AJ023

14 hours ago, mikecintel said:

Update there are a total of 4 OMNY machines at Main Street Flushing on my way home from work I saw 4 OMNY machines but I think contractors are working on the them.  That's pretty quick how they set that up.

Flushing Main Street was put on the MTA website as being active on 4/25/2024.  That station has the most Metrocard usage and the media covered the issues with the Metrocard machines.  MTA finally got it done.  There are a ton of machines for OMNY that still haven’t been activated which are in the stations and those will get done.  They need to add the rest of the fare options and come out with a Digital OMNY Card as well.  

On 8/10/2023 at 4:22 AM, mikecintel said:

That's great! because I have been wondering when are they going to install the OMNY vending machines.  They said they were going to install in the beginning of June but I didn't see it or they still have to work out with the software glitches on the OMNY vending machines which might be the case.

What percentage of riders will use OMNY machines?  Those who want to pay cash can buy OMNY cards already at vendors throughout the city and those vendors can give actual change. I don’t see a need for machines for OMNY except for entry and exit readers.  I realize the MTA is putting these machines in to replace all the metrocard machines but it seems unnecessary.   Metrocard required prepaid rides and physical cards.  Remember, any prepaid contactless card  will also work with OMNY (Amex, visa, mastercard, discover, etc) that you can pay cash for.  I don’t know what the fee structure is but you would compare them to OMNY’s $5 card fee good for 5 years.  I do see a need for OMNY to allow prepaid rides and unlimited metrocards that one can purchase on their smartphones and other devices.  

My guess is some riders may think you need to buy a physical OMNY card when you don’t and they will generate sales of OMNY cards just by placing the machines.  
 

On 8/8/2023 at 3:24 PM, ABOGbrooklyn said:

https://new.mta.info/article/welcome-mta-app-beta-launch?fbclid=IwAR3GTYV0KNztuPcNOqa-B3epTy2iwym4avy8tyOScCcEIGVly3AORmuSouY

 

Please transit buffs sign up and submit feedback so we can have a decently functioning app! 

New beta app looks cleaner but lacks usability and has issues.  I submitted my feedback on the app.  Google Maps, Apple Maps, Transit and Citymapper are all superior and are all free to use.  If your device is in Nassau county and you install Transit you get upgraded features on the Transit app.  The MTA app seems pointless and has no beneficial uses except that it has a link for Paratransit in the app but users can just use the regular website.  It does have a list of nearby transit in a clean looking format but other apps have same and additional features in a more usable and superior format.  

Just use existing apps and you have the apps with the features you want and need right now and those get updates over time as well and they are much further ahead in development.  MTA should discontinue app development on this and instead focus on an online payment system to prepay for OMNY rides for unlimited, weekly or single rides and the like.  If they don’t discontinue app development, the final release will definitely still be way behind other apps and users will only choose this app who don’t know better and want an official MTA app.  I can still see this app benefitting the MTA if they are able to monetize the app somehow but users can evaluate all apps and choose the best one.  

The OMNY fare payment system is not even ready yet for LIRR.   

Will stops on City Terminal Zone stations such as Woodside, Forest Hills and Kew Gardens get both Penn Station and Grand Central Station trains once the project is completed?

Im curious as to how they will schedule trains.  

The brick on the seat and broken glass is not for spare parts.  Definitely vandalism and perhaps part theft as well which seems likely.  
 

The 2002 Orions last time sold for just over 1k a piece so I presume some parts had some value for someone.  The Nice bus Orions need to be disposed of.  

1 hour ago, Lawrence St said:

I'd like to comment. refuses to hire more drivers and the riding public is getting the consequences. They need to hire more drivers IMMEDIATELY and stop waiting around for people to respond to employment requests.

I heard about this on local routes and now it has spread to the express routes as well.  I believe that employers need to ditch the MTA and create their own shuttles for their employees as obviously they will lose a lot of productivity and lose a lot of funds in terms of taxes they pay to the MTA which is not helpful.  The MTA has a budget shortfall even after the federal bailout.  They don’t have enough funds to pay drivers competitive wages and to hire more drivers.  It will only get progressively worse.  Drivers have to face lower non competitive wages and more workplace issues including crime.  Also there is a disincentive to work based on unemployment and stimulus and the like.

If the MTA was a business it would have filed for bankruptcy a long time ago.  

2 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Can't believe they re-sold any of those. I've been on some of those buses where when it rained, there would be leaks all over the bus. 

I can’t believe someone bought the NICE Bus Orions in an auction awhile ago.  I didn’t realize those had any value at all as they were complete junk.  I guess those were bought when MTA was in charge.  Personally the only type of bus I like which are also built to last are the luxury coach bus models of which there are several manufacturers who make really nice ones.  I wouldn’t mind doing an RV conversion on one.  Even MTA’s first generation Prevost’s are really nice.  MTA never ordered the D4505 or J4500 from MCI which I also like.  I came across other transit agencies selling off their own MCI D4500’s either same age or newer than the MTA’s.  

Do the New Flyer bus and soon to be Giilig’s have cameras inside?  Saw images of graffiti inside the Orion bus and broken seating and the like.  Using mass transit in Nassau county is definitely not an appealing experience but most people tend to drive or use other methods of transportation in the county.  When I was or am in Nassau County I never have used a NICE bus and never will.  But there will always be those who use the system.  

17 hours ago, QM1to6Ave said:

I was waiting for someone to bring this up lol...I was referring to the standard scheduled service, which always required payment. Considering most of the overnight extra express service barely ran, I don't even consider that real service lol

I didn’t even know overnight express bus existed.  Most lines by me I believe are M to F and limited hours.  Doesn’t seem to be anything new regarding Express bus services.  Even the schedules have not been changed in awhile.  

39 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Most of them are scrapped. They save a few for the museum or whatever. I've seen some of those RTS models used for the Metrocard buses, so in sum, most are scrapped, some recycled for other purposes, and some preserved for their museum.

A lot of the bus are likely older high mileage and they seem to keep bus longer than other transit agencies.  Interesting how MTA scraps while others resell.  MTA’s latest generation of bus purchases are really decent equipment but there seems to be a lot of better equipment than some of the older models.  

Just wondering how MTA disposes of their older bus fleet.  I see other transit agencies selling them outright but I haven’t seen a lot of MTA Bus fleet for sale if at all.  

2 hours ago, Lex said:

You realize that NICE is only a thing because Mangano was a massive cheapskate, right?

Wrong.  MTA has gotten to be an abusive predator controlling Mass Transit.  Governor Cuomo and the state legislature have too much power as does the MTA plus there has been lots of corruption at the MTA.  Transit should be privatized and NICE is now being run by Transdev which is a private sector firm.  Many Nassau county residents were paying taxes for services they weren’t using as well.  I wish MTA was privatized.  

5 hours ago, Cait Sith said:

MTA's Orions doesn't get the amount of mileage and abuse that NICE Bus gets on theirs. NICE's Orions have more wear and tear because of the far distances they go and the road conditions along various routes. Their buses goes through much more rough conditions than the MTA, as the MTA is mostly stop-and-go for the most part, along with buses being governed to slower speeds. Their oldest Orions are also 13 years old. Most of their Orions have more miles put on them than our oldest OG Hybrids. The closest buses we got that almost matches NICE's in terms of fleet mileage are the Orion VIIs in Staten Island.

The Orions were taken from Long Island Bus, and went through a dark period at NICE when former County Executive Ed Mangano slashed NICE's funding several times, causing problems in a lot of areas including maintenance, service and cleanliness. They've been recovering from that as funding has been coming to them more and more now that Laura Curran is the County Executive.

 

On the contrary, NICE have been having problems with the Xcelsiors which is also part of the reason why cutaways have been used on regular routes. New Flyer has been lowballing bids to win, even going below Gillig. Ever since Gillig moved to Livermore, their quality has gone way up to the point where King County Metro said no to more XDE40s and said yes to Gilligs, as KCM have had a lot of problems with their XDE40s.

New Flyer also has had a lot of recalls lately with the Xcelsior lineup, which hasn't been good.

NICE doesn't go Nova primarily because the LFS seats less people than what Gillig and New Flyer offers, and the LFS has a known issue when it comes to capacity and space. Gillig and New Flyer provides better passenger flow over the LFS in my opinion.

Disagree on Mangano.  He did a good job by reducing taxes and keeping bus service available for Nassau county.  NICE was fully funded with enough resources.  The issue was they were just taken over and the Orions needed to be replaced with contracts and it takes time to phase out the older bus with New Flyer and Giilig which ultimately got the contracts.  

On 5/8/2021 at 6:45 PM, R10 2952 said:

Surprised they're going with the futuristic design version; the traditional look of the standard version is less pretentious if you ask me...

I don’t ride on commuter bus but I do see a lot of Nice bus in Nassau county and the new Gillig combined with the New Flyers will make the Nice bus fleet actually look really good.  Apparently they neglect the Orions even though they were I guess taken over from MTA Bus and never maintained well as MTA’s Orions perform better.  As the New Flyers and soon Gillig”s will be purchased by Nice bus,I would hope that they would maintain these new bus better.  

5 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

We heard you the first time. You have options. Some people just have an express bus and that's it. Be thankful you're in Forest Hills or someplace where you can hop on the subway, LIRR or bus. I had my express bus service cut years ago in my old neighborhood, and that led to an hour extra in my commute round trip each day, so I know what it's like to have limited, unreliable options. The other alternative (local bus to the ferry to the subway) was super unreliable (esp. the local bus), which was why I switched to the express bus to begin with. 

Now I have MNRR or three express buses, and the express buses are the easiest to reach, and each serves its own purpose.

Express bus should have been located in the area you needed it and less on the redundant routes.  Also the bus should be run more efficiently so each bus capacity is utilized as much as possible.  

New express bus cost roughly 600-700k each per bus even before bus driver, diesel fuel and servicing costs long term, and a ride costs 6.75.  For comparison sake, a new 2021 Mercedes S580 is approx 120k each.  Even though a bus costs more to buy outright, people still see express bus as inferior to a more expensive private ride on ridesharing or other options.  

On 5/11/2021 at 10:36 AM, MTABusTransitFanner said:

How much longer do you think 2910 will stay on property?

Last flipdot D4500 at CP.  When are the next Prevost deliveries due in?  I would assume it will get phased out after another Prevost passes testing and goes into service.  I’ve seen this bus on Queens Blvd many times.  

Express bus are known to get the highest subsidy in the MTA system.  The NYC ferry isn’t part of the MTA system but is also heavily subsidized by NYC.

Each  transit option competes against each other but the express bus does integrate with the Metrocard system and one can get an unlimited 7 day express bus, bus and subway pass.  Some areas inside city limits have access to bus, express bus, subway, and LIRR including multiple express bus stops clustered in a single area for different lines.  The routes do go further away in the boroughs but to me it seems like one can merge some of the stops together especially if some express bus are going underutilized.  
 

I do admit the Prevost X3-45 are the nicest bus in the MTA system and I presume the most expensive as well by cost per bus.  They compete against the finest luxury coach bus models.  

In my area the LIRR is faster even after taking into consideration walking to the LIRR station which is nearby.  LIRR is actually off peak now at 6.50 from ticket machines (Zone 1 to 1) so it actually is cheaper till they resume regular peak fares.  Also City ticket is also available on weekends for 4.50.  
 

In other zones, I agree with you and Eastern Queens has a lot of transit deserts as well as higher fares as it would be zone 1 to 3 so express bus is definitely more worthwhile there.  The reality is the MTA heavily subsidizes express bus routes.  

The Prevost’s are nice buses for long trips and a short hop from NYC to NYC seem like overkill as some of the express bus routes seem to be shorter runs.  I realize the bus picks up passengers earlier than my stop but they don’t seem to go that far in terms of distance.

Subway is also available by me directly which is even cheaper and could be faster than Express bus once CBTC signals are operational but its generally more crowded with less available seating and other issues.  

I don’t get the appeal with the express bus.  Long Island Railroad is a faster ride into Manhattan.  The only convenience to me would be I would be able to get picked up right by where I live.  On the way back, the drop off location is in a different location another block away.  There are also other Express bus routes that have weekend and longer weekly hours which are also a block away for pickup and drop off.  

The Express bus makes sense for a one seat ride in Staten Island so you can bypass the Staten Island ferry and it also makes sense in transit deserts which are far from the Long Island Railroad.  But it doesn’t seem to compete favorably in areas like mine.  

The new Prevost X3-45 arriving at the depot of College Point where the bus are dispatched from in my area are very nice buses.  The seating looks to be the basic standard configuration from photos I have seen but I give MTA credit for using the screens for map and location information.  Greyhound’s X3-45 came standard with the monitors but they were unused but they did change the seats.  But considering there is no time savings for me compared to LIRR, they don’t seem to make sense.  A better usage would be to use Prevost’s on transit desert routes and Staten Island and other high density usage routes and phase down the older equipment.  In areas like mine, a better solution is to have commuter buses connect to the LIRR station rather than multiple express bus routes stopping in the area.  

The M8s will only operate on the New Haven unless there's a snow emergency in the future that requires extra trains on the Hudson or Harlem like once before with the M2s. Note that the difference between the M7A and M8 is that the M8 is compatible with both 750v DC (to GCT) and 12.5v AC/25 hz (on NEC) and has both collector shoes and pantographs.

It will be nice to see new cars in the tri state metro region from the NYC Subway to the LIRR to Metro North.

LIRR uses M3 + M7 now and will be getting M9 for extra service, then I assume more orders or another car to replace the M3s down the road.

Mass transit has gotten a lot more attention as of late. When thinking about the entirety of the MTA as an organization, seems like the breakdown and problematic pieces are old signalling systems and old cars.

Every day you see an MTA breakdown for signal issues in the subway although less car breakdowns now with the R32 + R42's finally getting removed from the system.

LIRR signals are pretty modern and new now. Am I correct to assume the last old signals are still at Jamaica and that will be replaced in Early 2010?

With the Valley Interlocking finally redone, seems like the system is much better.

Commuter rail in the northeastern United States is pretty good overall and should be better in the future.

Duplicate, Unable to delete as I don't know how to.

Even better, the Shinkansen 700 and E3 series!

Are the M8's going on the Harlem line or the New Haven lines?

Im not familiar with the train types on the Metro North. I am used to the train types on the LIRR and Subway.

LIRR has the M7's which are nice, and the subway has the modern R160's coming replacing those horrible R32 + R42's as we move into 2010.

M8's on the Metro North will be nice as well.