7-express

Yeah I'm thinking the seat belts are tied up in some crazy way that makes it difficult to move unless you got on your hands and knees. Something I'll have to try in the future just to spite them. CP bus drivers are really the worst. I'm not even sure why so many wheelchair seats are tied up unless they like sleeping on the floor in between runs or something.

Does anyone know how to move folded up seats near the wheelchair area on the newer Prevost buses? I've encountered a number of CP buses with folded up seats around the wheelchair area even though there are no wheelchair users on board. A lot of folks don't seem to be able to slide them back out for regular and I haven't been able to either. I thought it was just the yellow foot levers on the floor but it doesn't seem like that's enough to slide the row of seats back.

At this point, they'll probably just mail out the first physical cards before the December holidays to say they crossed the finish line and will just continue the roll out in 2024. They need to roll out physical reduced-fare and student cards in 2024 so they have enough time to work out bugs or else they'll never make the 2025 EOL deadline for the MetroCard.

Saw this in the news and I can see how this would be affecting the other OMNY physical cards too. I thought this chip shortage thing was over. https://japantoday.com/category/national/sales-of-japan’s-most-convenient-train-ticket-shopping-payment-cards-suspended-indefinitely

I have a feeling it will be pretty short on information on the physical reduced-fare OMNY card and probably more on how to link your digital wallet/smart device to the reduced-fare OMNY that has been going on for about a year now. But that's just my cynical thinking here...

If peak city ticket allowed a free transfer, I could see defections becoming a bigger thing. The express bus is certainly less reliable this summer because of the staffing shortages.

It's still pretty bad this week with numerous cancelled runs as we're in the heart of summer and vacation season now. Pretty abysmal to have so many missing runs right as the fare is about to go up.

That's exactly how this stuff happens. They probably just chose yesterday since the stat trends showed that they'll hit their billionth tap then. And then just picked a random rider at the station they were holding the press conference at to be the representative one.

Some more recent OMNY news here: https://www.amny.com/transit/mta-billionth-tap-transit-omny/ Interestingly the number of OMNY users on buses seems stubbornly low versus the subway.

It was pretty bad on Monday with random missing runs and no notice in NE Queens. Guess everyone is on vacation and not enough fill-ins.

0 mention of it in any recent documents so I'd lean towards no it won't be ready, especially if they can't even get reduced-fare OMNY cards out the door yet.

I've had a number of QM2/20 drivers taken Northern Blvd to the GCP in Woodside to cut around the crazy traffic in Jackson Heights/Corona. They can fit just fine but who knows why MTA buses are banned from there.

Looks like I got my answer...implementation of the Northern Blvd bus lanes will resume around now: https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/northern-blvd-broadway-114-st-may2023.pdf

My parents received a new Reduced-Fare EasyPay MetroCard in the mail today. The first part of the enclosed letter was heavy on switching to OMNY using a digital wallet or contactless credit card and the instructions how to do it. The bottom of the letter indicated reduced-fare OMNYs would likely go out in late 2023. It did say that this is likely the last EasyPay MetroCard they'll send out as the switch to OMNY continues with aspirations for everyone to be on it by 2024 (we'll see about that...)

Is it just me or has work on the Northern Blvd bus lane stalled? I haven't seen much progress beyond the work that was done late last year and traffic on Northern Blvd has been insufferable as of late due to a lot of double parking and restricted lanes due to bike lane hardening.

They mentioned legal and contractual issues with PANYNJ and Roosevelt Island as a barrier to overcome. Probably not too different with NICE and Bee Line. Hopefully they get ironed out soon. Not holding my breath on physical student or reduced-fare OMNY cards till the very end of the year.

The OMNY vending machines were showed off today: https://nypost.com/2023/04/24/subway-vending-machines-for-omny-system-arrive-this-summer/ Edit: Also OMNY is coming to the AirTrain and Roosevelt Island Tram in November. They also seem to be still having issues with reduced/free fare physical media but maybe that will be resolved soon.

I talked about the incident to one of my usual B/Os and she mentioned that there's someone at CP depot who's main job is to test the lifts every day on every bus so they're supposed to be working when they go out. So it's pretty surprising to see it fail on that many buses in a row as in this particular incident.

There was definitely a lot less news in this update than I was hoping for. Curious how they made no mention of launches for physical reduced-fare OMNY cards and student OMNY cards, which seem pretty important if they ever want to get rid of the MetroCard for good. Also not sure what they plan to do for special access cards like employee passes or first responder cards. They did note that quality issues are continuing to consume resources. Anecdotally, I've had the OMNY card mess up every day this week on the express bus, resulting in a free ride for me. I really do how much money they're losing from all of these issues.

One thing I've noticed on the newer Prevosts is the poor placement of the Stop Requested buttons in the wheelchair area seats. They're generally located where people rest their heads or next to the arm rest leading to inadvertent button presses. I was even on one bus where a new driver got confused and got up at a stop to investigate why he was getting an indication of a stop requested for a wheelchair user, even though there wasn't one on board. Also, I've noticed a bunch of people get confused with the wheelchair reading light switch in the wall, which overrides the switch on the overhead panel. A lot of people don't realize the switch is on the wall and just end up moving the light away from them when they can't shut it off. Just seems like some bad design choices that should really be addressed at some point in time.

Anecdotally, I have seen fewer front seats blocked off this month but it could very well because of different drivers with this pick.

I honestly have no idea if the MetroCard will ever be fully phased out at this point since it seems like other organizations will be stuck with it and there seems to be no cohesive plan to get them to migrate (Roosevelt Island, PANYNJ, Bee-Line, NICE)

Well there's some OMNY news but not great news: https://nypost.com/2023/03/29/mtas-new-omny-system-faces-more-delays/ Basically full implementation has been pushed back to late 2025 now due to issues with commuter rail integration.

I'll leave this here: https://nypost.com/2023/03/18/new-nyc-subway-already-defiled-by-homeless-rowdy-riders/

I heard today that the MJ Quill roof deck reconstruction is going to cause some schedule changes at CP depot staring with the April pick. Looks like they won't be able to stage buses in Manhattan anymore so all buses will have long deadheads from CP depot into the city for the PM rush. Do you have any more information on this and how jacked up the schedules might be come April?