These Clinton Hill Bus Stops Are The 2nd Closest Together In NYC

CLINTON HILL, BROOKLYN — Squished bus stops that sit less than a block away from each other on Myrtle Avenue could be one of the reasons for the B54's sluggish speeds, a new report says.

A new study of the closest bus stop pairings across New York City found that B54's Clinton and Vanderbilt avenues stops tied for the closest together out of any stops in Brooklyn, and are tied for the second closest citywide.

The stops — which sit just 64 meters, or less than 1 city block apart — earned the B54 a "Cozy Award" from the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, which argues that stops so close together means that buses spend more time stopping and merging back into traffic instead of getting riders to their destination.

"In a city where so many residents rely on public transit, close stops are detrimental to a functioning bus system that truly serves the city," the organization wrote in its report.

The transit group contended that the B54 is a "prime candidate for stop spacing adjustments," or altering the bus stop spots to make the buses more efficient.

The Myrtle Avenue bus route has an average speed of 5.2 MPH, a "D" grade from the Bus Turnaround Coalition and one out of every 11 buses bunches on the route, the report said.

The Clinton and Vanderbilt stops were only surpassed by a pair of stops on the Bronx's BX26 route, which were 63 meters apart, and another pair of Brooklyn stops on the B1, which tied with a 64 meter buffer.

The stops were among 27 bus stop pairs that got Cozy Awards for being 80 or fewer meters apart. That's about 260 feet, or slightly less than the length of a Manhattan block — a far shorter distance than the MTA's bus stop spacing goal of 750 feet, the group says.

The B54 was far from the only route in the borough with smushed stops, though.

In fact, Brooklyn earned the distinction of being the "Coziest Borough" for having 11 smushed stop pairs along 10 routes. Queens is home to six cozy couplings, while The Bronx has five, Manhattan has three and Staten Island has two.

In all, about half the city's bus stops are closer together than the MTA's 30-year-old spacing guideline of 750 feet, which actually falls short of the standard of 1,000 to 1,680 feet used by international transit systems, the agency said.

The report comes at a time when the MTA is considering 29 bus schedule changes, including controversial service cuts to the B54 and its parallel route on Dekalb Avenue, the B38. The B38 changes also include eliminating or changing bus stops along the route to accommodate new, longer buses.