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Three's Company: MTA Adds 328 More Three-Door Buses
By
Garth Johnston
Published Apr 18, 2012
Modified Apr 18, 2012
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Apr 18, 2012
Modified Apr 18, 2012
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Though 90 of them have been on Select Bus Service routes for a bit now, the MTA has gone ahead and ordered a few more double-length, three-doored buses. 328 of them, in fact. Not that many riders actually use the extra door, it seems.
"The middle is the least popular one," an Upper East Side psychologist named Elyse Goldstein told the Times while "she delicately gripped one of the handles on the bus with a tissue." Specifically? "Most people prefer the privacy of the back or the access of the front." Sadly there aren't really good statistics to prove her right, but it does ring true from casual observation.
Still, Henry Sullivan, chief maintenance officer for the MTA's Department of Buses, tells the paper of record that it does seem like more people are using the middle doors now. So maybe they just needed to get used to them existing. The additional three-door buses will be showing up on the crosstown routes running on high-traffic streets like 79th, 14th and 23rd Streets.
Us? We'll take new three-door buses over ill-conceived, and much less accessible, double-decker buses any day. Now if only the new buses had bike racks, too...
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