Talk:M1, M2, M3, and M4 buses

Questions
There were quite a few varieties of these four routes. For example, during the mid-70s, the #2 bus was rarely seen - instead the route was called the 2A. Not sure what the difference was. There were occasional uptown #1's that stopped at 98th street...again, not certain as to why. Is there any reference for these earlier route structures?Drgitlow (talk) 00:05, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

FACCo's 2 (today, M2) actually was designated 2A for an eight-year period beginning January 14, 1966, owing to the one-way conversions of Fifth and Madison Avenues, and NYCO's 2's southbound route shifted to Fifth between 116th and 8th Streets. There was no "combination," they remained two separate and distinct routes, with FACCo's 2A designation to distinguish it from NYCO's 2. The reason why "2" was rarely seen in the period up to 1974 was that on March 2, 1969, NYCO's 2 had its entire route south of 116th Street shifted to Third Avenue northbound and Lexington Avenue southbound, and was thereafter rebranded #101A (that became M102 on July 1, 1974, the same day M2A became M2). As well, FACCo's 1 actually ceased on March 1, 1962 at the time of the bus drivers' strike against Fifth Avenue Coach Lines and Surface Transit; FACL management successfully argued that they held FACCo's 1 franchise in perpetuity, thus enjoining MaBSTOA from running it, thus it was NYCO's 1 whose southbound route between 135th and 40th Streets was shifted to Fifth Avenue that same 1966 day (had FACL permitted FACCo's 1 to be run by MaBSTOA, that route may have become 1A). (All pertinent info from Motor Coach Age look at MaBSTOA's first ten years in its May 1972 issue.) –Wbwn (talk) 16:03, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

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1966 Fifth & Madison Re-Routings
In the "Extensions and combinations" sub-section, there was the claim that when Fifth and Madison Avenues became one-way on Jan. 14, 1966, the two Route 2's (NYCO's via Lenox Avenue, FACCo's via Seventh Avenue) were combined into some "hybrid" run a la the Convent and St. Nicholas variants of the No. 3 (today's M3) line. Much of that supposition was based on a Jan. 17, 1966 New York Times article by Farnsworth Fowle on Traffic Commissioner Henry Barnes' plans to have express buses run along both avenues. The facts prove otherwise: In short, FACCo's and NYCO's 2's remained separate, distinct routes. They were never "combined" except to run parallel to each other between 8th and 110th Streets in both directions. The Cliff's notes version was: NYCO's 2's southbound buses moved to Fifth Avenue, FACCo's 2 / 2A's northbound buses moved to Madison Avenue.
 * NYCO's 2's northern terminus, all throughout, remained at 147th Street and Lenox Avenue; ergo, it did not, contrary to what Mr. Fowle seemed to imply, go past that north end west on 147th, north on Seventh (to rejoin FACCo's 2 from that point), west on 155th Street, north on Edgecombe Avenue up to FACCo's 2's 168th Street-Broadway terminus (that line, north of 110th, continued, and still continues, to travel through Seventh Avenue, now Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard; 155th Street; Edgecombe Avenue, and on its way to 168th).
 * In the first few months of Fifth and Madison being one-way, both the FACCo and NYCO routes bore the same '2' number, which may have led to this confusion. Not so much on Fifth Avenue where both routes' southern terminus was set at 8th Street and Fourth Avenue, but on their northbound treks there was plenty of confusion (and not just with Mr. Fowle and/or his editor).  It was for that reason that, in or around mid-1966 (and definitely by that summer), FACCo's 2 was designated 2A for the next eight years - even after the 1969 change to NYCO's 2 below 116th at Lenox which saw that route turned into the Third-Lexington-Lenox 101A.
 * The Fowle article also maintained that, north of 9th Street, the route up to 14th Street for the two Route 2's (FACCo's being today's M2) as well as the 3 had two variants:
 * a) West on 9th Street, north on University Place, east on 14th Street to Union Square East
 * b) Straight up north on Fourth Avenue to 14th Street

In another vein, the only Route 1 operating at the time of the Fifth and Madison one-way conversions was NYCO's, whose southbound route was moved to Fifth between 135th and 40th Streets. FACCo's 1 - Fifth Avenue – which since the mid-to-late 1950's ran only once a day – ended operations for good on March 1, 1962; during the TWU strike against Fifth Avenue Coach Lines and Surface Transit, and the city's seizure of all their bus routes, rolling stock, depots and other assets, the company maintained that they held the franchise for that route in perpetuity, and were able to prevail upon a judge to legally prohibit MaBSTOA from resuming it after the remaining FACCo routes (eight in total, as opposed to ten at the point the strike began) were put back in service between March 30 and July 1, 1962.

Thus, there were five affected routes both before and after the conversions (two NYCO, three FACCo). They only went down to four upon NYCO's 2's discontinuance in 1969 and the creation/launch of 101A (now M102). –Wbwn (talk) 14:28, 24 June 2017 (UTC)