As mentioned previously, I believe off-peak service overall needs to be restructured to provide more coverage on the Staten Island end (even if a particular route may have its coverage reduced on the Manhattan end). Here are some simple ways to begin the process of extending the span of some of the peak routes into the off-peak time period.
SIM4C
The primary routes that make up the SIM4C are the SIM2 & SIM4 for Downtown, and the SIM8 for Midtown. The schedule should be changed as follows:
5am SIM4C trip out of Arden Heights converted into SIM4 trip out of Annadale. Additionally, SIM4C trips leaving Arden Heights between 8:35am and 9:20am (inclusive) replaced with SIM4 trips out of Annadale. Savings reinvested to add additional SIM2 trip departing Tottenville at 8:45am, with the 9am trip shifted to depart Tottenville at 9:05am. Academy Bus should be encouraged to add a 9:00am SIM23 out of Hylan Blvd & Barclay Avenue (or preferably Pollion Avenue if it ever gets extended that way) to both provide a Midtown route along Arden Avenue and come closer to matching the span of the old X24 (a 9am SIM24 out of Hylan & Luten would also be helpful, and would also help match the span of the old X24). Otherwise, Midtown-bound riders along Arden Avenue will either have to make a transfer Downtown, or make their way to the SIM8/22 (or if they take the SIM2 to Travis, they can catch the SIM25/26 over there).
On a side note, my stance on that SIM2/24 stop is that it should be at Hylan & Huguenot, which is more centrally located than Hylan & Luten (which is basically in the middle of Wolfe's Pond Park). Academy Bus saw an increase in their subsidy from the city, and they should be made to provide adequate service. They complain that the new network caused them to reduce their revenue miles, and they haven't thought of the simple ways of getting those revenue miles back in ways that benefit the passengers.
In the evening, the SIM2 should have its span extended to operate until 9:30pm out of Chambers Street (operating every 30 minutes after 7:30pm). A 1:30pm SIM8 trip should be added out of 57th Street & Lexington Avenue, and all of the SIM4C trips departing CPS & 6th Avenue between 1:30pm and 2:35pm, and between 6:55pm and 8:55pm should be converted to SIM4 trips out of Chambers Street at those respective arrival times (so for example, the 1:30pm SIM4C trip out of CPS & 6th should become a SIM4 trip out of Chambers Street at 2:11pm). The savings would be reinvested in adding SIM4C trips out of CPS & 6th leaving at 11am, 12pm, and 1pm respectively, to provide off-peak service every 30 minutes (obviously the gap from 10:20pm to 11am is a 40 minute gap, but you get the point...service would run better than hourly).
SIM33C
The primary routes that make up the SIM33C are the SIM31 for Midtown, SIM32 for Downtown, and SIM33 for Greenwich Village. The schedule should be changed as follows:
The Church Street corridor needs to take priority over the West Street corridor due to its central location and connections available. The old system accomplished this by having the first few trips of the morning run as X10 trips that bypassed Narrows Road, rather than X10B trips (so the X10B and X11 had a similar span). A similar setup should take place with the SIM32/33, and generally speaking it is more desirable to extend the span of the peak variants rather than the off-peak variants, because the peak variants offer more overall coverage (both on the Manhattan end and Staten Island end)
* Shift the 6:05am SIM32 trip to depart Travis at 6:00am, and add a 5:00am, 5:20am, and 5:40am departure out of Travis. Remove the 5:00am, 5:20am, and 5:40am SIM33 trips out of Mariners Harbor, and replace them with a 5:30am SIM33 trip (this will coordinate well with the SIM32 along Gannon & SIM34 in Mariners Harbor/Graniteville in that timeframe) The only disadvantage is that those areas have to wait 30 more minutes if they want direct service to Greenwich Village, but this would still add an extra bus per hour to the Gannon corridor (3 SIM32s and 1 SIM33 instead of 3 SIM33s) around the 6am timeframe.
* Shift the 8:35am SIM32 trip to depart Travis at 8:45am. Shift the 8:00am and 8:30am SIM31 trips to depart the Eltingville Transit Center at 8:05am and 8:35am respectively. This will reduce the peak/off-peak gap between the last SIM31/32 and the first SIM33C for Midtown service and Church Street service respectively.
* In the afternoon, shift the 3:40pm SIM31 trip to depart 57th Street & Lexington Avenue at 3:30pm, and add a 2:30pm and 3pm departure from 57th Street & Lexington Avenue. Eliminate the 2:20pm and 2:40pm SIM33C trips out of CPS & 6th, add a 3:20pm SIM32 trip out of Chambers Street & Church Street, and shift the 3:55pm SIM32 trip to depart Chambers Street at 3:50pm. Combine the 3pm and 3:20pm SIM33 trips out of Union Square into a 3:10pm trip. This will eliminate the overlap between the SIM33 & SIM33C in the early PM rush, while ensuring that the Downtown section of Broadway maintains service to Gannon Avenue.
* In the evening, remove the 6:50pm and 7:10pm SIM33C trips out of CPS & 6th, shift the 6:40pm SIM33 out of Union Square to depart at 6:45pm, shift the 7pm SIM33 out of Union Square to depart at 7:05pm, and add a 7:30pm SIM33 trip out of Union Square. Also shift the 7:05pm SIM32 out of Chambers Street to depart at 7:15pm, and add a 7:45pm SIM32 out of Chambers Street.
Additionally, one thing that was gained when the SIM4C covered Gannon Avenue is that it started early in the morning and allowed riders to reach Midtown before 6am. Perhaps one additional SIM33C trip should be added leaving Mariners Harbor at 4:30am to restore this service.
SIM3C
The primary routes that make up the SIM3C are the SIM3 and SIM34.
* In the morning, combine the 8:55am and 9:15am SIM3 trips out of Port Richmond into a 9:05am SIM3 trip, and add a 9:25am SIM3C trip out of Port Richmond. This will fill in the gap in Downtown service along Watchogue Road between the last SIM34 and the first SIM3C of the morning.
* In the afternoon, eliminate the 2:10pm, 2:25pm, 2:40pm, and 2:50pm SIM3C trips out of CPS & 6th, and replace them with 2:20pm and 2:50pm SIM3 trips out of CPS & 6th. This will eliminate the overlap between the SIM3C and SIM15/34/35 Downtown.
Another simple span extension can be had by shifting the last SIM26 to depart Tottenville at 9:10am instead of 9:05am (spacing it out a bit from the last SIM25 which leaves at 9am). Additionally, the whole Hylan Blvd corridor needs restructuring with regards to....well...everything but as it relates to this post, the SIM1C should be broken up into its respective peak variants for a much longer timeframe. That span reduction on the SIM10 back in January 2019 was a huge step backwards.
If you look closely, when I chose the departure times of the routes, I tried to coordinate the service so there was no more than a 30 minute gap between peak and off-peak or vice versa. In a few cases, the gap is slightly more, but one of the other big issues with off-peak service is the lack of coordination between the SIM3C & SIM33C (in their overlapping portions, they arrive around the same time instead of being offset). By rectifying this issue, it should also help close those gaps up.
SIM30
Finally, another route that needs a span extension is the SIM30. One of the main selling points of the new network is that the span of the routes would be extended as close as possible to 5-9am and 3-7pm (presumably referring to departure times from the terminals). The SIM30 falls about an hour short of that in both directions. One of the things that is overlooked is that this route is supposed to be the Midtown alternative for X12 & X14 riders (which had a longer span than the X30). Now, one of the things that I believe needs to be done is to split the route at Jewett Avenue, and have the eastern portion run via Brooklyn (basically, take the old X16 and send it to Midtown instead of Downtown), while the western portion continues to run through New Jersey.
The current inbound span at the Forest & Jewett stop is 5:32am - 8:24am. This can be extended to an even 5am-9am by adding a 5am and a 9am trip, adjusting the 5:32am and 8:24am trips to leave at 5:30am and 8:30am respectively, and then scheduling the proper amount of service to account for the fact that riders east of Jewett Avenue would likely be on the eastern split (let's call it SIM36 for now). That would probably lead to a slight decrease in frequency, but not too much of a decrease, as the vast majority of SIM30 ridership is west of Jewett Avenue. In the afternoon, a 3:20pm trip should be added out of CPS & 6th.
With the SIM36, I'd have it depart Jewett & Post between 5:25am and 8:25am. This would get SIM30 riders along the eastern portion of the route into Midtown around the same time they get there today (and also be fairly similar to the span of the old X14). In the afternoon, buses would depart CPS & 6th between 3:30pm and 6:30pm. The span can be extended if ridership grows (right now, it starts earlier than the SIM30, but also ends earlier, but it still ends around the time the X30 used to end). Frequency would be determined based on ridership (likely all existing SIM30 riders would take it, as it's faster than taking the SIM30 to Midtown, unless there is an accident along the I-278 corridor, and then you'd have some Midtown-bound SIM35 riders who would take it, plus riders taking it at Hylan and at Fingerboard because it came before a SIM10/11). The Manhattan routing can either be up West Street & 10th/11th Avenue to 42nd Street, or up the FDR Drive, 23rd Street, and 5th/Madison Avenue.
For the old X18 (let's call it SIM18 for now), I would have it run with a span similar to what it had in 2004 (6:15am - 9am out of Targee & DeKalb, and 4:25pm - 6:25pm out of Rector Street). I would reverse the outbound route on the Staten Island end (so instead of taking Narrows Road to Targee Street and making a clockwise loop through Park Hill/Rosebank, I would have it get off at School Road and make a counterclockwise loop, ending at Richmond Road & DeKalb Street). I would also have it run up Church/Broadway to/from Chambers Street (rather than do the Downtown Loop).
In its final years, the X18 only ran from 4:30pm-6pm, hence why I said I would use something similar to the 2004 span. Again, as ridership increases, hopefully the span can be increased. One thing to consider is that by running up Church/Broadway, it should be able to take a little bit of pressure off the SIM1 (which as I've said since the beginning, should be split to operate "New Dorp via Hylan" or "Eltingville via Father Capodanno"). So if the same passengers are accommodated by a short route that ends near the Verrazzano (and travels closer to their homes) as opposed a longer route down Hylan Blvd, that is a win-win for both the passengers and the MTA.
