By Megan James

Sometimes you get what you wished for.

A month after Community Board 8 traffic and transportation chairman Anthony Cassino wrote a letter urging MTA New York City Transit to do something about the chronic congestion of buses and trains at and around West 231st Street, the agency wrote back with a solution.

Starting this month, in an effort to stem the overcrowding of buses on the Bx7 route during rush hours, an additional four northbound and three southbound trips will be added to the route. MTA has also put in a request with the city Department of Transportation to lengthen the bus stop at the northwest corner of West 231st Street, stretching west down Broadway, by 100 feet.

“Lengthening the bus stop area is necessary because the buses get backed up — the 20, the 10, the 7, the 1 — you can’t even sit down,” Mr. Cassino said.

MTA also offered a solution to improve the flow of No. 1 subway trains in and out of the Van Cortlandt Park/ 242nd Street subway stop. The trouble there, MTA believes, is that some trains are turned around and taken to a “lay-up” yard at West 240th Street, where they are cleaned and stored for the night. They are then taken back up to the 242nd Street stop to go into service again.

With arriving and lay-up trains at times occupying both the northbound and southbound tracks, trains headed for the West 242nd Street stop are forced to wait outside the terminal until one track clears, the MTA explained in its letter to Mr. Cassino.

To clear up the tracks, the MTA in late July placed seven additional lay-up trains during the morning rush hour, and three additional lay-up trains during the evening rush hour, into passenger service at the West 238th Street stop.

Mr. Cassino was thrilled by the MTA’s swift response.

“Its one of the more prompt and detailed responses that I’ve seen,” he said. “Adding new lines [on the bus route] is huge. It’s a big jump and it’s during peak hours. That’s a tremendous help.”

It was even a little more than he had expected.

“Seven new buses is a lot,” he said.

“I was thinking something more modest.”

And although these improvements may not solve the problem entirely, Mr. Cassino said, the agency’s responsiveness and openness to improving the bottleneck at West 231st should go a long way.

“If the end of your commute winds up dragging out that way, that’s a long day. It really beats people up and sours them on public transportation,” he said. “And we’re trying to do just the opposite. We’ve seen the cost of commuting go up, and people are more open to seeing that increase… if service is very good. They want a high level of service.”