The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) will close a Staten Island bus depot early next year, raising concerns among many residents in the “forgotten borough” who rely heavily on express and local bus service to navigate the city.
The Meredith Bus Depot, located at 336 Meredith Ave. in Staten Island, will close on Jan. 3, 2025, MTA officials said, two days before congestion pricing in NYC kicks in. The agency will close the depot, in part, as a cost-saving measure, but thousands of local bus riders, advocates and transit union members are outraged that the MTA would make such a drastic move.
The MTA decided not to renew the depot’s lease, which officials said will save the agency an estimated annual cost of $2.6 million.
Meredith Depot is “no longer necessary”
Shuttering Meredith Depot is not only about saving money, Meghan Keegan, a spokesperson for the MTA, said. The depot, which opened on Dec. 14, 2009, was designed as a satellite to absorb overflow from two existing hubs as a third was built in the borough’s Charleston area.
“Meredith Depot is no longer necessary to support bus operations in Staten Island due to right sizing of capacity and Yukon, Castleton and our most recent Charleston Depot,” Keegan said. “The termination of its lease will have no impact to bus service.”
But Staten Island bus riders and transit workers are skeptical. Express bus riders are especially concerned, since many of the borough’s busy express lines, including the SIM3, SIM4X, SIM 15, SIM 30 and others, depart from Meredith Depot.
“It will absolutely negatively impact commutes,” Vittorio Bugatti, an express bus advocate on Staten Island, said. “I can remember years ago when Staten Island had just Castleton and Yukon Depot. It meant delays in buses being repaired for one, which meant a shortage of buses, which continues to happen.”
It was not a “smart” move to close the depot, Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella said, because it will result in overflow at the borough’s other three depots.
“The decision was made to close one of the bus depots. The most efficient, well-run depot is on Meredith Avenue,” Staten Island borough president Vito Fossella said. “And the MTA, not in a smart way, decided not to renew the lease and plan to close it down.”
And if a bus from the Meredith Depot needs repair, workers will have to bring it to a further away location, which could add delays, advocates say.
“When you close a bus depot down, having buses in a certain area, it’s closer to certain routes. If there’s a problem, you have the buses right there,” Philip Valenti, president of Transit Workers Union 106, said. “Closing that bus depot down means that you won’t have accessibility to those buses. Now if there’s a problem, they have to go all the way back to a location that’s further away.”
The shuttered depot will impact MTA bus employees, too.
“Six jobs for us on our end will be affected: four service line dispatchers–the ones who supervise the bus movement–and two bus maintenance supervisors,” Mike Carrube, president of the Subway Surface Supervisors Association, said. “They are being put into depots now, but also through cutbacks, we’re losing some of this work through attrition.”
The other depots are “at capacity”
U.S. Rep. from Staten Island and Brooklyn Nicole Malliotakis said “there is no reason” for the Meredith Depot to close.
“There is no reason for this depot to close, creating more congestion,” she said. “The other three depots that the MTA wants to move the Meredith buses to are at capacity, and it will disrupt the quality of life around the other depots because there will be more buses idling on the sidewalk, parking in front of homes and businesses.”
Meanwhile, public transit users from Staten Island, where there is no subway system and only one above-ground railway, are frustrated with late and unreliable buses.
“We have to rely on the buses that are overcrowded, unreliable and not enough of,” Staten Island resident Laura Devoy said. “Do better for Staten Island, MTA.”
Closing the depot will have repercussions that trickle down,” Staten Islander Pete Wright said.
“It’s going to hurt other depots with everything from parking to buses getting fixed,” he said.
