Waiting to catch a bus? It could be awhile

By Tommy Hallissey

Commuters will often complain that city buses take "forever" to come. Those waiting at the Bx9 stop on Broadway at West 240th Street are not exaggerating one bit.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority says it changed the Bx9 route, eliminating the stop on the northbound side of Broadway. Yet, every day, unknowing passengers waiting at the clearly marked stop watch helplessly as buses speed on by.

Charles Seaton, a spokesman for the MTA's New York City Transit, said that his agency knows of the problem, but is waiting for the city Department of Transportation to physically remove the sign. Yet according to the DOT, it's a stop and they have not received a request to remove the sign.

Tony Giampaglia was riding on a Bx9 bus around 12:30 a.m. on Sept. 29 under a heavy rain. As the bus pulled down Broadway toward West 240th Street it didn't slide into the right lane, despite a man standing at the bus stop.

When the bus stopped at a red light farther ahead, the unidentified man ran from the bus stop into the street and knocked on the bus' door.

"Excuse me sir this is a bus stop," Mr. Giampaglia remembers saying to the driver. "He says, 'No, it's not."

The bus left the rain-soaked gentleman in the dust on Broadway.

Mr. Giampaglia and others, like Theo Tina, who also waited in vain for buses, just want the phantom bus stop to be pulled from the concrete.

"Either stop at the stop or take it down," said Ms. Tina, who rides the Bx9 frequently. Sometimes she said a bus driver will stop, but it's never certain.

Around 4 p.m. on Oct. 3, a photographer and a reporter from The Riverdale Press tested out the bus stop. In the span of about a halfhour, two Bx9 buses stopped and one didn't even change lanes.

"I think they stop once in a while," said Alex Pribytkov, a local commuter. He said when passengers press the button for a stop after West 238th Street the bus doesn't stop until farther up the line.

Mr. Giampaglia and Ms. Tina have been calling the city repeatedly to get to the situation corrected.

"I have an 85-year-old mother. She could be out there," said Ms. Tina.