Then there is the B39. It goes all of 1.8 miles and makes just three stops.
This little-known bus travels from one side of the Williamsburg Bridge to the other before circling back, like a windup toy stuck on an endless loop between the edges of Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Round and round it goes. It crosses the East River 58 times a day, less often in bad traffic.
Only about 220 people ride the bus on a weekday, the city’s lowest daily bus ridership. It is a money loser for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
But for its regular riders the bus is a lifeline. It carries those in wheelchairs, a vital option when the elevator at the closest subway station is not working. It allows the frail, the old and the sick to rest their feet. (Getting a seat is never a problem.) It is an alternative, and an escape, from the crowded subway lines, walkway and bike path that also cross the bridge.
“This bus is very important to a lot of us,” said Herbert King, 75, whose walker was parked next to his bus seat. “If it weren’t for this bus, we’d all be in trouble because what are we going to depend on?”
Even as cities across the country overhaul outdated bus systems to become more efficient, there are some distinctive bus routes that add a bit of character to the public transit experience.
They may be short — barely going anywhere. They may draw relatively few riders. They can seem unnecessary especially when there are other, faster transit options. Some are downright quirky.
In Houston, Route 311 runs only on the first Tuesday of every month to take potential bidders about a mile from a transit center to a public auction where county officials sell off real estate properties with unpaid tax bills.
Denver has a fleet of free electric buses that only run along a single downtown street, making 18 stops in 1 mile, to provide door-to-door service to local businesses.
In Seattle, three buses serving routes 118 and 119 actually roll on to a ferry from downtown to Vashon Island in Puget Sound.
New York’s B39 is all that remains of the trolley car system across the Williamsburg Bridge, which opened in 1903, and carried many immigrants from the tenements of the Lower East Side to Brooklyn and beyond.
There was a “living connection between the two sides” of the East River as families crossed back and forth to work, visited relatives and friends, worshipped at synagogues and even took English lessons, said David Favaloro, director of curatorial affairs for the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side.
The trolleys were replaced in 1948 by buses.
Today, the B39 fleet has shrunk to just a single bus that runs every half-hour from about 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. It is the second shortest of the MTA’s more than 300 bus routes. The shortest is the 1.3-mile B42 route that connects Canarsie, Brooklyn, to a subway station and bus transfer hub. The longest is the S78’s 19.5-mile trip across Staten Island with 117 stops.
The transportation authority spends $565,000 annually to operate the B39. With a total of 74,000 passengers in all of 2018 — down from 104,000 in 2014 — it would have collected only $203,500 if everyone paid the full fare of $2.75. (Of course, the authority loses money on many bus routes).
The B39 was supposed to be suspended as part of the shutdown of the L line, which links Brooklyn and Manhattan. The plan was to replace it temporarily with expanded bus service to carry displaced L train riders. But like many commuters, the B39 received a reprieve when Gov. Andrew Cuomo intervened at the last minute to avert a full shutdown.
It was the second close call for the B39. In 2010, the route was eliminated in sweeping budget cuts. But riders protested, the authority relented and the bus was restored in 2013.
Joseph Schwieterman, a professor of public service at DePaul University in Chicago who has studied urban bus systems, said that such little-used routes can be “alarmingly expensive.” Cities often hang on to them even when they no longer make economic sense to avoid backlash from a small number of loyal riders, he said.
The B39 starts in Brooklyn at the Williamsburg Bridge Plaza, at the foot of the bridge, then crosses the river and makes two stops on the Lower East Side. Then it swings around and stops twice to pick up passengers as it heads back to the bridge plaza.
“The B39 provides a critical connection between Brooklyn and Manhattan for customers who need additional accessibility options,” said Maxwell Young, spokesman for the transportation authority.
Pete Lopez, 63, a retired teacher in Williamsburg who has been riding the B39 for decades, said he has come to rely on it because he has trouble walking — “my feet gave up on me” — and does not want to attempt the stairs at subway stations. “It’s my buddy,” he said. “I need this bus, and as I get older, I need it more.”
Other regulars said that hopping onto the B39 is far more pleasant than squeezing onto the subway. “You don’t have to wait with a lot of people,” said Anna Marte, 62, a Lower East Side resident who takes the bus at least once a week. “Nobody pushes you.”
But Marte does have to wait. With only one bus running, there can be long delays if it gets trapped in traffic on the bridge. After waiting 40 minutes the other day, Marte finally just headed to the subway. It would be another 10 minutes before the B39 turned up. By then, no one was at the stop.
Angel Arroyo, who was behind the wheel of the B39, recalled that a cement truck broke down on the bridge a few months ago and had to be towed. He was delayed by nearly an hour. “No one else was on the bus — that was a good thing, otherwise, it would have been, ‘Let me off, I’ll swim,’” he said. “You can’t do anything about it. You just have to sit there and wait it out.’’
Arroyo, 52, said he does not mind driving in circles. Where else, he said, would he have panoramic river views at his feet? “Sometimes you want to get away from the hustle and bustle,” he said. “For me, this is peace of mind.”
The bus ride is comforting, as well, for many of Arroyo’s regulars. Most are older than 50, including a 94-year-old man who takes the bus to church every Sunday. Some stand up in front with him after swiping their fare cards to talk.
“We’re like a family on the bus — everybody knows everybody,” said Jeffrey Brown, 61, as he rolled onto the bus in a wheelchair.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.