the MTA, the Department of Transportation and the NYPD to work on getting the parking tickets rescinded and possibly removing the stops from their current locations.
“I hope that this unnecessary confusion will remind the MTA, DOT and NYPD to consult more closely with the community before implementing any further changes,” she said in a statement, noting that new signage “appeared overnight.”
“It is important that communities get sufficient notification before any significant new developments occur.”
A spokesman from the DOT said that the department is working to address the tickets issued to drivers, but he did not confirm that the citations would be retracted.
