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Transit Workers Up in Lights at Times Square


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TWU Local 100 members bring millions of New Yorkers and visitors

in and out of Times Square -- the Crossroads of the World -- in a

fast-paced, 24/7 rhythm that moves with our buses and trains.

If all those people didn’t know who really moves New York

underground on subways and above ground on buses, they’ll be

reminded of it on a giant Times Square jumbotron right across

from a subway entrance.

That's because TWU Local 100 has purchased time on the big

screen at 1500 Broadway (at 43rd Street) to show New Yorkers who their City’s real movers and shakers are.

 

Read more: Source

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I wonder what Samuelsson has to say about abysmal bus service? I'm sorry but getting people from point A to point B should not be enough. A new contract that rewards worse and worse service and passengers paying more for less. He should be talking with the (MTA) about what could be done to improve these things otherwise this is all smoke and mirrors for the average passenger. Perfect example... Took a local M101 bus today. There was a change in drivers and the new B/O changed the signage to become a limited stop bus without making any announcement. A passenger rang for a local stop but could not get off because he was told that the bus was making limited stops though he had no idea the bus was limited since he got on before the change in the signage. Perfect example of things that need to change... Better communication and accountability.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I believe you are asking the wrong guy about this situation. That should be addressed to the CS, not TWU local 100. That you mention comes from the OH supervisor that any M101 south of 125th St & Lexington Ave is limited. that's number one.

 

Number two is that you have lots of construction going on in Manhattan up and down from new tall buildings going up to the 2nd Avenue (96-63) finishing it's last touch ups before it opens next month. The Lexington Ave bus lines are slowed up from 44-41 in order for cement trucks bound for 1 Vanderbilt Ave to pass through. The same is said for the M31/57 at 57th St between 6th & 8th Aves. Unless you was aware about the crane dangling at 157 W 57th during Superstorm Sandy, then you know why.

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I believe you are asking the wrong guy about this situation. That should be addressed to the CS, not TWU local 100. That you mention comes from the OH supervisor that any M101 south of 125th St & Lexington Ave is limited. that's number one.

 

Number two is that you have lots of construction going on in Manhattan up and down from new tall buildings going up to the 2nd Avenue (96-63) finishing it's last touch ups before it opens next month. The Lexington Ave bus lines are slowed up from 44-41 in order for cement trucks bound for 1 Vanderbilt Ave to pass through. The same is said for the M31/57 at 57th St between 6th & 8th Aves. Unless you was aware about the crane dangling at 157 W 57th during Superstorm Sandy, then you know why.

Well he must represent some workers that are B/Os.  I mean bus service is abysmal across the board.  Additionally, construction is always going on in NYC (I know first hand having worked in the industry for a few years on the insurance side of things), though I'll agree that lines like the M50 have taken a serious hit from the ongoing crane operations, particularly on weekends.  Regarding the M101, at that particular time, the bus originally was not running limited.  It was a local bus when I got on (limited stop service starts later on the weekends as opposed to during the week IIRC) but then became limited after the driver change, but the B/O made no announcement of such a change.

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Well he must represent some workers that are B/Os.  I mean bus service is abysmal across the board.  Additionally, construction is always going on in NYC (I know first hand having worked in the industry for a few years on the insurance side of things), though I'll agree that lines like the M50 have taken a serious hit from the ongoing crane operations, particularly on weekends.  Regarding the M101, at that particular time, the bus originally was not running limited.  It was a local bus when I got on (limited stop service starts later on the weekends as opposed to during the week IIRC) but then became limited after the driver change, but the B/O made no announcement of such a change.

Sometimes they change on the fly because of traffic, weather conditions and the schedule. (The same reason why SEPTA's transit division went on strike from November 1st-7th, 2016 [lasted 6 days] ) I was talking to a Q44SBS driver during a recent visit to NYC and he told me that breaks at terminals on the busiest routes are at a premium. They only get less time to chillax when they get to the other point than what they do on the other side. Then they have to leave right away

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Sometimes they change on the fly because of traffic, weather conditions and the schedule. (The same reason why SEPTA's transit division went on strike from November 1st-7th, 2016 [lasted 6 days] ) I was talking to a Q44SBS driver during a recent visit to NYC and he told me that breaks at terminals on the busiest routes are at a premium. They only get less time to chillax when they get to the other point than what they do on the other side. Then they have to leave right away

Run times can be tight on some lines... I'll admit that.  However, some B/Os purposely leave the terminal late to avoid running hot, but then they never get back on schedule and remain late the entire day, which of course eats into their break time.  The good B/Os know how to run and stay on time.  If you're leaving the terminal 10 - 15 minutes late to avoid running hot, there is something wrong with the schedule or the driver is clueless about adhering to it.

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  • 1 month later...

Well he must represent some workers that are B/Os.  I mean bus service is abysmal across the board. 

Agreed. I feel that a bump in pay or benefits should amount to a bump in standards and safety that everyone can benefit from. Further, B/Os have often lent themselves to unruly passengers by letting them board without paying and then attempting to curtail them when they cause trouble later.

 

I feel that buses should be apportioned based on how prevalent fare evasion is. I wouldn't support pull outs, but reducing bus service where it isn't profitable so we don't punish the whole network for neighborhood-specific failures.

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Agreed. I feel that a bump in pay or benefits should amount to a bump in standards and safety that everyone can benefit from. Further, B/Os have often lent themselves to unruly passengers by letting them board without paying and then attempting to curtail them when they cause trouble later.

 

I feel that buses should be apportioned based on how prevalent fare evasion is. I wouldn't support pull outs, but reducing bus service where it isn't profitable so we don't punish the whole network for neighborhood-specific failures.

That's why fare enforcement is important.  You can get a better idea of how much service is truly needed.

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That's why fare enforcement is important.  You can get a better idea of how much service is truly needed.

That's where it's lacking. Enforcement not only ensures that, but it gives bus operators the confidence that someone can intervene on their behalf, although it costs an operator less to have a backbone than to withhold it.

Times are tough. People who ride transit are poor. But I don't think it justifies the poor attitudes I've seen.

It largely comes from Middle schoolers who forget their cards only allow 4 Rides per day and they start to rattle the B/Os cage.

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That's where it's lacking. Enforcement not only ensures that, but it gives bus operators the confidence that someone can intervene on their behalf, although it costs an operator less to have a backbone than to withhold it.

Times are tough. People who ride transit are poor. But I don't think it justifies the poor attitudes I've seen.

It largely comes from Middle schoolers who forget their cards only allow 4 Rides per day and they start to rattle the B/Os cage.

Correction... Some of them are poor, as supposedly the poorest folks use the local buses.  Even so, they aren't so poor that they can't afford the fare.

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Correction... Some of them are poor, as supposedly the poorest folks use the local buses.  Even so, they aren't so poor that they can't afford the fare.

Mhmm. The cost of purchasing one pack of cigarettes a day is about how much a monthly will cost in several months.

Choices matter whether or not you're behind the wheel of a bus or the passenger. I've seen an uptick in smoking inside subway cars or buses lately.

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Agreed. I feel that a bump in pay or benefits should amount to a bump in standards and safety that everyone can benefit from. Further, B/Os have often lent themselves to unruly passengers by letting them board without paying and then attempting to curtail them when they cause trouble later.

 

I feel that buses should be apportioned based on how prevalent fare evasion is. I wouldn't support pull outs, but reducing bus service where it isn't profitable so we don't punish the whole network for neighborhood-specific failures.

 

Bus operators who "do" this are simply following the rules. They are not cops, they are not trained in hand to hand combat or to disarm a perp, and they can often bank on having no one in the public come to their aid in a scuffle regardless of whether or not they intervened in the first place to aid a passenger, or themselves.

 

If you want safety on buses, the city would place a cop on every bus behind the driver's seat armed with their service firearm, nightstick, and a taser. Anyone who farebeats gets ticketed, anyone who resists ticketing gets arrested, anyone who resists arrest gets neutralized and arrested, guns are only drawn if the perp draws one...and the bus would have a security camera recording the whole thing so there's no false claims of police brutality. Pretty soon the farebeating would plummet.

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I feel that buses should be apportioned based on how prevalent fare evasion is. I wouldn't support pull outs, but reducing bus service where it isn't profitable so we don't punish the whole network for neighborhood-specific failures.

 

This is a bad idea. You want to lessen bus service in areas with greater farebeating--generally areas with higher ridership and poorer customers--as a means of punishing entire neighborhoods for the acts of individuals?  

 

That's why fare enforcement is important.  You can get a better idea of how much service is truly needed.

 

F5 is on that farebox for a reason, though. The MTA has a decent idea, at least when it comes to the front-door farebeating, of how many riders are getting on the bus. Furthermore, by no means is it an operator's responsibility to stop a farebeater or prevent a customer from boarding. An unarmed B/O should not be tasked with such a job, as SubwayGuy said.

 

I don't know what either of these things have to do with the thread, but just noting these points.

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This is a bad idea. You want to lessen bus service in areas with greater farebeating--generally areas with higher ridership and poorer customers--as a means of punishing entire neighborhoods for the acts of individuals?  

 

 

 

F5 is on that farebox for a reason, though. The MTA has a decent idea, at least when it comes to the front-door farebeating, of how many riders are getting on the bus. Furthermore, by no means is it an operator's responsibility to stop a farebeater or prevent a customer from boarding. An unarmed B/O should not be tasked with such a job, as SubwayGuy said.

 

I don't know what either of these things have to do with the thread, but just noting these points.

Oh well the thread went off-topic, but it wouldn't be the first time. In any event I responded to the comment. Regarding your comment, you're reading more into what I said. I never stated that it should be the B/O's responsibility. I just said that the fare needs to be enforced. The (MTA) has resources that can call upon for such circumstances.
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  • 2 weeks later...

This is a bad idea. You want to lessen bus service in areas with greater farebeating--generally areas with higher ridership and poorer customers--as a means of punishing entire neighborhoods for the acts of individuals?  

 

I feel that some neighborhoods are more deserving of resources that others squander. The ridership does not matter if the buses aren't operating objectively. I hate how much I have to pay but if everyone got that pass then maintaining service would create a defecit.

 

I'm not looking at this from a rider standpoint, but a commercial one. It's NOT a sustainable model.

 

It IS a bus operator's responsibility to inform their supervisor or reach out to law enforcement when fare evasion becomes egregious. Some let it get too bad...

Bus operators who "do" this are simply following the rules. They are not cops, they are not trained in hand to hand combat or to disarm a perp, and they can often bank on having no one in the public come to their aid in a scuffle regardless of whether or not they intervened in the first place to aid a passenger, or themselves.

 

If you want safety on buses, the city would place a cop on every bus behind the driver's seat armed with their service firearm, nightstick, and a taser. Anyone who farebeats gets ticketed, anyone who resists ticketing gets arrested, anyone who resists arrest gets neutralized and arrested, guns are only drawn if the perp draws one...and the bus would have a security camera recording the whole thing so there's no false claims of police brutality. Pretty soon the farebeating would plummet.

Savage but it's what must be done. Public transit is an objective enterprise. There is no room for subjective concerns.

Whether it's those boys on Staten Island or the Middle schoolers on the Bx26 I ride every day, something must be done. It sends a bad message.

 

I just simply want to see operators with a backbone.

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The relationship is almost push and tug. If no ones paying the fare, MTA doesn't notice the increase in service and shoot down more service but at the same time, ppl still have to get to work, so they're like f*** it and go thru the backdoor even tho they have a monthly. But then MTA doesnt schedule more service so what's a rider supposed to do? Be late becuz he waited to get on a bus and pay his fare respectfully. Don't even get me started on SBS, eagle team rarely gets on the bus, i've ridden the Q44 so many times and i ride a good third of the route (bronx->queens) and they never come onboard.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using NYC Transit Forums mobile app

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I feel that some neighborhoods are more deserving of resources that others squander. The ridership does not matter if the buses aren't operating objectively. I hate how much I have to pay but if everyone got that pass then maintaining service would create a defecit.

 

I'm not looking at this from a rider standpoint, but a commercial one. It's NOT a sustainable model.

 

It IS a bus operator's responsibility to inform their supervisor or reach out to law enforcement when fare evasion becomes egregious. Some let it get too bad...

Savage but it's what must be done. Public transit is an objective enterprise. There is no room for subjective concerns.

Whether it's those boys on Staten Island or the Middle schoolers on the Bx26 I ride every day, something must be done. It sends a bad message.

 

I just simply want to see operators with a backbone.

 

All a "backbone" would get them is assaulted if they don't fight back, or arrested and fired if they do. It's a losing situation, which is why they do nothing. The same way $2.75 isn't worth getting arrested for to any reasonable non-deadbeat, $2.75 isn't worth losing your life or job over...especially when it's someone else's $2.75 (the TA's) and the TA has said they don't want operators getting in disputes over fares.

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  • 2 weeks later...

All a "backbone" would get them is assaulted if they don't fight back, or arrested and fired if they do. It's a losing situation, which is why they do nothing. The same way $2.75 isn't worth getting arrested for to any reasonable non-deadbeat, $2.75 isn't worth losing your life or job over...especially when it's someone else's $2.75 (the TA's) and the TA has said they don't want operators getting in disputes over fares.

Given the concessions made to TWU 100 yesterday, I believe there is no Option 2 for fares anymore. 

How does one sleep at night when you owe your debtors 37 billion dollars?

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Given the concessions made to TWU 100 yesterday, I believe there is no Option 2 for fares anymore. 

How does one sleep at night when you owe your debtors 37 billion dollars?

 

Because you know your debtors will be paid, and you know it's not ultimately your responsibility to pay them.

 

37 billion dollars in debt, backed by city, state, and federal government, and owed to Wall Street.

Wall Street will get paid, they always do.

 

Some cog in the machine making less than a million dollars to lead the MTA is not going to change that in either direction.

 

Wall Street will get their money, TA will raise fares to inch the debt gap closer (but not completely close it), and then they'll blame us for the fare increase so that the next contract is crappy too (and yes, this contract is crappy - there are a lot of things hidden in the contract that go beyond the wage increase, that we are giving up).

 

That's the way government works.

 

You know, like how the federal government never has any money because of the tax breaks it gives to the rich, the corporate subsidies it gives to multinational corps that outsource jobs, and the subsidies it effectively gives to companies like Wal-Mart that don't pay a living wage by providing Wal-Mart employees with public assistance. But when push comes to shove, the government wants YOU to pay more in taxes, or "borrow" (I use that term very sarcastically and loosely) your social security funds to cover the budget deficit and talk about how rather than pay your SS back they should cut your benefits.

 

Same shit.

 

Stop staring at the damn tree and look at the forest.

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Because you know your debtors will be paid, and you know it's not ultimately your responsibility to pay them.

 

37 billion dollars in debt, backed by city, state, and federal government, and owed to Wall Street.

Wall Street will get paid, they always do.

 

Some cog in the machine making less than a million dollars to lead the MTA is not going to change that in either direction.

 

Wall Street will get their money, TA will raise fares to inch the debt gap closer (but not completely close it), and then they'll blame us for the fare increase so that the next contract is crappy too (and yes, this contract is crappy - there are a lot of things hidden in the contract that go beyond the wage increase, that we are giving up).

 

That's the way government works.

 

You know, like how the federal government never has any money because of the tax breaks it gives to the rich, the corporate subsidies it gives to multinational corps that outsource jobs, and the subsidies it effectively gives to companies like Wal-Mart that don't pay a living wage by providing Wal-Mart employees with public assistance. But when push comes to shove, the government wants YOU to pay more in taxes, or "borrow" (I use that term very sarcastically and loosely) your social security funds to cover the budget deficit and talk about how rather than pay your SS back they should cut your benefits.

 

Same shit.

 

Stop staring at the damn tree and look at the forest.

You keep talking about outsourcing, but you and I know that the reason it continues to occur is because most Americans allow it to by supporting these multinational companies.  How many people shop at Wal-Mart because of the "savings"?  Your average American consumer doesn't give a damn about anything but how much money they "save".  They don't care how that occurs and don't realize that by supporting these multinational companies, they are essentially helping to drive down wages here.  If we had more conscious and educated consumers, part of the mess that we're in wouldn't be occurring, but they love their "Made in China" iPhone, "Made in Vietnam/Taiwain" Air Jordans and so on.  

 

Speaking of concessions, did you guys make concessions with your uniforms too?  My uncle has old (MTA) tops (the one with the "M") that were "Made in USA", but the newer stuff is made overseas.  I checked one day years ago when I was over and laundry was being done.  So much for American union support... Smh

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If government served the people, and not corporations, tariffs would have been raised so that the true cost of manufacturing goods here wasn't being hidden by slave labor overseas.

 

The government has been enabling big business to force the American labor market to compete with slavery, which is why the refrain from corporate America has been "we can't afford American workers, they're overpaid." And because people can buy cheap shit from china with impunity, they don't notice. And since they are also American workers earning a substandard wage, it's not like they really have a choice if they want to pay all their bills.

 

Classic pit the people against the people for personal gain and win.

 

Because if people went to the store and couldn't afford basic goods and services, they'd get angry, and demand change, cut off some rich people's heads or something, dump some corporate goods in the water - or do any of the other outragey things that, throughout human history, usually preceded the very outnumbered rich and their very outnumbered paid politicians acting out of self-preservation and doing the right thing for once.

 

So they make sure that doesn't happen by letting companies import cheap shit without raising tariffs. Ultimately, it's unsustainable, but that's the beauty of government debt. Prop things up for now in a barely acceptable fashion, and let the next generation worry about when the chickens come home to roost.

 

As for our uniforms, we just changed companies again, so the next time I order I'll have to take a look. The uniform companies TA uses don't make the uniforms, they just source them and ship them.

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If government served the people, and not corporations, tariffs would have been raised so that the true cost of manufacturing goods here wasn't being hidden by slave labor overseas.

 

The government has been enabling big business to force the American labor market to compete with slavery, which is why the refrain from corporate America has been "we can't afford American workers, they're overpaid." And because people can buy cheap shit from china with impunity, they don't notice. And since they are also American workers earning a substandard wage, it's not like they really have a choice if they want to pay all their bills.

 

Classic pit the people against the people for personal gain and win.

 

Because if people went to the store and couldn't afford basic goods and services, they'd get angry, and demand change, cut off some rich people's heads or something, dump some corporate goods in the water - or do any of the other outragey things that, throughout human history, usually preceded the very outnumbered rich and their very outnumbered paid politicians acting out of self-preservation and doing the right thing for once.

 

So they make sure that doesn't happen by letting companies import cheap shit without raising tariffs. Ultimately, it's unsustainable, but that's the beauty of government debt. Prop things up for now in a barely acceptable fashion, and let the next generation worry about when the chickens come home to roost.

 

As for our uniforms, we just changed companies again, so the next time I order I'll have to take a look. The uniform companies TA uses don't make the uniforms, they just source them and ship them.

There should be a stipulation that the uniforms be made here by union labor. Plenty of great union places here in the U.S. that would be glad to have the work.  Hell I buy a few clothing items like socks from a union place out in Wisconsin.  Good quality!

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