More than five dozen Bronxites attended a town hall meeting hosted by Community Board 7 and state Sen. Gustavo Rivera where Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) officials once again presented their Bronx Bus Network Redesign plan that would update most bus routes across the borough in the name of savings and efficiency for the cash-strapped agency.

Joining Rivera at the Feb. 1 meeting at Mercy College was MTA representative Rashid Dolor who had appeared at a CB7 general board meeting a few months before to discuss the plan. His last presentation a few months back was rolled into the general board meeting, frustrating guests who wanted a full scope of the agency’s plans for the Bronx. Dolor told guests at the follow-up meeting that the plan calls for 400 bus stops to be removed across the borough while increasing the average distance between stops from 882 feet to 1,100 feet.

“For every bus stop removed, 20 seconds would be shaved off a customer’s ride,” said Dolor, to a crowd left stunned over the proposed changes. Standing under a large projection screen, Dolor then told the crowd, “I know it sounds like a lot, but we’re asking you to consider the tradeoff that you may have to walk a little bit further to get to your bus stop; but now your bus trip will be a little shorter.”

Maps of the individual bus routes and the proposed changes hung around the Mintz Auditorium, as Dolor and Rivera briefed guests of the planned changes, particularly for the Bx28, which is slated to be rerouted from its current route on Mosholu Parkway. “[T]he Bx28 needed to be rerouted off of Mosholu Parkway and then you’d use Bainbridge [Avenue] to Bedford Park Boulevard,” Dolor explained. “[W]e tried to straighten it out as much as we could, so instead of going near Hull Avenue, we tried to straighten it out and make it a little more direct.”

Another problem raised by guests was the change to the Bx34, which currently stops near the Serviam Gardens senior home. The proposed route looks to put the Bx34 on Webster Avenue, with the closest stop to the senior home being three blocks on Webster Avenue and East 197th Street. Dolor said, “Under the proposed plan, the proposal to move the Bx34 over to Webster Avenue because of the narrow streets along Valentine and Bainbridge [avenues], where buses would get stuck” behind double parked cars or delivery trucks.

After the MTA delivered their presentation, Barbara Stronczer of the Bedford Mosholu Community Association delivered a petition with over 300 signatures opposed to the rerouting of the Bx34. Stronczer later explained, “I think the problem is that there are more than a few people within these blocks that need transportation,” including the 300-plus senior citizens who live at Serviam Gardens and young students at the Academy of Mount St. Ursula. Opponents point out that a walk to and from Webster Avenue and East 197th Street to Serviam Gardens or the Academy of Mt. St. Ursula includes a large hill and a dimly lit street at night.

Meanwhile, many residents of Jerome Park are just learning about the proposed elimination of service to residents who use the Bx28, as thousands of commuters to Lehman College, Bronx High School of Science, Tracey Towers, and Amalgamated Houses would be impacted as that bus would begin and end at Bedford Park Boulevard and Bainbridge Avenue.

One Tracey Towers resident fumed, “I don’t want it cut, leave it there!” While another asked, “How are the old people supposed to get around?” The resident added, “It’s dark as hell here at night, so nobody’s going to be walking down the block in the dark to catch a bus.”

Rivera said of the meeting that it’s his “hope the MTA takes the feedback they received into account for this proposal, which includes the rerouting of key bus routes such as the Bx28 and the Bx34.”

Ischia Bravo, district manager of Community Board 7, said of the attendees of the meeting, “I think that they were happy that they were afforded an actual opportunity to express their concerns,” but called the meeting, “the same presentation” the MTA delivered at the November meeting. Bravo added, “We were looking for more of a response.”

Meanwhile, local activist Sirio Guerino has put up “warning signs” at each of the proposed stops that would be eliminated from the Bx28, to alert riders to the issue. Guerino said of the plan, “I don’t want to see them change the [Bx]28 bus. I like the way it goes down toward DeWitt Clinton High School and Tracey Towers to Jerome [Avenue], so I put up signs informing everybody that the [Bx]28 would no longer stop here,” under the proposal.

The MTA looks to implement the plan in the summer or fall of 2020.

Editor’s Note: A final town hall meeting will be held at the Bronx Museum of Arts of the Grand Concourse on Thursday, Feb. 20. For more information on the project or if you would like to provide input on the plan, visit https://new.mta.info/bronxbusredesign.