So what is a Bridge Bus anyway?

News helicopters are hovering over the Atlantic Center covering the first day of subway service since Sandy. And it’s not a pretty picture. Brooklynites must take a Bridge Bus in order to get into Manhattan.

What’s that you say?

It’s a bus that gets you over the bridge.

NYC reporter Andrea Bernstein reports that commuters had to wait over an hour to get on a bus at the Atlantic Center in Brooklyn that would take them across the bridge to working subways in Manhattan. The bus was then escorted by police cars in a special lane on Flatbush Avenue towards the Manhattan Bridge.

My sister called this morning on her way to a film studio in Queens. She was supposed to be picked up by a driver for the film production company she works for but he realized that he wouldn’t be able to get gas and decided to stay in New Jersey. My sister ended up driving to Queens via Prospect Heights. She said the traffic wasn’t that bad except in areas like Flatbush and the Atlantic Center.

Another friend drove to Park Slope from Queens. She did not have a difficult time getting here but her husband tried to drive her brother into Manhattan via the Williamsburg Bridge his morning and because they didn’t have three people in the car had to turn around. The brother walked across the Williamsburg Bridge to get to his job on East 18th Street.

The restrictions on passengers crossing the Bridge may have been an essential idea, but this morning it really slowed bridge traffic, says my Queens friend, because the police were checking each and every cars exacerbating delays.

Anyone have a happy story about today’s commute?