The Customers are not the MTA's Top Priority

[BrooklynBus]

http://www.sheepsheadbites.com/2015/06/the-commute-the-customer-is-not-the-mtas-top-priority/

 

THE COMMUTE: Customers should be the MTA’s top priority, but they’re not. That explains why communication is so poor when there are service outages that result in extraordinary waits of up to three hours, such as what occurred last winter in Flushing...

[LTA1992]

Some of your complaints exist for historical purposes. Plus, those signs that are no longer of use are art. These old signs add to the soul of this system. Anyone with a brain will automatically know to look for the metal signs hanging DIRECTLY IN FRONT of them.

 

Putting PATH on the subway map is a no go. The subway is the responsibility of this city, not PATH. If we should put their system on ours, they should put ours on theirs.

 

On the bus end, do you know how crowded our streets are these days? A bus can only go as fast as the traffic it is driving in and the culprits I always seem to see do pass through heavily congested areas.

 

The customers do not need every bit of information fed to them. The public knows these are different systems and as such, won't be on the map.

 

Quite a few of your concerns are highly negligible. Others can only be improved with money that for now, is nonexistent. There is more to these issues than just the MTA "not caring" about it's customers. My question to you is how much time do you take to learn about the factors effecting service? Because as I have seen it for the past few years is that they people who do the most complaining do not know as much as they think they do.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Some of your complaints exist for historical purposes. Plus, those signs that are no longer of use are art. These old signs add to the soul of this system. Anyone with a brain will automatically know to look for the metal signs hanging DIRECTLY IN FRONT of them.

 

Putting PATH on the subway map is a no go. The subway is the responsibility of this city, not PATH. If we should put their system on ours, they should put ours on theirs.

 

On the bus end, do you know how crowded our streets are these days? A bus can only go as fast as the traffic it is driving in and the culprits I always seem to see do pass through heavily congested areas.

 

The customers do not need every bit of information fed to them. The public knows these are different systems and as such, won't be on the map.

 

Quite a few of your concerns are highly negligible. Others can only be improved with money that for now, is nonexistent. There is more to these issues than just the MTA "not caring" about it's customers. My question to you is how much time do you take to learn about the factors effecting service? Because as I have seen it for the past few years is that they people who do the most complaining do not know as much as they think they do.

lol... That's a pretty bold question.  Listen, BrooklynBus worked for the as a planner for many years.  I too have worked for the down at Jay Street, so we both know first hand how the operates, and sadly very little has changed.  With everything that they do right, they do several things wrong.  So now they put updates on their website when there are detours, but what good is it if they don't line up with the information that the employees have?  Sometimes there are supposedly "planned detours" that actually don't exist.  These could be fixed by having competent people post them and having them double checked, which clearly never happens.  That doesn't require tons of money.  That takes common sense, which is lacking within the agency.  I still reflect on my days when I worked in their offices and how many big wigs sat on their @sses in their offices the whole day doing absolutely nothing but delegated their responsibilities while earning lavish salaries.

 

I also agree about SBS service.  Still is very slow. Last night I went to the city to run an errand. Took the BxM2 down and did good time.  After I finished my errand I wanted to get to the East Side and get some grub at one of my spots on 3rd Avenue.  It was almost midnight by then.  An M34 was due at 23:53.  The bus was late and we crawled along 34th street from 8th to 6th Avenue.  The streets were clogged with construction on just about every block.  I couldn't believe the amount of congestion at that hour.  After we cleared 5th Avenue, only then did the bus move with any real speed.  I got off at 3rd and 34th, but the trip took far longer than expected.

[N6 Limited]

Just Yesterday I saw 3 B46s in a row. There should be much bunching if they have GPS on all the buses and are monitoring anything. You can basically put in any route on the bustime web site and see bunching  and/or large gaps.

 

I also agree about SBS service.  Still is very slow. Last night I went to the city to run an errand. Took the BxM2 down and did good time.  After I finished my errand I wanted to get to the East Side and get some grub at one of my spots on 3rd Avenue.  It was almost midnight by then.  An M34 was due at 23:53.  The bus was late and we crawled along 34th street from 8th to 6th Avenue.  The streets were clogged with construction on just about every block.  I couldn't believe the amount of congestion at that hour.  After we cleared 5th Avenue, only then did the bus move with any real speed.  I got off at 3rd and 34th, but the trip took far longer than expected.

M34 is the worst, They've been doing so much construction from 11th ave to 6th Ave, it's virtually useless. When I went to the car show, I kept up with the M34 walking from 8th Ave to the Javits Center.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Just Yesterday I saw 3 B46s in a row. There should be much bunching if they have GPS on all the buses and are monitoring anything. You can basically put in any route on the bustime web site and see bunching  and/or large gaps.

 

M34 is the worst, They've been doing so much construction from 11th ave to 6th Ave, it's virtually useless. When I went to the car show, I kept up with the M34 walking from 8th Ave to the Javits Center.

It really it is ridiculous.  On the BxM18 the bus runs every 30 minutes.  Just about every day I check BusTime the the 17:45 is usually an hour late with the 18:15 right behind it.  Why not have that bus start further up and have the 18:15 pick up accordingly?  

[MHV9218]

Of this larger humor piece, the most amusing passage I could find was this one:

 

 

 

That never happened and instead Nassau County bus service was returned to the county because they believed they were able to operate it at a lower cost.

 

That is a HELL of a whitewashing of a privatization that actually occurred out of a dispute over payroll taxes, money owed, and a conservative leader's push to privatize transportation--and that has been a complete failure since, with safety standards massively lowered, tons of extremely public accidents, and notoriously beat up buses and used fleet purchases.

 

The anti-mosaic comment was another stroke of pure brilliance. Great stance. Probably one of the guys in favor of the horrific blue tiling that massacred many of our subway stations along with nearly the entire Broadway/4th Avenue line in 1970s and had to be torn off later.

[N6 Limited]

Of this larger humor piece, the most amusing passage I could find was this one:

 

 

That is a HELL of a whitewashing of a privatization that actually occurred out of a dispute over payroll taxes, money owed, and a conservative leader's push to privatize transportation--and that has been a complete failure since, with safety standards massively lowered, tons of extremely public accidents, and notoriously beat up buses and used fleet purchases.

 

To be fair the buses were poorly maintained before the NICE take over,

[Cait Sith]

To be fair the buses were poorly maintained before the NICE take over,

 

Compared to what we have now, them buses were treated like kings compared to today's standards out at NICE!

 

Just Yesterday I saw 3 B46s in a row. There should be much bunching if they have GPS on all the buses and are monitoring anything. You can basically put in any route on the bustime web site and see bunching  and/or large gaps.

 

M34 is the worst, They've been doing so much construction from 11th ave to 6th Ave, it's virtually useless. When I went to the car show, I kept up with the M34 walking from 8th Ave to the Javits Center.

Considering that the B46 is the #1 most used line in the city and goes through corridors that have traffic issues along the route, bunching is almost inevitable on the line. Broadway itself is a traffic nightmare.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Of this larger humor piece, the most amusing passage I could find was this one:

 

 

That is a HELL of a whitewashing of a privatization that actually occurred out of a dispute over payroll taxes, money owed, and a conservative leader's push to privatize transportation--and that has been a complete failure since, with safety standards massively lowered, tons of extremely public accidents, and notoriously beat up buses and used fleet purchases.

 

The anti-mosaic comment was another stroke of pure brilliance. Great stance. Probably one of the guys in favor of the horrific blue tiling that massacred many of our subway stations along with nearly the entire Broadway/4th Avenue line in 1970s and had to be torn off later.

Too bad... Those people live in the burbs and they local bus service like they're in NYC.  Give me a break... That's like me moving to Westchester and complaining about Bee Line bus service...

[bobtehpanda]

Too bad... Those people live in the burbs and they local bus service like they're in NYC.  Give me a break... That's like me moving to Westchester and complaining about Bee Line bus service...

 

You buy property based on the services around you. If your schools, police coverage, fire coverage, hospitals, water, power, or roads suddenly turned into crap because local government decided it didn't want to pay what's due, you would have the right to be upset as well. Public transit is a public service just like the rest of them. At the very least the buses should be maintained properly and the rate of bus accidents should not skyrocket significantly. Also, Nassau pays significantly less for transit than either Westchester or Suffolk counties, but due to state aid being grossly inappropriate Suffolk actually has significantly worse service than Nassau.

 

It should also be noted that suburbs are not necessarily served by crap transit, neither internationally or in the country. Off the top of my head, Evanston, Ill., Cambridge, MA. and Arlington, VA are all suburbs with decent transit.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

You buy property based on the services around you. If your schools, police coverage, fire coverage, hospitals, water, power, or roads suddenly turned into crap because local government decided it didn't want to pay what's due, you would have the right to be upset as well. Public transit is a public service just like the rest of them. At the very least the buses should be maintained properly and the rate of bus accidents should not skyrocket significantly. Also, Nassau pays significantly less for transit than either Westchester or Suffolk counties, but due to state aid being grossly inappropriate Suffolk actually has significantly worse service than Nassau.

 

It should also be noted that suburbs are not necessarily served by crap transit, neither internationally or in the country. Off the top of my head, Evanston, Ill., Cambridge, MA. and Arlington, VA are all suburbs with decent transit.

Well then if people were buying on Long Island based on the services around them, they would've know that LI Bus is crap, even when the had it, so I'm not sure I see your point. Even the LIRR isn't that great, esp. considering the price.  You need a car on Long Island period, and anyone who says otherwise it out of their mind.  Westchester has better public transportation overall in select areas, but with MNRR in the mix, Westchester wins by a mile.

[bobtehpanda]

Well then if people were buying on Long Island based on the services around them, they would've know that LI Bus is crap, even when the had it, so I'm not sure I see your point. Even the LIRR isn't that great, esp. considering the price.  You need a car on Long Island period, and anyone who says otherwise it out of their mind.  Westchester has better public transportation overall in select areas, but with MNRR in the mix, Westchester wins by a mile.

 

LI Bus service was not phenomenal (and no one is pretending it was), but for service quality to become so terrible that bus crashes and breakdowns become regular and ridership drops by a third is a very significant decrease in quality over a short period of time. Westchester, NYCT, and NJT all saw gains in bus ridership last year, but in the meantime NICE ridership fell to a level not seen since 1998.

 

Long Island's stance on transit is very weird, because even projects that make sense (installing a third track for Metro-North style reverse commute service to become feasible, more electrification, separating busy grade crossings) get opposed for the most trivial of reasons. Port Washington is upset that a extra track for East Side Access service will mean taking 40 spaces away from its parking lot, even though the LIRR demonstrated that it could just restripe the parking lot to add back the lost spaces.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

LI Bus service was not phenomenal (and no one is pretending it was), but for service quality to become so terrible that bus crashes and breakdowns become regular and ridership drops by a third is a very significant decrease in quality over a short period of time. Westchester, NYCT, and NJT all saw gains in bus ridership last year, but in the meantime NICE ridership fell to a level not seen since 1998.

 

Long Island's stance on transit is very weird, because even projects that make sense (installing a third track for Metro-North style reverse commute service to become feasible, more electrification, separating busy grade crossings) get opposed for the most trivial of reasons. Port Washington is upset that a extra track for East Side Access service will mean taking 40 spaces away from its parking lot, even though the LIRR demonstrated that it could just restripe the parking lot to add back the lost spaces.

Long Island could care less about public transit, so people moving out there wanting public transit are just clueless.  Anytime I go to visit clients out there from my office it's very evident.  To some extent they even look down on the LIRR.

[Art Vandelay]

Some areas of LI don't care about transit at all. Others are absolutely dependent on transit. LI is one of the least homogeneous areas out there. 

[bobtehpanda]

Long Island as a political entity is very varied, even within towns themselves. The political differences between places like Floral Park, Hempstead, Ronkonkoma, etc. are very great. Suffolk in particular is generally for whatever reason more pro-transit than Nassau is, mostly because Suffolk has seen the writing on the wall when it comes to why the Island is the slowest-growing, and at times depopulating, section of the metro area (namely, no one wants to stay because it's boring, expensive, and inconvenient)

[NY1635]

Long Island could care less about public transit, so people moving out there wanting public transit are just clueless. Anytime I go to visit clients out there from my office it's very evident. To some extent they even look down on the LIRR.

People on Long Island do care about transportation when it affects them. As seen with the Belmont Park disaster, and the threat of a LIRR strike, LI waits until the last minute to improve transportation.

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

Long Island as a political entity is very varied, even within towns themselves. The political differences between places like Floral Park, Hempstead, Ronkonkoma, etc. are very great. Suffolk in particular is generally for whatever reason more pro-transit than Nassau is, mostly because Suffolk has seen the writing on the wall when it comes to why the Island is the slowest-growing, and at times depopulating, section of the metro area (namely, no one wants to stay because it's boring, expensive, and inconvenient)

 

To me it was very interesting, given how Nassau's system was much bigger, and the connections to the LIRR were available, while SCT's service was really poor. Now, the opposite is occurring. It's good that Suffolk County is making themselves more accessible by public transit. I still wouldn't live there, but there's progress. Hopefully, after the double tracking of the Ronkonkoma Branch west of Ronkonkoma, there can be even more improvements in both subway and bus service on the island. I don't even know what to say about NICE bus, since service is just deteriorating by the day.

 

Some suburbs are just more pro-transit than others. It's unfortunate too because the ones which aren't as pro-transit tend to just give utter crap of service. As for the earlier examples you mentioned on the previous page, they're all suburban or urban parts located close to the center of the metropolitan area. Cambridge, and Arlington are similar to NYC boroughs on a sense. They're considered suburban cities too, so it would make sense that there's a bigger population, and hence more people relying on public transit.

[bobtehpanda]

To me it was very interesting, given how Nassau's system was much bigger, and the connections to the LIRR were available, while SCT's service was really poor. Now, the opposite is occurring. It's good that Suffolk County is making themselves more accessible by public transit. I still wouldn't live there, but there's progress. Hopefully, after the double tracking of the Ronkonkoma Branch west of Ronkonkoma, there can be even more improvements in both subway and bus service on the island. I don't even know what to say about NICE bus, since service is just deteriorating by the day.

 

Some suburbs are just more pro-transit than others. It's unfortunate too because the ones which aren't as pro-transit tend to just give utter crap of service. As for the earlier examples you mentioned on the previous page, they're all suburban or urban parts located close to the center of the metropolitan area. Cambridge, and Arlington are similar to NYC boroughs on a sense. They're considered suburban cities too, so it would make sense that there's a bigger population, and hence more people relying on public transit.

 

The funny thing is, in the case of the Ronkonkoma project there can't be more service added until the third track is built, which is entirely dependent on Nassau's strong NIMBY population. (It's weird that they reject it, given that it would both improve service and remove grade crossings that are currently blocked 45 out of 60 minutes during the rush hour.) Nassau is the ball and chain around Suffolk's neck.

 

Without the third track between Floral Park and Hicksville, there is no real rush-hour reverse peak service. Right now during the rush both tracks run peak-direction trains for capacity reasons (and whatever precious capacity is left for reverse-peak is used to send trains to Huntington, since there is no yard on that branch for electric trains.) Reverse peak service is the only reason the communities served by Metro-North have managed to grow and attract residents and jobs; White Plains is growing much faster than Mineola or Hicksville, despite the fact that all three could easily be all-day regional centers.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

The funny thing is, in the case of the Ronkonkoma project there can't be more service added until the third track is built, which is entirely dependent on Nassau's strong NIMBY population. (It's weird that they reject it, given that it would both improve service and remove grade crossings that are currently blocked 45 out of 60 minutes during the rush hour.) Nassau is the ball and chain around Suffolk's neck.

 

Without the third track between Floral Park and Hicksville, there is no real rush-hour reverse peak service. Right now during the rush both tracks run peak-direction trains for capacity reasons (and whatever precious capacity is left for reverse-peak is used to send trains to Huntington, since there is no yard on that branch for electric trains.) Reverse peak service is the only reason the communities served by Metro-North have managed to grow and attract residents and jobs; White Plains is growing much faster than Mineola or Hicksville, despite the fact that all three could easily be all-day regional centers.

I understand NIMBY places very well.  I live in a very NIMBY neighborhood here in Riverdale and quite frankly if you want your neighborhood to remain nice, you have to be proactive.  If we didn't fight development here, Riverdale would've went to sh*t years ago.  It's remained the way it's been for years because we've stopped over development here.  Certain types of development is good. Others not so good.  Having more people come for the sake of development doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing if there's no infrastructure to support the increase in population.  We're seeing the ramifications of that on Staten Island, which is why I got the hell out of there.  When we first moved there it was fantastic.  Then they started knocking down houses and building three town homes in its place. You can only run but so much express bus service and expand the SIE so much.  Some areas just aren't meant to have TONS of growth.  I would not want it here in Riverdale.  We stopped Montefiore from setting up here because we knew it would kill property values and bring the wrong type of development here for this bedroom community.  It's nice and sleepy here and we like it just like that.  The types of people we want to draw here are Manhattanites, young families, young upper class single professionals, and seniors coming to retire.  We have several of the best private schools in the country right here (i.e. Riverdale Country School, Horace Mann, Manhattan College, etc.), plenty of luxury housing and a nice Downtown area where nice organic cafés are sprouting.  In other words, we're not desperate for people to move here, and the people that move here know what they're getting and usually stay for years.  It's already dense in some parts with all of the co-ops and condos and it's just fine like that, because other parts are mainly houses with low density, thus providing a nice balance.  We're a community of owners mainly as opposed to renters (one of the highest ownership rates in NYC), which means more community involvement and no riff-raff.

[P3F]

Yes that's nice but how is that related to building a third track for the LIRR....?

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Yes that's nice but how is that related to building a third track for the LIRR....?

To refresh your memory we were discussing NIMBYs... The topic is not specifically about the LIRR.  If it was it would be in the LIRR/MNRR thread.

[bobtehpanda]

I understand NIMBY places very well.  I live in a very NIMBY neighborhood here in Riverdale and quite frankly if you want your neighborhood to remain nice, you have to be proactive.  If we didn't fight development here, Riverdale would've went to sh*t years ago.  It's remained the way it's been for years because we've stopped over development here.  Certain types of development is good. Others not so good.  Having more people come for the sake of development doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing if there's no infrastructure to support the increase in population.  We're seeing the ramifications of that on Staten Island, which is why I got the hell out of there.  When we first moved there it was fantastic.  Then they started knocking down houses and building three town homes in its place. You can only run but so much express bus service and expand the SIE so much.  Some areas just aren't meant to have TONS of growth.  I would not want it here in Riverdale.  We stopped Montefiore from setting up here because we knew it would kill property values and bring the wrong type of development here for this bedroom community.  It's nice and sleepy here and we like it just like that.  The types of people we want to draw here are Manhattanites, young families, young upper class single professionals, and seniors coming to retire.  We have several of the best private schools in the country right here (i.e. Riverdale Country School, Horace Mann, Manhattan College, etc.), plenty of luxury housing and a nice Downtown area where nice organic cafés are sprouting.  In other words, we're not desperate for people to move here, and the people that move here know what they're getting and usually stay for years.  It's already dense in some parts with all of the co-ops and condos and it's just fine like that, because other parts are mainly houses with low density, thus providing a nice balance.  We're a community of owners mainly as opposed to renters (one of the highest ownership rates in NYC), which means more community involvement and no riff-raff.

 

The funny thing is, we're pouring $10B into East Side Access, but we can't fully utilize East Side Access capacity unless the Third Track is built. So the infrastructure for more service does exist (and quite frankly has always existed; other than the Main Line, the other lines to the terminals have never really been at full capacity, which is why the Montauk Line to LIC got sold three years ago.) So you have some cognitive dissonance where Nassau has been pushing really hard for what is essentially a doubling of service on its busiest branches, but then refuses to build the rest of the infrastructure necessary to support it.

[B35 via Church]

Of this larger humor piece, the most amusing passage I could find was this one:

 

[snippet quoted from blog]

 

That is a HELL of a whitewashing of a privatization that actually occurred out of a dispute over payroll taxes, money owed, and a conservative leader's push to privatize transportation--and that has been a complete failure since, with safety standards massively lowered, tons of extremely public accidents, and notoriously beat up buses and used fleet purchases.

Have to agree with this.... It doesn't correlate with customers not being the MTA's (top) priority....

 

The MTA didn't give up on running transportation with Nassau county because they didn't care about the riders out there.... That's the message that's being given off with having that mentioned in the blog as an example of the point, and it couldn't be anymore wrong... Not embellished, just flat out wrong......

 

The MTA wanted to provide service out there, but just like a mooch, once you start asking for more monetary assistance, they start acting funny style...  It wasn't a case of the MTA not caring about the customers - if anything, Nassau county didn't care about the customers of LIB (now NICE).....

 

 

 

....and still don't.

[BrooklynBus]

Have to agree with this.... It doesn't correlate with customers not being the MTA's (top) priority....

 

The MTA didn't give up on running transportation with Nassau county because they didn't care about the riders out there.... That's the message that's being given off with having that mentioned in the blog as an example of the point, and it couldn't be anymore wrong... Not embellished, just flat out wrong......

 

The MTA wanted to provide service out there, but just like a mooch, once you start asking for more monetary assistance, they start acting funny style...  It wasn't a case of the MTA not caring about the customers - if anything, Nassau county didn't care about the customers of LIB (now NICE).....

 

 

 

....and still don't.

The point about the MTA not continuing to provide service in Nassau County wasn't because they didn't care about the customer but that they failed to improve coordination of regional transit which was another major theme of the article. Instead of taking over Suffolk County, they ended up giving up Nassau County. That was the point. I agree that the MTA wanted to continue to provide Nassau County service, but they couldn't work out the financing with the county.

[B35 via Church]

The point about the MTA not continuing to provide service in Nassau County wasn't because they didn't care about the customer but that they failed to improve coordination of regional transit which was another major theme of the article. Instead of taking over Suffolk County, they ended up giving up Nassau County. That was the point. I agree that the MTA wanted to continue to provide Nassau County service, but they couldn't work out the financing with the county.

Instead of taking over SCT, they gave up (on) Nassau County?

 

Again, Nassau county got fed up w/ the MTA wanting more money to help subsidize (what was then current) service (levels on its routes) running in its own backyard.... The nerve of Nassau county on that one....

How could you agree that the MTA wanted to provide service in Nassau, but also say they gave up (on) Nassau County?

 

Furthermore, this additional stance you just presented in this thread about that suffolk takeover that never happened, is even worse than simply blaming the dealings with Nassau County on the MTA.... You speak here as if the MTA is supposed to run service in Nassau & Suffolk counties...

 

Fail to improve coordination.... Interesting.....

What was the MTA supposed to do when Mangano & company went out & took Veolia in as its new contract carrier? What, exactly?

 

Look, I agree with the general notion of the MTA not caring about riders/customers, but the situation with Nassau county (LIB/NICE) was a bad example....