MassTransitHonchkrow

Just now, Union Tpke said:

"Major" stops, such as in Flushing, downtown Forest Hills, Kew Gardens near the subway, downtown Jamaica tend to have them, but go one stop down the route and they have the old signs.

It's probably more of a priority to have the ones near the subways or transfer points. If a road only has one barely-changing bus route, it's unlikely they ever will update them.

For example, up here in Menands along Route 32, they still have the old signs for the 22. Given that the 22 continues to serve Menands, replacing the signs is a pointless gesture.

11 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

Not one.

I believe you. 

1 hour ago, Around the Horn said:

Fantastic find! I always wondered about when they made the switch to these signs.

What a shame many signs in Queens and Brooklyn haven't seen those updates (as recently as 2018).

On 7/25/2019 at 10:43 AM, Uncle Floyd Fan said:

@MassTransitHonchkrow - Thanks! I didn't even think of Red Rose. I'll keep it mind, just in case. It's always good to have options. One big way to save funds is to take Peter Pan from PABT into Phila (w/o advanced planning, its an expensive ticket on Amtrak). I might even do a trip report on the whole experience.

I'm heading into NYC next month and will do so without relying on any NYCT assets. I will report on that when I return.

On 7/21/2019 at 3:49 PM, MassTransitHonchkrow said:

Universal Access passes for academic institutions in the Capital Region have been deactivated. Please use your Navigator or cash fare to pay going forward.

Update 7/25/2019

Turns out that wasn't supposed to happen. The glitch has since been fixed.

I kind of wished we supported aliasing, like DeviantArt. If we change our name, all links redirect to it, but if people use the old username, it'll redirect to that same user. For example, I use masstransithonchkrow and masstransitkrow interchangeably across networks. I don't have a second account to my knowledge on this site.

On 7/22/2019 at 3:59 PM, Uncle Floyd Fan said:

@Mtatransit - -

Appreciate the heads up. I wasn't looking to do any fanning per se (I'm not much of a photographer / video producer), but it's good to know. My biggest concern is getting to/from PHL / Lancaster. The last thing I want is to be stranded in Lancaster (not the worst thing in the world, but it's not part of the plan, if I can avoid it).

Hope this is helpful if you don't like your Lyft driver.

An all day pass will set you back $5.25 for all four zones.

http://www.redrosetransit.com/

1 hour ago, AlgorithmOfTruth said:

NYCHA court proceedings tend to drag on and ultimately end up allowing the tenant(s) to remain so as long they aren't violating any conditions set forth. More often than not, they try to keep families together, rather than break them apart. There are controversial policies that permit convicted felons (usually fathers) to return home after prison release to be reunited with their families. If it means having both a mother and father at home to raise their children I'm all for it, but that's rarely the case in the projects. When I started this thread I should've emphasized that I'm specifically against admitting felons back into public housing who demonstrate a consistent inability to stay out of trouble after they've been discharged. Not all who have been behind bars are incapable of being rehabilitated. There are many success stories out there. Evicting hundreds of thousands of NYCHA tenants won't solve the problem. That'd accomplish nothing but saturate the shelters.

My concern is that the buildings will be so degraded, they won't be safe for habitation and that will be used as the justification for eviction.

I believe that felons who do their time should be given the opportunity to demonstrate that they have learned. The system makes it hard for them to reintegrate, and I believe that is by design.

Personally, I believe NYCHA residents need to flee New York City, even if it's costly. They'll have more troubles if they stay. Someone is attacking the city's infrastructure, and they know what they're doing. They need to GET OUT.

21 hours ago, RestrictOnTheHanger said:

AMEX should issue you a new credit card if you mark the current one as damaged. 

 

I am charged $5 regardless. I made them aware of my interest in this technology, so lying through my teeth is inadvisable. I'd gladly put Paper Lincoln forward.

On 3/30/2019 at 1:31 PM, LaGuardia Link N Tra said:

hmmmm.....Before we  all know it, we'll have OMNY's in our Pockets. 

AMEX is updating their cards with contactless readers. I might have to pay $5, but it's worth the expense.

Universal Access passes for academic institutions in the Capital Region have been deactivated. Please use your Navigator or cash fare to pay going forward.

NYCHA is unlikely to survive. I bet that by the time de Wilhelm is out of office, there will be 101K homeless, with 400K (evicted NYCHA tenants) on the way. It's a sad prospect, but y'all need to escape New York. Again. 

Your best bet is to contribute to this community.

May I recommend contributing to off-topic lounges? There are a lot of topics to go over besides transit.

My location indicator is a rough, 200 mile abstraction of where I live. I live in a community that is a part of the historic Erie Canal Trailway.

That includes many communities, which spans fourteen upstate counties, including Oswego, Herkimer, Fulton, Montgomery, Schenectady, Albany, and Rensselaer counties.

On 3/9/2018 at 10:25 AM, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

NYCHA needs to be dissolved.  Those housing projects are money pits and those buildings will only become worse as time goes on.  The City can't afford to keep throwing money at those buildings, which is why they are quietly trying to sell of land and so on that involves them.  The buildings are essentially well past their time and the situation won't improve given the fiscal constraints of all parties involved.

"Giving money to NYCHA is like throwing it out of a window."

 - Andrew M. Cuomo, 56th Governor of New York State

My name is Eric. Of course, you already knew that. Look down.

On 7/10/2019 at 10:51 AM, PotatoCommuter said:

I just realized I may have posted this in the wrong place. 😕

The error I get is failed name resolution, so this means the website is down, or they changed their URL without adding forwarding details in their DNS record. However, you're here, and thanks for that.

On 6/26/2019 at 10:25 AM, Uncle Floyd Fan said:

I lived near the Kew-Forest section for a few years. My apt window would overlook K-F. I now live 'down the 'pike', so to speak, but I'm hardly on the E and F, now.

Side note - When I was lazy and wanted a seat, or the subways were delayed, I'd travel with the X's (X63, X64, or X68). I always felt like I was breaking the driver's stride when I'd flag them down. I always felt like they did not want to stop at 78 Ave. I took the QM18 westbound only once....its too slow.

And expensive. Those buses aren't worth the $6.50 price tag. 

Hopefully, the network redesign will sort itself out in the Bronx and move to Queens, where it's probably needed more than any other borough.

20 hours ago, JeremiahC99 said:

Yes. Something like this:

However, for New York, they need to make the doors full body instead of half height to somewhat stop people from jumping them.

I think expanding on existing technology (like full body turnstiles) might be more cost effective.

2 hours ago, Uncle Floyd Fan said:

The effectiveness depends upon a persons ethics and their ability to jump / climb. Now, if a loud alarm can sense a climber or jumper, then the fare gate would be even more effective. A loud piercing alarm might scare off some fare evaders.

What a shame the MTA turned them off in 2014. It's kinda like someone wanted this to get out of hand.

On 6/24/2019 at 9:44 PM, JeremiahC99 said:

Like the 7 inch paddle gates I suggested in the ESI topic?

If I may ask, what's a paddle gate? or is it another name for a full body turnstile?

On 6/18/2019 at 2:11 PM, JeremiahC99 said:

I am totally against getting rid of SBS articulated buses and all door boarding since as a daily rider of the B46 SBS, I can tell you that the route has an extremely high ridership from 6:00 AM to 12:00 Midnight every day, especially between Church Avenue and Fulton Street during the rush. Using the one-door-at-a-time method, loading in a trainload of passengers at Eastern Pkwy on a New Flyer XD40 or Orion VII Hybrid bus (both of which have two doors) is going to take 5 minutes or more, as it is with the local variant now. With all door boarding and SBS ticket kiosks, buses can leave in one or one and a half minutes, as it is with the subway. Are you proposing slowing down riders on the Bx12, M15, B46, and B82 routes all for the purpose of reducing fare evasion, because all this would do is further decrease ridership and/or increases fare evasion due to frustrations about slow bus and train service?

Rather than needlessly slow riders down by eliminating all-door boarding, I would propose putting in more fare inspector teams along the most busier stops. For example, on the B46 SBS,  additional fare inspection teams can be placed at the following locations:

Fulton Street

Eastern Pkwy

Church Avenue

Avenue H 

Kings Plaza

This could possibly reduce some of the fare evasion that is seen on the routes. Furthermore, as the B46 SBS is planning to run 3-door New Flyer XD60 articulated buses by 2019 and 2020 (which should’ve been done long ago), enforcement can be sped up at these stops due to an additional door for another team of two to be at.

The Q44 also has high ridership as well, just like the B46. Because of this high ridership, the one-door boarding system no longer worked, especially in Flushing and Jamaica. This is why they had that route switch to all door boarding and SBS, which truth to be told, actually works. To say that it worked for many years is just false, especially since the Q44 got some NovaBus LFS buses in 2013 to facilitate high ridership (the fleet was eventually changed over to New Flyer XD60s, the same buses used on the Q10)

Long story short, whatever system they use for their buses in London and other cities with all-door boarding and modern fare payment should be bought here to NYC. It can work.

And it has. And it's been beautiful for every corridor blessed with SBS.

We shouldn't take away conveniences for riders that pay for and deserve them. In fact, we should be expanding on the SBS model because it is the very example of hard work that the MTA is doing with NYC DOT, despite the lack of speed in doing so.

Many rider advocacy groups egg this behavior on, and think that fare evasion is justified because attempts to rein it in are a war on poverty. Bullshit. $228 million is three times the size of upstate transit budgets, and that's no amount to sneeze at. I see it happen often. On July 9th, a Medium story about me will publish four years to the date I was dragged off a bus for calling fare evasion out. It needs to stop, and people need to be arrested. 

When you give them an inch, they take a mile. And that mile has resulted in the senseless assaults in transit personnel. Instead of punishing good subway riders, let's implement full body turnstiles at all problem stations, re-alarm the emergency doors, put rudimentary railing on certain subway platforms (with openings only for the doors, it doesn't need to be AirTrain fancy), and treat disabled riders with the utmost respect.

Rider advocacy groups are anything but. They're just a bunch of contrived breakfast clubs of gentrified snobs. Like our current mayor. Ironically(from a historical context), they're the exact reason the outer boroughs are so underserved. 

North Manning Station, looking West

Use the five digit bus stop code in Transit App or CDTA.org to find out what buses will be at this stop.

Quail-WAMC Station, Looking West

BusPlus stations on Route 5 are clearly marked by Red, Silver and Blue pylons with similarly colored bus shelters. The only stop without a shelter is Downtown-Train Station, which uses the Lake Shore Railway underpass.

BusPlus Red has nineteen stops across 17.4 miles. There are dedicated traffic signals at Veeder Avenue (East), New Karner (West), and Colonie (West). BusPlus does not make local stops, but will offer connections to local buses at every stop it does make.

This stop:

1 - Local Trunk - Wolf Road, Colonie via Route 5

712 - Commuter - W. Averill Harriman State Offices or Patroon Creek - no weekend service

905 - BRT - Schenectady - Gateway Plaza

On 8/4/2015 at 1:51 AM, INDman said:

It must be a regular pay-per-ride Metrocard. Unlimited, disabled, and senior cards will NOT work.

If you have an unlimited card with a PPR balance of $2.75 or higher, the card will still be accepted. Unlimited Balances are read first on all other services.

Dual balances have been available to MetroCard customers since 2013.