Been doing the East Harlem to Lower East Side commute for years. Last month the M15 SBS started holding at 125th and 1st for what feels like 8-10 minutes around 5:40. Not in traffic, just sitting there with the doors open and the driver outside or on the radio. One driver said they get ordered to hold for 'schedule.' Anyone else seeing this? I keep missing the connection to the M14 at 14th because of it. Local is not much better.

Yesss! I've been tracking this exact bus on the MTA Bus Time feed! At 5:40-5:50 there's a scheduled timepoint at 125th/1st, but the hold is way beyond the usual. I think they have to wait for the bus behind to get out of the depot? No, it's headway management! If the first bus gets ahead of its 'slot,' they hold to keep the gap even. But if you're on board, it's maddening!! Have you tried walking to 2nd Ave and grabbing the local M15 at 127th? Sometimes the SBS gets so backed up that the local overtakes it. I've seen it happen!

Unpopular opinion, but I don't think the hold at 125th is new. I used to take that bus pre-SBS and the old limited would sit at 125th for the same exact reason: the dispatcher at the depot would use it to reset the spacing because northbound buses get hammered by 125th crosstown traffic. The difference now is all-door boarding, so the SBS clears the stop faster and then the layover is super visible. Before, it was disguised by slow front-door boarding. Not saying it isn't annoying, but the alternative might be a 20-minute gap instead of a 10-minute hold.

@BronxCheer I hear that, but the old M15 limited didn't have a 'schedule' hold that I can remember, at least not this long. Maybe the SBS all-door boarding just exposed it. @brownstone_stoop I did try the local once last week. Walked to 127th and 2nd, local came crowded, crawled to 96th, then got stuck behind an SBS at the same bumper. Lost ten minutes anyway. At this point I'm just leaving earlier or taking the 6. The 6 is its own mess but at least it moves.

Ohh, the local vs SBS overtake is a real thing! I've logged it! Last Tuesday the 5:38 SBS hold at 125th was 9 minutes. The local that left 127th at 5:41 passed it at 116th! Because the local has more stops, but the SBS was just sitting there. If you know you're going to be stuck, check the rear door camera and if there's a local right behind, get off and board that! Also, has anyone pulled the MTA bus time API for the M15? I'd love to see the deviation from schedule over a month. Bet the depot is adding pad to keep on-time stats up.

Brownstone_stoop, I think you're onto the real culprit: not the driver, but the on-time performance metric. MTA has been pushing bus on-time numbers, and a hold at a timepoint can actually improve the 'on time' percentage because the bus leaves on schedule even if the people on it lose their connection. But question: for the people boarding at 125th, the hold isn't a bug, it's a feature. If the bus didn't wait, it would blow through 125th early and the next one might be 18 minutes behind. So is the problem the hold, or the fact that the M15 SBS has stops so far apart that missing one by 30 seconds costs you a half mile? EastHarlem_E's missed connection to the M14 is a direct symptom of that.

Good point about the on-time metric. I used to ride the M101 when I lived on 3rd. Same deal at 125th sometimes, but at least there are a million alternatives. For the M15 SBS, once you're past 96th there's no easy transfer except the M14 at 14th, and if you're going to Alphabet City or the F, it's either wait or walk. I've started just walking down to 14th and grabbing whatever comes first. My recommendation: do not transfer at 125th, ever. If you're north of 110th, get on at 116th or 106th. The hold is always at 125th.

EastHarlem_E that's a solid hack! But be careful at 116th going southbound! There's a weird stop placement by the school, and the SBS doesn't always stop there if the bus is too full. I've seen it skip, which is terrible for accessibility. Have you tried taking the crosstown M106 to 3rd Ave and catching the M101/M102/M103 instead? That combo can be faster if you time the crosstown, but the M106 is not frequent enough. Also, a few months ago there was a proposal to add bus bulbs on First Ave, and the comments were full of people complaining about SBS holds. The MTA knows but they don't care!

All of this makes me wonder if the SBS model works on First/Second Avenue at all. When the route is that long and hits that many choke points, a rigid timepoint at 125th just pushes the delay downstream to the M14 connection at 14th, as EastHarlem_E said. The bus can't be both frequent and perfectly spaced without some holding. I guess the real question for the group: would you rather have a bus that leaves the terminal on time but holds mid-route, or one that is less predictable but never waits? I'd take the latter, but I think most commuters just want to know when it's coming so they can make a decision. The countdown clock lies until after the hold.