IAlam

16 hours ago, QM1to6Ave said:

VG8 has posted that the union boss at CP is a particularly nasty piece of sh*t and sets the tone of "these passengers should be lucky we show up at all, and keep their whiny mouths shut." With leadership like that, what else can you expect from the B/Os?

 

The dispatchers I've interacted with from CP are very nice, but then again, those are the ones who actually show up and choose to be in the public eye. Who knows what else goes on behind "closed doors"

This honestly with the MTA eager to use the redesign to cut most of their express runs they’ll be lucky if they have work to do. But alas I’m pretty sure the nastiest drivers have seniority and the newer ones will be affected. 
 

But honestly it’s this constant dilemma because the reason that NE. Queens express buses are suffering is because of how poor services from this Depo. Cutting it would show them the consequences of their actions. But at the same time that comes at our expense because we lose service. So we’re basically having to defend subpar service so that we’re not left stranded. But that’s why I said a while ago in the Queens redesign form. Regardless of what the routes look like in the end, whoever ends up with CP as their operator looses. 

1 hour ago, Calvin said:

6080 has Baisley Park stickers on both sides. Although, it still has the SBS readings on there. 

I saw that on the Q113 yesterday I was so confused for a bit. 

2 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

I don’t condone what they do, but what do you expect when you deal with snotty passengers, traffic, and people who cuss you and your whole family out on a daily basis?

Passengers in most of NE Queens and most of CP's service area are far better behaved than passengers in other parts of Queens and the city. I see much nastier passengers in Southern Queens yet their B/O's are nowhere near as awful. CP bus ops are by no means operating in the worst parts of the city where that excuse would fly by me. CS share a lot of the same operating areas and their B/O's are far better, on the MTA Bus side I've never had any major issues with B/O even in the worst parts of Queens. Compared to CP bus ops on the regular playing games, avoiding passengers, and intentionally leaving terminals very late. (This is a well-known issue on the express side, I suspect it happens on the locals too but it's harder to verify.)

When it's a CP route don't get your hopes up some of these B/O's will get mad at you for expecting them to do their job. This depo whether local or express for some reason seems to have the most number of B/O's breaking rules and being extremely rude to customers, at least in my experience. 

IIRC there might be a CP B/O on this form, and if you read this please know that none of what I or others say is directed toward you, if CP management reads this on the other hand...

8 minutes ago, trainfan22 said:

Speaking of B/O f**Kerry, last week on an SI express bus the driver was promoting a rider's block party over the bus PA system 

For Staten Island that seems more normal, diver and passengers seem to know each other better and are more aware of their community.

54 minutes ago, QM1to6Ave said:

There are a few CP B/Os who have their bus radios tuned to some strange channel where all you hear is people yelling in spanish, making bird noises, singing (I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried). At first I thought it was a personal radio or something, but it definitely is coming out of the loudspeakers. All the other B/Os have the usual channel where I only hear Command talk about detours or other official business. Anyone know what the hell that is?

One B/O, who is real a**hole, keeps the radio on quite loud, and these people don't shut up, so I need to sit in the back so I don't hear the nonsense and can sleep.

I have yet ever to experience anything like this, but since it's CP anything is possible. They're the equivalent of Florida Man for B/O's.

9 minutes ago, Calvin said:

If anyone noticed outside while waiting for the bus, the sky has turned dark with a bit of fog. It’s from a wildfire that happened around the Quebec, Canada area. 

Yeah, it's really bad today wearing a mask is probably the best bet today and tomorrow.

12 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

What's wrong with etix? I've never had an issue unless it was a system-wide outage which the conductors knew about.

Before upgrading to my current phone the eTix app would constantly crash on my old phone. It would always run out of RAM and or battery so it was always too unreliable and unpredictable for me. My current phone doesn't crash but I've had my payment get rejected a couple of times which can get frustrating because the same card will work fine other times, but even then I am a heavy user so I'm pushing my current phone until it's dead, so I prefer not to use eTix unless it's a last resort like I don't have enough time to buy or the machines aren't working. I feel better knowing I have the ticket on me without having to worry about any phone issues. Also, I prefer to just stick the ticket on my seat and not interact with the conductor. 

47 minutes ago, Kingsbridgeviewer382 said:

Most likely for the strollers on the Stengel side. Not sure how they are on the Jamaica and QV coneheads.

I'm actually a big fan of that, feels more spacious than the previous design. Seems like CS is getting the better passenger layout for now with the extra seat and the better layout. I hope the MTA makes the changes with the other ones soon. 

Ok, so I think I've noticed a change in some of the new NOVAs being delivered. Before the gallery seating had a pattern that went something like flip seat, bucket seat, flip seat, bucket seat, & forward seat. But now some of the new ones have a different arrangement that goes, bucket seat, bucket seat, flip seat, flip seat, & forward seat. I wonder when they changed it but it seems to be a bit more spacious. 

On 5/29/2023 at 9:47 PM, QM1to6Ave said:

Yeah, and they are still having B/O's collecting coins on their routes lol...the MTA could do all sorts of things with OMNY promotions and so forth

The fact that to this day that the MTA still doesn't accept cash boggles my mind. As far as I know, they're the only major agency in the US to have this rule too. The MTA wants to complain about fare evasion but fails to evaluate its own fare collection procedures. When you make it harder to pay your fare people just won't go through the effort. Coins only, broken TVMs causing long lines, and not to mention the issues of OMNY constantly providing read errors just make it harder to pay for those who are honest. On the LIRR side of things many stations only have 1-2 TVMs with some TVMs only offering certain tickets. The eTix app has a lot of bugs and issues that already dissuade me from using it unless it's a last resort. But for paper tickets, there are so many days where I just get on the train and a conductor never comes by to even collect it. I'm not fare evading when I have a valid ticket but I'm also not going to let a valid ticket go to waste when they don't collect it. Last Saturday I took 3 rides on the same ticket before they even collected it, and that's because my final ride was from Penn. Most of my rides are from 10-20 minutes but even then when I make equivalent trips on the MNR I usually get checked in ~5 minutes or less. The MTA really needs to reevaluate how they collect fares before outright blaming the passengers because most of the fare payment mediums have so many issues systemwide.
 
But sorry for going off topic there for a moment I definitely agree some OMNY promotions could go a long way. I know GO Transit does weekend passes for a flat fee which was really popular, I think the MBTA did something similar too. Once the MTA implements OMNY on the commuter rails maybe they could do something similar with fare capping. 

On 5/29/2023 at 9:48 PM, Lawrence St said:

I agree, but I think the reason why is because of CT’s rail rules. Remember that whole debacle with people not being able to board inbound NH trains at Fordham? 

Yeah, I've never had an issue boarding an NH train to Grand from Fordham. They always collect my ticket as normal and carry on.

6 hours ago, mikecintel said:

Yes that is the sad part like your reaction to my post.  The MTA wants to get things done right and have people to get their OMNY cards and they should give "unlimited monthly" to the OMNY card users so user can switch and ditch the Metro Card but then again if people take the NICE bus that is a problem because they don't have the OMNY readers yet.  If the NICE bus and the BEE line has OMNY readers then the MTA better have unlimited monthly option for the OMNY card and credit/debit cards because then everyone will switch to the OMNY system and they can phase out the Metro Cards then.  They want speed it and make that happen faster! Then again I know there are bugs and everything.  Let's see what happens in the October meeting and they talk about OMNY again.   Meanwhile I will hang on to the Metro card for now until everything switches to OMNY.

The reason I still haven't fully switched over is because of the lack of support for partner agencies. Metrocard is still universally accepted while OMNY is only supported by the MTA. My EasyPay card work just about everywhere except PATH (But for some odd reason it does work on the AirTrain.) But that means OMNY support is still needed for NICE, PATH, AirTrain, Roosevelt Island Tram, Hudson Rail Link, and Bee Line. That's a lot of services that still need support

On 5/30/2023 at 8:23 AM, Bill from Maspeth said:

FLXIBLE.  There is not E before the X.

My bad I didn't even exist when those buses were rolling around I've only seen a few pictures. I don't know much about the fleet, except that they didn't last very long.

14 hours ago, RSMG106 said:

Casey Stengel has updated their depot label. 

I was wondering about this when I first saw it I thought it was a flexible. 

So yesterday I got on a QM5 to Midtown and the B/O took the GCP to the LIE. I always wondered if that was possible and I got my answer. The bridges are high enough for an express bus.

Makes me wonder why for the Queens redesign there not exploring more route possibilities. Honestly there are so many minor route differences and infrastructure changes that have have a huge impact. Aside from opening up the use of the GCP and Van Wyck for more routes, they should focus on more bus priority. They might not be able to add an HOV lane to the LIE going to Queens but they can add bus lanes and bus signals on surround streets leading up to the LIE ie. VanDam St. and/or the service road leading up to the LIE. 
 

When I was in Seattle earlier this month I was impressed to see how much dedicated bus infrastructure they for commuter buses entering the city. They have dedicated roadways and on/off ramps just for buses, queue jumps, bus lanes, a little bit of everything. They’re by no means perfect, but they’re pulling out every trick they can to speed up buses. I feel like the MTA could learn quite a bit from them. 

On 4/29/2023 at 8:22 PM, Cait Sith said:

Have you BEEN ON the 7090-7437 batch of New Flyers? They are literal garbage(the Casey Stengel batch being the absolute worst of them). Those are the worst 40fters we have in the fleet. The ride quality is garbage, they rock and sway so much even at minimal speed, the suspensions are garbage to a point where some of them can't take bumps all that well(especially the Casey Stengel batch, again), they're slower than the rest of the Xcelsior fleet, they jerk a lot when braking compared to the rest of the Xcelsiors, the list of complaints goes on. I ride them damn near every single day. I have more of an opinion on them than someone who lives all the way in Philadelphia and thinks they know better and don't deal with them daily.

On the topic of New Flyers being trash, 5987-6125 are also trash.....operators(especially the Q44 operators) don't like those buses especially at speed because the transmission throttles the performance at the 4th to 6th gears....operators have to hold the transmission at 3rd gear to get any speed, and that in itself is also dangerous because you can blow the engine like that. 5987-6029 in particular are wearing out much faster than the 5900-series Novas ever did, to the point where they've been running more 4700s on the Q44. The ride quality on those buses have gotten really, really bad.

6126-6286 are the same way, but those are slower because of the HVAC units(but they do ride better than the previous batch).

2 hours ago, RSMG106 said:

I will admit, throughout my three years as an transit enthusiast, I will say that the 2014-15 XD40s are bad. The ride quality is not good unlike the other XD40s in the MTA's fleet. The XD60s from 5987-6125 are also bad as well. Despite the buses being lighter than 6126-6286, the transmission set-up is messed up. Whether or not the MTA set it up like that or New Flyer themselves, these are definitely problematic. I've been to every depot that was originally assigned for the 2014-15 XD40s, and on the 2016-17 XD60s. I've thought Ulmer Park's XD40 batch was bad, but Stengel seems to be getting the worst out of the bunch. I've also been on Stengel's XD60s from 5987-6029, and it seems that Stengel's batch are suffering the most. Although I enjoy these buses, I do see why these specific orders of XD40s and 60s are the worst compared to the others.

Yeah CS in general got one bad batch after another, the XD40/60's has so many issues from just a passenger perspective. On the regular, I see buses with broken signs and the ride quality is awful. There's so much leakage from the HVAC units that often you can see the trail of grime on the walls. (I typically find it worse on the blue and golds.) Not to mention the fact that the depo got a bunch of hand-me-downs for the Q12. Almost every day I see a couple 40ft's running on the line and the newer XD60s already look like they need to be replaced now. Heck, I can even see ops avoiding the XD40's I see the NG's running all the time into the night and weekend it amazes me how almost every day I get an NG considering they're aren't many remaining now. It's either that or the Nova but it seems like those ops are steering clear of the XD40's as much as they can. Those LFSA buses that CS originally had were much better in quality, and I can only hope that these new Novas are good since we're getting the majority of them.

On 4/19/2023 at 8:44 AM, Dellvana said:

There could be a way with linking it to Staten Island, but I think they would be using different rails because it's not primarily connected to the other MTA rails from the outer boroughs.

The only rail line that could be used is the existing NSR row on Staten Island and even then there's no direct connection to the NEC. A new curve would have to be built in order for service to Staten Island to be feasible. But even then what benefit would that really provide? Staten Island to NYP wouldn't be faster by this rail line and going to WAS doesn't seem like it'd be more an appealing option than just getting on at NYP. That doesn't even get into the costly renovations and eminent domain needed to pull this off, I don't think it'd be worth the time, money, or effort required to build it. That time, money, and effort would be better spent on the Gateway Project. 

21 hours ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

Interesting, gonna have to see it for myself whenever I get the chance. I did see a massive gap on the Q88 earlier on bustime.

Thankfully I don't have to deal with any of those routes on a daily basis, or else that would just make things bonkers. Unfortunately in my part of the borough there's too many ghost buses, it seems that LGA hasn't properly set up the trackers on the Orion VII NGs they got from other areas (mainly The Bronx). 

As far as I saw today I didn't see any missing trips and plenty of new Novas out today I was surprised to see some white and blue Novas on CS routes until I read the forums. I saw 3 today on NIS one on the Q15A and another on the Q20B all with Staten Island stickers. 

9 hours ago, Lil 57 said:

Agreed, funny seeing the difference between the converted R188s and the newer R188s on the . It's like night and day.

Not only that look at how much they've aged since then. The R142A that ended up on the look more or less the same as when they got them. The New R188's don't have much wear considering they're approaching 10 years old. Compared to the R142?A that still remains on Lex and 7th Ave which looks like they've been beaten up, abused and haven't seen a wash in years. It was the same thing with the R62's the condition that the cars were when the  got it from the  felt the same when they gave it back to the . I never felt the other IRT depos did a good job maintaining their fleet like Corona does. 

2 minutes ago, Calvin said:

There's no given details for now. Although, there could be differences based on types of seats on the bus as well as destination signs. Example to that are the XD-40 units, 7438-7483 vs 7090-7437. 

I'm hoping they use a different seating layout I'm not a fan of the ones we're currently getting. 

9 hours ago, RSMG106 said:

If anyone wondering why there hasn't been any Nova Bus deliveries for most of each week, it is confirmed that Nova was building the LFSes for the bus depots (8964-9271). There are 22 units built for bus. Meanwhile, there are 10 XE40s confirmed to be built for NYCT (4965-4974).

Any known differences on these units?

On 3/23/2023 at 1:24 PM, Cait Sith said:

Funny enough, Decamp used those buses on charters heavily...used to see them in Queens often.

Academy uses their buses often for charters and railroad shuttles in Long Island. Saddle River(before they got shitcanned by NJT for their nonsense) used those 17000s and 18000s on charters regularly. Coach USA used theirs mostly on LIRR/MNRR shuttles.

What NJT actually has a problem with is the carriers using buses outside of the territories they operate in or around. Saddle River got a lot of flack for running the state-owned buses on Greyhound routes when Greyhound was short on buses and personnel a few years back. One of them made it all the way to Washington DC, and folks at NJT were not happy.

It makes me wonder why NJT provides private companies with buses with the operators' brand for commuter services. When you look elsewhere in NY and other states, private operators operate the bus with the agency brand and not the operator's brand. 

If you see a Saddle River bus in DC it won't look too out of place but an NJT-branded bus operated by Saddle River would. It would discourage private operators from blatantly miss using resources, I could still see things like rail shuttles and other emergency work being fine.

On 3/25/2023 at 11:24 PM, RSMG106 said:

It has come to my attention that the former 2017 Battery Electric demos from New Flyer and Proterra were purchased by The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

2017 XE40s (0011-0015 from Michael J. Quill) are currently at the JFK Vendor. They will be numbered 813-817.

2017 Catalysts (0016-0020 from Grand Avenue) will get transferred to Newark-Liberty airport. They will be numbered into the 4900s.

 

I would've thought it'd be the other way around since LGA uses Proterra's 

So this was found on an express bus today

19 minutes ago, Comrade96 said:

replacing the r68s with option order 2 would place the MTA back at square one in terms of equipment available for use

And the MTA could also replace it with another order with more up-to-date rails cars. The only good reason I could see option II being a good idea is if the MTA is worried they won't get future federal funds.

Also if anyone wants to see what the  and  looks like here ya go.