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Midtown Bus Stop Moratorium Mulled by Community Board

By DNAinfo Staff on March 30, 2011 11:09am  | Updated on March 30, 2011 11:15am

By Jill Colvin

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MIDTOWN — Some Community Board 5 members want an all-out ban on new bus stops in Midtown following years of worsening sidewalk congestion.

The board's Transportation Committee was asked to weigh in Monday on a new bus stop for the low-cost Tripper Bus Company, whose old spot is being devoured by upcoming construction at Madison Square Garden.

The company came before the committee for approval on a new pick-up point on the corner of Eighth Avenue and West 30th Street to ferry passengers to Bethesda, M.D., and Arlington, V.A.

But as the committee deliberated, the conversation quickly turned to whether the board should even be considering allowing more buses to load and unload on Midtown streets. They have become overrun by increasingly popular, low-cost commuter options, some complain.

It is not unusual to see two or three buses at a time waiting on a handful of blocks surrounding Penn Station, with throngs of passengers overwhelming sidewalks with luggage waiting to load. Between West 31st and 33rd streets, Ninth Avenue's sidewalks are often so crowded they're impassable, locals have complained.

"I have trouble sometimes getting my luggage down the street because of all the buses," said board member Nancy Aber Goshow, describing her experience navigating to and from Penn Station to take the train to Washington, D.C.

"People riding want to unload and load into Penn Station, and you can't," she said.

She also took issue with the fact that buses do not pay the city for spots on the street.

"These things undermine the public transportation that we all pay our taxes for," she said, adding that she would like to see new rules for emissions, too.

A Department of Transportation representative at the meeting said, because of the construction, more operators will likely request new stops in the coming months, but that the department will not grant new stops in the district without the board's approval.

Other committee members pressed for the board to consider launching a task force to study the impact of the buses, and potential solutions.

Committee Chair Thomas Miller doubted that the buses' business would be hurt by a move away from Penn Station because of the draw of cheap fares.

He also wondered whether new legislation being considered by the state might help.

"If we keep doing it, we're not going to solve the problem," he said of approving stops. "People are going to look very carefully and say, when does it stop?"

Instead of casting a vote, the committee asked the DOT to return next month with more details about how many bus stops there are in the district,

But Betty Ungar, the owner of Tripper, said that she'd searched for "months and months" for an appropriate new spot and that a location in Midtown is crucial to her customers.

"If we don't grab this corner, we will lose the spot," she said. "We're going to have nothing."