By Harold Egeln
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BROOKLYN – As reported in this newspaper, the B63 bus yields Brooklyn’s slowest trip in the “Pokey� category determined by NYPIRG’s Straphangers Campaign, a nonprofit public transit advocacy group. The Fifth Avenue bus that travels a route between Atlantic Avenue in Cobble Hill and Shore Road in Bay Ridge was tracked at a 5.1-mph speed.

That news is no surprise to regular riders on the well-used route that plows, usually with many standees on a crowded bus, through major commercial thoroughfares nestled in well-populated neighborhoods — except for the ride past Green-Wood Cemetery, a scenic respite.

Rarely relying on this bus for a daily commute — and never in the morning when the R trip is far faster at only half-an-hour from Bay Ridge to Brooklyn Heights — this reporter, at least once a month, takes the B63 back home when desiring a leisurely trip.

As the latest Straphangers survey came out, I decided on Thursday evening to take the long journey home on the B63 after leaving the Court Street Barnes & Noble toward the end of the rush hour.

I paused momentarily, thinking that maybe I should go back and buy Tolstoy’s lengthy epic War and Peace, since I could probably read it cover-to-cover on the ride home. Or maybe if I had a music playback device with an earplug, listen to Wagner’s entire operatic Ring cycle. Certainly that would be enough time for them on my trip.

A Long Wait

Crossing Atlantic Avenue at Court Street, a westbound B63 passed by me. At the bus stop, several B61 buses came and went but not the B63 that went down to Atlantic Avenue’s end. Many minutes passed as people waited.

Then, as a sudden spray of heavy raindrops and robust gusty winds sent golden autumn leaves scurrying in a group along the Atlantic Avenue-Court Street crosswalk, the B63 appeared at 6:47, as if deposited by a tornado. Would this be a trip back home or to the Land of Oz? I thought.

The crowd of riders boarded the bus, escaping the sudden squall. It is not unusual to wait up to 20 minutes at this early evening time for a B63, as riding experience shows.

Boarding the bus at 6:47 p.m., it reached Ninth Street in Park Slope at 7:12, 39th Street in Sunset Park at 7:28, 65th Street entering Bay Ridge at 7:41 and 86th Street at 7:53. I got off at 95th Street and Fourth Avenue at 7:57. My clocked travel time was one hour and 10 minutes for just over six miles.

Since I didn’t travel the entire route, adding at least five minutes for the bus terminals at Furman Street and Atlantic Avenue and at Shore Road and Third Avenue, the travel time would be at least 1:15. That’s roughly 5.1 mph, as Straphangers calculates. Traveling the same route two years ago after the Straphangers calculated a 4.9-mph speed time for the B63, with the trip taking one hour and 20 minutes.

Slow, yes. But the fact is that the bus serves an economically vibrant route brimming with shops, restaurants, schools and businesses, and directly serves Business Improvement Districts in Bay Ridge, Park Slope, Sunset Park and the proposed Atlantic Avenue BID area.

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