Residents fed up with idling buses and gathering crowds of passengers outside their apartments appealed to Community Board 3 last night for relief. The tenants of 1 Pike Street and other buildings submitted a petition to the board calling on the NYPD and the city’s Department of Transportation to remove the commercial bus stop from their block.
In the past five years, community boards and the city have struggled to find a solution to the bus problem. There are at least 20 bus companies operating low cost routes between New York and cities such as Boston and Washington, D.C.
Albert Chan, a leader of the residents’ group, told us Eastern Travel and Coach USA, the companies operating on Pike between East Broadway and Division streets, block public buses from pulling up to the curb, allow their buses to idle for extended periods of time and are unable to keep their passengers from littering and even loitering in private lobbies.
The group has also contacted the office of State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to see if he can help. We’ll have more on the Chinatown bus issue in the next few days.
Note: Albert Chan provided The Lo-Down with these photos.
