MTA New York City Transit President Andy Byford and Staten Island Borough President James Oddo today announced a raft of new improvements coming to the new Staten Island Express Bus Network, all made in response to feedback from customers and bus operators as well as observations throughout the system.

The announcement also comes after a meeting this afternoon between Presidents Byford and Oddo, NYC Transit officials, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 726, and a number of express bus customers who have been active in collecting feedback from their fellow riders and reporting them to Byford and Oddo’s offices.

“These changes are the latest in a long line of improvements to this new network that we’ve been making since the first day of service this summer,” President Byford said. “I promised that, on my watch, New York City Transit would be customer- and employee-led. As such, we have responded to customer and employee feedback and our observations on the ground, and I want to thank Borough President Oddo, ATU Local 726, and our engaged and passionate customers and operators who are all working together to make this the best service it can possibly be.”

“The commitment of President Andy Byford and his team, ATU 726 President Danny Cassella and his team, and my team and I has been to continue working at the express bus redesign until we have helped the most Staten Island commuters as possible,” Borough President Oddo said. “These most recent in a series of changes exemplify that approach. As CS Lewis once said, ‘You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.’ The ‘end’ we want is an express bus system that is as efficient and reliable as possible and better than the one we had.”

Starting on Monday, Nov. 5, the following additional bus stops will be put into service. They had originally been removed from the new network in order to speed trips but are being restored due to local walking environment factors such as elevation changes, street pavement and distances, as well as customer feedback.

Spring St/Greenwich St

Houston St/Washington St

Richmond Rd/Edgar Pl

Richmond Av/Eton Pl

Arthur Kill Rd/Corbin St

Forest Av/Hart Blvd

Hylan Blvd/Bayview Av

An additional stop, Richmond Av/Rockland Av, is in the process of being reinstated in collaboration with the NYC Department of Transportation and will be in service later next week.

Starting in mid-January, there will be one new peak period route and one new off peak route added to the network, trip additions and extensions to existing routes, and other adjustments to match service to ridership demand. The changes include:

A new route, the SIM11, will run from Mill Rd/Tysens Ln to and from Midtown Manhattan using Hylan Blvd, Madison Av and Lexington Av. This is similar to the former X2

the SIM33c, will add new off-peak combination Downtown/Midtown service similar in span and frequency to the previous X10. This will enable the off peak SIM4c to serve the Richmond Av / Lander Av and Richmond Av / Morani St stops as the peak period SIM4 does and the previous X17 did. This will provide new off-peak and weekend service to Mariners Harbor.

SIM33c, will add new off-peak combination Downtown/Midtown service similar in span and frequency to the previous X10. This will enable the SIM4c to serve the Richmond Av / Lander Av and Richmond Av / Morani St stops as the peak period SIM4 does and the previous X17 did. This will provide new off-peak and weekend service to Mariners Harbor. SIM1 and SIM34: Service will be extended to Houston St, which responds to requests for direct service to TriBeCa and SoHo and eases terminal capacity issues at Chambers St.

SIM25: The PM span will be extended to run for a longer period of time, to match the SIM26 and the former X22

SIM4c: All off-peak and weekend service will be extended to Huguenot Av/Drumgoole Rd in order to serve more customers, and the route will be changed to mimic the former X17 route on Richmond Av north of Victory Blvd

SIM6: This line’s terminal will be relocated to Lexington Av and 57 th St, from 6 th Av and 57 th St, to improve reliability by eliminating the need to unnecessarily travel cross-town after the line was previously moved from 5 th Av to Lexington Av.

St, from 6 Av and 57 St, to improve reliability by eliminating the need to unnecessarily travel cross-town after the line was previously moved from 5 Av to Lexington Av. SIM3c: The weekday morning span of service will be reduced so as to not overlap with the SIM3, saving resources while customers will be able to shift to the new SIM33c off-peak service also starting.

SIM2: This route will have off-peak and weekend service discontinued due to very low ridership and to free resources for other routes with high demand.

Other schedule adjustments will match ridership demand

Earlier this week, Academy Bus, the vendor which operates this network’s SIM23 and SIM24 routes, announced moving those two routes to 34th St from 42nd St, in response to customer demand and to improve service. The change will go into effect on Monday, Nov. 5.