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That reminds me of the X63,64,68 picking up at the taxi stand further up the road instead of bus stop at 1st Ave, it seems a lot of express lines have weird quirks that you don't know if you're not a regular, which isn't great for infrequent riders.

A couple weeks ago I had a friend take the QM5 to the city on a Saturday (Around 4PM). The bus arrived to the terminal in Queens a little late but still had enough time to make an on time departure. However the bus left over 30 min late to the point I had to tell my friend to go to Union Tpk and take the next QM6, which ultimately beat that QM5. So basically a 90+ min gap in service. Looking back now I probably should have said something then but I was more focused on getting my friend into the city since they we're already 30 min late.

This is what I do, I hate having to wait around for the conductor and just stick it in my seat, and occasionally they don't even collect the ticket.

I'm guessing the slowest is done by each boro. I can see the Q32 being the slowest in Queens but not top 5. As for the Q58 I recently had wait 40 minutes because of how poor the service was running. It doesn't help when I constantly see packed local Q58's bypassing stops followed by empty Limited buses seeing what's happening but not caring. The really need a dispatcher to be present at Flushing.

I might start keeping my eye on that line the next couple of days, it's been more than a year since I've last used it but I wonder how it's doing now. I'd say either 2 things that make the line more useful. Either cut it to 125th and treat it as a shuttle between the Lexington Ave Line and Washington Heights maybe some midday and weekend service could be added too. Or just running it back to 34th Street. On a side note it's too bad the MTA didn't consider adding a bus terminal to the Penn Redevelopment project, it'd be nice if there was a proper place for Midtown buses to terminate, there could've been a proper terminal for the Q32, M4, M5, and possibly an M98 that actually ran to Midtown.

This it's really sad how poorly some local route run. ie. M98 there are days we're multiple trips just no show back to back with wait exceeding over an hour and maybe a little a 1-2 trips running altogether in the off peak direction on some days.

Ok so I was looking at the service status of the and on the suspension of service to Jamaica I noticed this paragraph on the bottom https://new.mta.info/map/21841 Has anyone tried to do this yet, especially for trips past Jamaica?

I'm not surprised it's causing confusion but I do know that a couple do have a bell, I just don't recall where they're based out of. It's been months since I've last been on one so I'm still shocked to here a lot of these buses still don't have one. That being said I wonder why they got rid of it in the first place. Like I'm aware on the earlier version of the prevost ppl didn't the bell because of how loud it was, but I'm surprised they went the radical route of getting rid of it all together. I'm glad I caught on quickly but I guess that shouldn't be expected for most people especially if those screens aren't working like they're supposed to.

Don't the drivers have a light on their dash still? I thought the reason it was eliminated was because the drivers didn't need the big sign in the front where there's a stop request light on the dash that's supposed to light up.

Yep I'm glad I've just been using the LIRR as of late can't deal with this crap anymore.

I've seen it happen once on the X17 the driver noticed as the first person got on and only paid $2.75 and then quickly changed it.

Geez I knew it bad but I never even realized it was to that extent, but some of the thign you mention even apply to the locals as well so many times for both express and locals I'd have to be flagging and waving at them on the street to stop even if it's obvious that I want to get on their bus, they just stop on the left side of the street annoyed that they had to stop for me. A lot for them want to get to the other end of the line as fast as possible picking up the least amount of passengers. Honestly some of these ops wanna do anything but their job. That's why regardless of what these final routes look like anyone that get stuck with CP as the operator of their route looses. To answer you question VG8 basically explains it (highlighted in red), it comes down to management shrugging off bad behavior or actively participating in it. Many other depos would not tolerate half the thing CP ops get away with.

Ideally that would be the best option like B35 said it's just best he maximizes his options, take whatever comes first and transfer to whatever else comes first. It'll take some time for OP to use bus time and be able to predict the best connections to they'll have to experiment for a while.

The only other option I can think of is going over to 5th Ave and taking the BM1/2/3/4 to Brooklyn and then backtracking on a B41/67/69/103 depending on what suits your needs best.

There's no easy way to take a bus to that area but the eTix app sells one way LIRR fares from Penn Station to Atlantic Terminal Via Jamaica for $8.75 takes about 40 min excluding transfer time.

The QM4 ran a lot better when it was moved from CP to BP. A lot less missing trips and drivers kicking everyone off at Herald. IMO it comes down to management, if management doesn't care what drivers do they'll do whatever they want. From my experience with a lot of CP routes some drivers actively avoid picking up passengers by any means necessary, this includes hiding behind other buses on the same line, driving on the left lane, and speeding past other buses (or obstacles) at a stop without checking if passengers want to get on their bus. A couple months ago during winter I was getting the Q66 at night and there were these 2 ladies were running for the bus maybe 20-30 seconds away. I stood by the doorway to ensure that they got on and the op was furious with me and yelling at me for that, knowing damn well it was freezing and the next bus was half an hour behind, and he wanted to take off and leave them behind. If a depo is actively making the customer experience worse for passengers it will affect any line it runs. I've had many instances with CS, JA, and QV ops seeing me running or even walking up to a bus and wait for me. I even had an instance with a QV driver waiting for me even tho I was running from a couple blocks away, but I have and could never expect a B/O from CP do the same instead I see them do the opposite. I'm not saying every driver at CP is bad (I've seen a couple great ones from there), but most of my bad experiences with drivers usually come from CP and any community that gets stuck with them after the redesign won't have reliable service.

The Q25's problem is simply the fact that it operates out of CP, I haven't seen a single CP route that actually runs efficiently. Routes like the Q17/27 have alwasy run better than the Q25/65 with more consist headways and less bunching. IMO the ability for the proposed Q25 to succeed will probably depend a lot more on who operates the line than the route itself. Additionally it seems like the route proposal is designed to be able to accommodate artic buses so I wouldn't be surprised if it would be slated for artic conversion after the redesign is complete. I wouldn't defend the proposed Q25 but I there seems to be more going on here than what the proposal alone shows.

Watching all the people complaining about the proposed schedule for the express trains on the Port Washington Branch tonight yet they actively opposed improvements in the past that would allow for more service. Maybe finally the community will allow for improvements north of Great Neck. But on a side note the PW branch needed a double track line all since yesterday. It amazes me how nothing has been done about it for this long. Also with the hourly service on each Manhattan Terminal off peak it's basically useless for me to wait for the LIRR unless a train is about to leave in the next 20 min.

Any 60ft bus is fair game on any 60ft line for CS SBS unit pop up on the Q12 regularly and I've seen white and blue's on the Q44's too usually when school lets out.

Yeah that makes sense I generally only ride the M14 in the evening or late at night, normally the M14A is fairly empty but I've seen some M14D's pretty crowded at night.

That is far from true the Chinatown vans serve Chinatown not Midtown like the X51 did. The X51 was doing ok when it ran, it was mainly competing with the LIRR and people taking the Q12 to the . The reason it got cut was the dooms day 2010 budget cuts where the MTA was slashing service left and right to save money they just wanted these people to use the subway instead. From the MTA data along it was carrying ~340 riders a day with 18 trips a day ~19 people per bus. While that wasn't amazing that's roughly on par or better than some other peak routes in Queens. QM3 (2019: ~100 per day, 6 trips per day, ~16 per bus) QM10/40 (2019: ~280 per day, 26 trips per day, ~11 per bus) QM11 (2019: ~370 per day, 21 trips per day, ~17 per bus) QM12/42 (2019: ~370 per day, 28 trips per day, ~13 per bus) QM21 (2019: ~220 per day, 16 trips per day, ~14 per bus) Src: https://new.mta.info/agency/new-york-city-transit/subway-bus-ridership-2019 If the X51 was suffering as much as they claimed then they could've easily adjusted it to make it more profitable, ie. reducing the frequency from 12min in the peak to closer to 20-30 min, reducing the service span but eliminating the last trip, and/or combining it the QM3 so that those trips replaced certain X51 trips in order to save money. The MTA eliminated the X51 because it was easier to do so than eliminating former private lines that they acquired. Nothing really changed with the current redesign either. This is a perfect excuse to finally start cutting more express bus lines especially since this time around mess with the former private lines. They want to put more people on the subways because it cheaper for their bottom-line.

I don't think I've ever had a good experience waiting for any branch of a crosstown route.

I've really never really been on the M14A along Avenue A and thought to myself "wow this bus is really crowded we need more service." That being said yes it is annoying that you often have to wait for multiple M14D's before an M14A comes along. But the way I see it is that it should be treated as different routes. Peoples opinions on how long they way change between 2 separate routes on the same path vs 2 branches of the same line. In the end they're both separate routes, but from my experience people typically treat 2 branches of the same route as one route and it makes people more impatient.

Well at least PW finally get the peak service bump we've been asking for, and the guy complaining about the stops being skipped gets what he wants too. But I wish the express trains would stop at Flushing too, I'm seeing a lot more people using the train to and from that station in both directions now so I'd make sense to have easier access to that station in the morning for better connections. Also the 1hr gap in Manhattan between trains is rough and idk how much faster it would be it I had to transfer via Woodside vs taking a . Currently the rule I use is if the LIRR that is has to be less than 20 min away to consider it over the .

I like how the made the M60 bridge portion as express, wish they'd do that for the Q44, Q50, and M98 too. But that was most likely a mistake by the people who made the map.