A Little Divine Intervention for Brooklyn Bus Riders
Utica Avenue is one of the more troubled transit corridors in the city. The five-mile long north-south street in Central Brooklyn doesn't have a subway. Instead, to get to the nearest transfer point, some 50,000 riders a day cram onto the B46 bus, a route that the Straphangers Campaign calls one the most unreliable in the city because of how frequently it falls behind schedule. When a bus does arrive, people are regularly forced to stand in the stairwells and in front of the white line, which causes the driver to wait, and leads to even more delays.
"You cannot even stand," one rider, Anna Robinson, said as she and her child got on board a B46 in Crown Heights one recent evening. "There is not even standing room on this bus, and buses pass that are empty and they don't stop."
Private vans also travel along the avenue and are much faster than the bus. But they cost $2 and don’t provide a free transfer to the subway.
But occasionally, a totally different kind of vehicle pulls up: A white school bus that doesn't cost a cent. It's run by Michael Edwards, a would-be eye doctor who, in 2011, as he was struggling to get into medical school, said God instead told him to start a free Christian bus ministry in Brooklyn. Two years later, Edwards founded a nonprofit, The 7th Scroll, and bought a white school bus to fulfill that order.
“We are not in this for some sort of capital gain," said Edwards, who owns, drives and maintains the bus. "We are in it for the people.”
The bus runs from morning to night on weekdays and on some weekends. It makes the same stops as the MTA's B46. But other than that, it is quite different. It plays religious music and sermons on TV screens and speakers. When it pulls up, Edwards says, some commuters are hesitant to get on.
“Some people say, 'Are you going to kidnap me?’," Edwards joked. "‘I’ve seen this in a movie.' ‘What’s going on?’ ‘Is this a prank?’"
Edwards asks for donations, but doesn't demand them. He admits that he wants people riding the bus to become Christians. That's why he targets busy routes — not just Utica Avenue, but Flatbush Avenue too on some days. But he doesn’t force people to convert.
The city Department of Transportation requires that vehicles receive permission in order to pick up and drop off passengers on city streets. Edwards said wasn't aware of the rule until WNYC informed him of it this month, but says he is now applying for a permit.
Gene Russianoff, senior staff attorney at the Straphangers Campaign transit advocacy group, says some people may find the idea of riding a religious bus strange, although he admits he would get on board if he was waiting along Utica and nothing else came.
"It's a shame the community has to rely on the good will of an evangelist for adequate bus service when it should be exactly what the city is doing," he said.
The MTA is aware of the inadequacy of the B46. It is working on a Select Bus Service plan for Utica Avenue, which should accelerate service by requiring customers to pay at kiosks at bus stops before getting on, rather than inserting MetroCards into machines on board. And this spring, Mayor Bill de Blasio revived a century-old the idea of building a subway spur along the avenue. But even studying that idea is supposed to take another few years.
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