On Tuesday evening, Community Board 3’s transportation committee will consider an application from an additional bus operator seeking to use a curbside location at 59 Canal St., between Allen and Orchard streets. If approved, the company, LX Transportation LLC, will be the third bus operator utilizing the makeshift depot on the Chinatown/Lower East Side border. Z&D Tour, one of the existing permit holders at 59 Canal, is dealing with the aftermath of a terrible bus crash in Pennsylvania last week, which left five people dead.
According to a notice from the Department of Transportation, LX Transportation wants to use the Canal Street location to pick up customers one day a week (Thursdays at 11 p.m.) for a New York City-Columbus, Ohio route. The city notes that the application is “feasible” because the pickup time does not conflict with the current schedules from the existing operators, Z&D Tour and Virginia Seagull Travel Bus, Inc.
While community board consultation is required under the state’s ineffectual intercity bus regulation law, community boards have no authority over permit approval. The decision is solely up to New York City DOT. The community board meeting takes place Tuesday, Jan. 14, 6:30 p.m. at University Settlement, 273 Bowery.
A bus operated by Z&D Tour crashed on the Pennsylvania Turnpike last weekend, killing the driver and four other people, including two men in a UPS truck and a 9-year-old child from Brooklyn. That bus originated in Flushing, but made stops on the Lower East Side and New Jersey before continuing on to Pennsylvania. The NTSB is continuing its investigation, and has not determined whether the driver was speeding. Z & D Tour had not reported any crashes in the past two years.
