By Diane Vacca

Hundreds of charter and tour buses roll onto the streets of Manhattan every day.

The drivers drop their passengers at theaters, restaurants, shopping centers and all the famed attractions, then search for a place to wait out the hours until the long haul home.

Much more often than not, that search results in frustration and anger, pitting drivers and residents against each other.

Many streets between Eighth and 12th avenues in Midtown Manhattan were designated as tour and charter bus layover locations years ago, when many fewer people lived on the far West Side of the city.

But now residents of Hells Kitchen are infuriated by the buses that drive through the neighborhood, shaking the foundations of 19th-century tenements and emitting fumes that seep through ancient window sashes.

The bus drivers are not oblivious to these sentiments.

"I dont know any drivers who want to park on residential streets. Its a hassle," said Ira Steinberg, who has been driving large charter buses for 30 years and is also co-president of Coach Tours Ltd. of Brookfield, Conn. "People dont like it. They dont want the buses there, and we take up three to four parking places. We kill the parking for the residents, and they become very unhappy."

But the buses have nowhere to go.

Until a few months ago, specific Manhattan streets provided 1,200 to 2,000 legal parking spaces for these buses, according to Mike Neustadt, co-president of Coach Tours with Steinberg and a tour operator for more than 40 years.

The number of spaces "varies with the season, the mayor, construction, (and) usually more than half of them are taken up by vehicles other than the buses they are designated for," he said. Thats because police and other city employees have thousands of passes that enable them to park anywhere.

Ultimately, confusion reigns.

In November 2007, the New York City Department of Traffic posted on its website a list of Manhattan streets where buses may "layover," or wait with drivers on board for an unspecified time.

Bureaucratic runaround

Last February, however, Neustadt noticed that the page had been modified: Layover time at all locations had been limited to 15 minutes. He called the Department of Transportation for an explanation, but the agency referred him to NYC Transit, a division of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The MTA in turn told him that parking and bus stops are under the city DOT jurisdiction. Neustadt said the United Motorcoach Association "is working very hard to get an answer from somebody. Are they saying they dont want us to park at all?"

Making matters even worse for the drivers, most of the Midtown layover signs have been replaced by "No Parking" or "No Standing" signage, Steinberg said. The signs that do remain, like the one on West 29th Street in Chelsea, have no time limit.

"Right now, the drivers are screaming bloody murder," he said, describing their complaints over having to park in the bus layover areas, per the city DOT website, and receiving parking tickets for doing so. If not, they simply ride around "endlessly blowing black smoke because the drivers pay for their tickets themselves" - to the tune of $122.

The DOTs 15-minute limit on bus layovers effectively forces buses to drive in circles for hours, exacerbating traffic congestion and air pollution.

Repeated calls to four city DOT departments by Chelsea Now failed to find anyone who could explain the rationale behind the policy.

DOT spokesperson Scott Gastel, explaining the discrepancy between the signage and the website, said that "time limits for layovers are reflected on the signage," which contradicts the experience of the drivers. An official also said that where no time limit is given on a layover zone sign, parking is permitted all day. But this hasnt been communicated to the police, who are handing out summonses.

The DOT does mention two off-street lots available to buses, both on 11th Avenue, but neither one allows for many buses.

Theater owners jump in

Tom Ferrugia of the Broadway League, an association of theater owners, has been working with bus companies, the city and the New York Port Authority to find more parking spaces by identifying lots that are underutilized.

The league has a big stake in accommodating the large tour buses, which carry 40 to 55 passengers, many of whom spend several hundreds of dollars a day on meals, the theater and shopping.

"Bus drivers can have a lot of say about where the coach is going to go," Ferrugia said. "If the bus drivers are balking about going to a specific location, [tour operators will] either jack the price up or they flat-out wont go. So its becoming increasingly difficult to find drivers willing to go to New York because of the parking problem."

A bus driver laying over on West 29th Street, an authorized location, declined to give his name but said he receives tickets all the time.

"Greyhounds parking in the tour bus layover areas, and we cant park anywhere in the city other than those designated areas," the driver said. "I cant understand why they are parking their buses out here on the street, taking spaces away from charter and tour buses."

He explained drivers also need time to rest, and that hes woken up with multiple tickets attached to his bus. "We want to abide by the law," he added, "we want to do the right thing."

Asking to for much?

Neustadt said he simply wants reasonable regulations that are strongly enforced.

"Its impossible to operate a tour bus in NYC and obey every regulation to the letter because there is no place to park," he said. "Driving around the block 20 times at 10 miles an hour isnt illegal, its stupid."

Neustadt also cited the citys anti-idling law, which he explained allows buses to idle for up to three minutes in below-40-degree weather and not at all when its warmer.

"One minute in very cold weather and zero minutes even in warm weather is impossible," he said. "The bus is designed so that it will not move until there is sufficient air pressure, and that takes more than zero minutes."

Idling is another hot-button issue for neighborhood tenants. Dahlia Duperroir and Elaine Marlovitch, both longtime residents of Hells Kitchen, lamented the constant fumes on W. 52nd St., where there are two schools.

"They idle their engines at will," Duperroir said. "Sometimes theyre going for an hour, two hours. Even when the gas was all the way up there, they were still idling their engines."

A long-term solution to the problem is creating a facility for the drivers, Ferrugia said. In extreme weather, buses idle for hours to make use of their vehicles heating or air-conditioning systems.

"Theyre basically compelled to break the law, because theyre not supposed to idle for more than three minutes," he said. "They cant freeze to death."

"There needs to be an infrastructure organized to welcome them," said Christine Berthet, co-chairperson of Community Board 4s Transportation and Planning Committee, which has been petitioning the city for a long time to build a parking garage for tour buses. "I cant blame those guys with nowhere to go for five, six, seven hours. Its not good for anybody. It needs to be dealt with We want to attract all these tourists, but we dont know how to set it up."

Whos to blame? Guess

Jean-Daniel Noland, a resident of Hells Kitchen and chairperson of Community Board 4, agrees.

"The city is to blame for this because they have not found a solution for all these buses," he said. "Certainly the buses are great. They bring in tourists, and thats money for the city. ... But the city really provides inadequate parking for them."

Many drivers now decide to leave the city when they have a layover of several hours.

"Its far easier and in the long run less expensive, despite the tolls and mileage, than staying in the city," Steinberg said. There are places in New Jersey where drivers can legally and safely park and shut down their vehicles.

They dont have to "worry about some traffic cop thats going to sneak up behind them and give them a $100 or $200 parking ticket," he added.

Several charter bus garages have been proposed - two in Lower Manhattan and two on 10th Avenue - but "no tour bus garages are under construction," Gastel said. "There would not be any constructed until at least 2012. As for specifics about capacity, no garage has been designed yet."

Steinberg suggested several sites that could help alleviate the parking shortage. Ten years ago, 600 to 800 buses parked on Hudson River piers. One of the cruise ship terminals can hold 60 to 70 buses when no ships are in port, he said, and the bus companies would be willing to pay a reasonable fee to park there.

New Jersey Transit also has lots for its buses on the Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel that are largely unused during the day, he said. The bridge over the railyards on 11th Avenue used to be available for tour bus parking before it was assigned to the Javits Center for loading and unloading trucks. Steinberg said that on the many days each month when the site isnt needed by Javits, buses could park there again.

The West Side Highway from 42nd to 57th streets, he added, has about 20 bus pull-offs- spaces that hold three to four buses each. But they are currently designated for MTA buses or marked with "No Parking" or "No Standing" signage.

"Every other big city that we go to on the East Coast has a place to park buses," Steinberg continued, noting that some charge a fee and some dont. "In Atlantic City, they built a big place for buses to park, and theres a lounge with a million recliners and a lot of snoring drivers."

Reprinted with permission from Chelsea Now.