Hundreds of west Bronx bus riders are calling for the city to make traveling from Fordham Road to Manhattan easier by restoring local service to Manhattan and restoring a bus stop that was eliminated with the debut of the new, supposedly faster Select Bus Service.

Angry residents say the changes are seriously inconveniencing riders and that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) did not get community input before eliminating both the Bx12 local service into Manhattan and the Sedgwick Avenue stop on the new Select Bus Service (SBS) route (which used to be part of the old Bx12 Limited route).

“People didn’t discover the changes until the bus map was mailed to their homes or boarded the buses,” said Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter, the board president of the Fordham Hill Owners Association and a member of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition.

Transit officials expect the new SBS route, which replaced the Bx12 limited on June 28, to cut down on travel time along Fordham Road by about 10 minutes (from end to end).

With the advent of the SBS, the Bx12 local route now terminates at Sedgwick Avenue and West Fordham Road in the Bronx, instead of going to 207th Street and Broadway in Upper Manhattan, where riders used to easily transfer to the No. 1 and A trains.

Now bus riders going to Manhattan must walk a couple of blocks east on West Fordham Road from Sedgwick Avenue to University Avenue or west to Cedar Avenue to transfer to the SBS.

“This is a serious hardship for elderly and disabled riders, in addition to mothers with baby carriages,” Pilgrim-Hunter said. “And what happens at night? Residents have to cross Devoe Park (between Sedgwick and University avenues), which has a lot of drug and gang activity.”

Fordham Hill, which is located near the Sedgwick stop and already has hundreds of signatures on a petition to restore it, held a meeting on the issue last week. State Sen. Efrain Gonzalez (D-Bronx), a Fordham Hill resident, attended the meeting, Pilgrim-Hunter said, as well as Jose Rivera (D-Bronx), CB 7 chair Greg Faulkner and representatives of the MTA and the Department of Transportation.

The MTA eliminated the Sedgwick stop because it was too close to the ones at Cedar Avenue and University Avenue, according to MTA bus officials Robert Newhouser and Buckley Yung.

And local service to Manhattan was discontinued due to low ridership numbers and limited parking space near Broadway and 207th Street, they said. Also, the MTA wanted to have the local route run in the Bronx while having the SBS cross boroughs.

The MTA still does not have new SBS ridership numbers, but the Bx12 local bus had more than 40,000 daily riders in 2006, according to an MTA report on its Web site.

“We understand it’s difficult for the elderly, but there are no plans to continue the local to Manhattan,” Yung said. In response, the MTA has increased the frequency of the SBS, he said. “It might be a slightly longer walk (to the bus stop), but there is significantly faster service on Fordham Road.”

Fordham Hill resident Henry Raine, who alerted the Norwood News to the Bx12 changes on our West Bronx Blog, is against the changes.

“For the MTA to say there were not enough people is crazy. There were always 30 to 40 people waiting at Sedgwick Avenue,” the 47-year-old librarian said. “The MTA should be encouraging people to take public transportation, not limiting our options.”

Despite outraged riders, neither Community Board 7 nor transit advocacy group Straphangers Campaign said they were backing riders just yet.

“I would need to see the data first about putting back a stop at Sedgwick Avenue,” said Fernando Tirado, the Community Board’s district manager. “But [without the stop] it could be especially difficult for seniors. It’s sunny now, but what about when it rains or snows?”

(Tirado added he has received complaints about businesses receiving tickets for parking in bus lanes though the city did not replace some delivery zone signs until last week, and has received complaints that SBS buses are not traveling in the designated bus lanes.)

Pilgrim-Hunter reported attendance at the public meeting was high and that Jacqueline Carter, the representative present for the MTA had committed to working with CB 7 to remedy the situation.  Pilgrim-Hunter hopes to meet with Carter again in the coming weeks.

“If this was in Manhattan, the MTA would’ve added the bus stop immediately,” she said. “It doesn’t look good that the MTA imposed this on a minority community without [our] input and is exposing [us] to danger.”