Metro

B44 select bus service to slash travel times 20%

Brooklyn’s first select bus service will save riders a million commuting hours a year, officials said Monday.

The new B44 service, which started on Sunday, is expected to slash travel times by 20 percent on the city’s fifth busiest bus route, which serves neighborhoods like Williamsburg, Flatbush, Crown Heights, and Sheepshead Bay.

The bus lane it will use is one lane away from the curb, which will let business owners use the curb lane for deliveries. It will also preserve neighborhood parking.

DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said it was the sixth bus route that’s launched in six years. “Select bus service has delivered low-cost transit options to underserved parts of the city
faster than any transit project in generations,” she said Monday.

MTA Chairman Thomas Prendergast called it a “game-changer.”

Other select bus routes have been added in the Bronx on Webster Avenue and Fordham Route, Manhattan on First Avenue and 34th Street, Staten Island on Hylan Boulevard, and Jackson Heights to LaGuardia in Queens.

Driver Terrence Evans, 44, said he thinks the service will work out better in the long-term, but he expects a learning curve.

“Whenever you have something new, you have a little nervousness—with the passengers and the drivers,” he said. “So that initially is going to be a little rough.”

JP Patafio, a vice-president at the Transit Workers Union Local 100, said select bus service is ultimately better for bus operators because it eliminates fare disputes and the dedicated lanes make driving easier.

“We estimate almost 50 percent of our disputes occur around the farebox, so in that way it’s very good,” he said. “We’d like to see off-board fares become really a thing of the future.”

Ainsworth Harry, a 55-year-old construction worker and bus rider, said there have been a few kinks since the service launched Sunday, but remained hopeful. “I hope it will end up working with the efficiency I see in the rest of the city,” he said.