Editorial: More reliable express bus service

Try this experiment. Go downtown armed with the schedule of the Riverdale express bus. Spend some time shopping or going to a museum. Then, some time between 2 and 4 p.m., go to the nearest express bus stop a couple of minutes before the next Riverdale-bound bus is supposed to arrive.

Bet you'll wait 10 minutes, or 15 or even 20.

Anyone who has eavesdropped on the conversation of regular commuters quickly learns that the homebound bus is pretty much always late. Over and over again you'll hear some variant of "Liberty Lines wasn't that great, but it was better than this." The private company didn't run phantom buses, the regulars say - buses that are on the schedule but never arrive, so that riders can wait 20 minutes or more for a bus that's supposed to arrive every 12 or 15 minutes.

Now there's some hope that that may change. Last week, Tom Savage, the president of MTA Bus, which operates the express service, joined state Sen. Jeff Klein and other Bronx legislators at a press conference to acknowledge the problem and promise improvements.

In a survey of riders last December, Sen. Klein found that two-thirds of passengers who filled out his questionnaire favored the private operators Mayor Michael Bloomberg forced out of the express bus business. His survey confirmed the results of similar surveys conducted by Riverdale Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz and city Councilman Oliver Koppell.

All the surveys cited the unreliability of the premium service, along with complaints about the absurd requirement that those paying their fares in cash use quarters.

Last week, Mr. Savage said new dispatchers stationed on Third and Madison Avenues will monitor Riverdale's East Side buses and help them keep to their schedules, avoiding the elephant trains that so frustrate riders who have endured long waits.

It's a good beginning. With the city pressing to move more New Yorkers out of their cars and onto mass transit and the MTA seeking to raise the already-high express bus fare, riders should, at the very least, be entitled to expect a bus to pick them up when the company says it will.