Amtrak7

No they are currently doing driver training in the coliseum parking lot.

 

 

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I wonder how well this will go...training drivers in a parking lot isn't exactly the best prep for the road.

The rumored date, according to NICE, is April 9th.

That's the date of the cuts, which is also their pick, so if it's April it pretty much has to be April 9th.

Setzer admitted, if the revenue situation stays the same, there will be more cuts next year as costs rise. Obviously if that were the case, the cuts would be smaller dollar-wise than these cuts, but they get more and more painful as you go down the list...

The worst service cut is the closing of the Rockville Centre Depot. Seltzer even said it himself, it would be forced to reduce peak hour service by 40 buses and rearranging Mitchel Field. I say it over and over again this is a short sighted move, but NICE won't listen. Mr Setzer keep saying "If we have money we will restore route" I want to ask him "How", because there won't be any space. I'm afraid these April Cuts are going to be permanent

I don't have a problem with closing a depot, so long as it's not demolished or sold....

That, or for interlining purposes @ Sunrise.....

Interlining with what? Both the n54 and n55 go to Amityville now, the n81 won't exist, and the n80 will be ARBOC's.

I can't help but feel that there is this connection with the taxi companies in the BTC (especially Sheldon Shrenkel) he looks like he couldn't care less about the bus riders. I went to one of the meetings today, this is the best line from Sheldon "You should continue the able ride experiment (using taxis) if it's cost neutral (with All Island Taxi). Only 3-4 of the committee members actually care about bus service

Taxi paratransit has been tried in several cities, including NYC. As far as I know, most have been successful in both saving the agency money and increasing rider convenience.

Does 25M mean the number of times a person boards a bus?  If a person uses 2 buses in the morning and 2 at night for 300 days a year, that person is counted 1200 times?

Unlinked passenger trips, so that example would be correct.

Two quick ridership plots I made using NTD data a couple days ago...

A slightly modified version of my big post from several pages back, including the edits that I sprinkled in since:

Remember, if NICE follows typical transit agency economics, saving peak buses is a LOT more beneficial than saving off-peak buses. So rush hour service needs to be trimmed where possible.

-n1 eliminate Green Acres-Hewlett. Hourly off peak service. Reduce span of Jamaica service.
-n4 rush hours locals short turn at RVC / n4X make all stops FPT-RVC.
-n19 eliminate on weekends.
-n20H turn back all off peak and most peak trips at Glen Cove Road or CW Post.
-n21 reroute via n27 at rush hours / eliminate at other times.
-n24 No East Meadow service
-n27 Hourly all day long
-n31 Lynbrook to Far Rockaway only, rush hours only. n32 30min headway Saturdays
-n33 Transfer to City of Long Beach (like the Point Lookout route); if not possible, operate a 40 minute headway all day long using 1 bus Far Rock to the Long Beach city line.
-n35 Eliminate Westbury service. Terminate NCC when in session, else Hempstead.
-n36 Eliminate.
-n45 Eliminate.
-n46 Restore. Go down Newbridge Road to Bellmore Avenue.
-n47 Eliminate.
-n48 Eliminate Saturday service and Jericho Quad shuttle.
-n49 30-40min Saturday headway. Extend all trips to SUNY Old Westbury.
-n51 Eliminate.
-n54/55 No n54 Amityville service.
-n57 Keep, convert to minibus.
-n58 Eliminate north of USMMA.
-n70 Eliminate designation.
-n71 Operate n81 route to Sunrise Mall (leaving Hempstead Tpk at Merrits Rd)
-n72 Combined with the hourly n71, 15min peak/30min off peak headway. Terminate at Republic Airport shopping plaza and divert trips into SUNY Farmingdale to provide a 30min headway there during the hours campus is open
-n78 Eliminate.
-n79 Keep.
-n80 Eliminate.
-n81 Minibus, hourly weekdays only. Operate via Rt 107 route to Central Avenue, then Central up to Stewart, then divert up to Bethpage LIRR, then Stewart to Hempstead Turnpike and terminate.
-Shuttles: Eliminate all.
-Elmont Flexi: Keep, hourly, dropping all Flex stops except for Fletcher/Dutch Broadway.

This is the NICE labor contract with TWU 252 that expires this year: http://twulocal252.org/sites/default/files/transdev_contract.pdf

Of note, this explains why there is such a big difference between Saturday and Sunday service. A driver's two off days a week need not be consecutive if one of them is Sunday.

I'm glad they are keeping the N22A and the full N35, since the westbound N22A gets quite heavy ridership (especially at Willis/Hillside) and the N35 has heavy ridership north of Hempstead especially on days when NCC is in session.  (When you're cutting the N45 and N51 that go to NCC, you need to rely on the N16, N43 and N35 to pick up the slack now.)

 

If they had to make cuts, they're making cuts that affect the fewest number of people.

Yeah, I agree that cutting the n35 back at Hempstead or RFM, especially when NCC is in session, is a bad idea.

But does it really need to go past NCC? Every little bit of route mileage can save a lot of money, especially on a route with a decent span of service like the n35.

Hopefully, whoever becomes County Executive after Mangano will try to find a way to fund the bus system, so that Nassau doesn't have random service levels.

Agreed. Mangano's indicted and even if he does run again I don't think he'll win. Veolia's got the contract until 2021 (I think).

The n71 is being kept mostly to so service levels on Hempstead Turnpike between the Terminal and Farmingdale at 30 minutes, even though very few people stay on the 71 after 109 for the mall. As for the 72, I still have no idea what they intend to do with the route. Originally, I thought that it would be something along the lines of: n70 to Farmingdale State, n71 to Sunrise Mall, and n72 to Route 110/Conklin, but after reading the service changes I'm convinced it will just be the n70 and n71 unless NICE has something planned for the 72 that they won't reveal until the meeting on February 16th.

But you could turn the n71 back somewhere between Farmingdale and the Mall to save money, if nobody rides down Carmans.

Either it'll be n70 SUNY / n71 Sunrise Mall / n72 Route 110 and the website is wrong, or it'll be n71 Sunrise Mall / n70-n72 SUNY. The latter would be driven only by the intent to avoid saying that a route is going to be "eliminated".

It also may overserve SUNY Farmingdale, which isn't a huge campus to begin with. Right now the AM Peak Hempstead Turnpike headway is 10 minutes. If that were kept, you'd have 5 buses per hour (in the same direction) going to SUNY Farmingdale, which isn't needed.

Now that I think of it, I agree with B35. It should be one route from Hempstead to Farmingdale, keeping the same service levels as the combined route today. It would go up 110 to the college then back down 110 at the Walmart by the airport. Every other rush hour trip and all weekend trips would go straight to the Walmart. If they wanted to maintain a Hempstead Turnpike-Sunrise Mall connection, I'd rather have it go down Merrits Road and N Broadway, covering some of the n81 route, instead of Carmans Avenue which is almost all residential.

My suggestions for changes...given that the financial picture only gets worse as costs rise.

-n1 eliminate Green Acres-Hewlett. Hourly off peak service. Reduce span of Jamaica service.

-n4 rush hours locals short turn at RVC / n4X make all stops FPT-RVC.

-n4X and n6X nonstop in NYC limits.

-n19 Keep.

-n20H turn back all off peak and most peak trips at Glen Cove Road or CW Post.

-n21 reroute via n27 at rush hours / eliminate at other times.

-n24 No East Meadow service

-n27 Hourly as proposed, no extra rush hour service (use n21)

-n31 Lynbrook to Far Rockaway only, rush hours only. n32 30min headway Saturdays

-n33 Transfer to City of Long Beach (like the Point Lookout route); if not possible, operate a 40 minute headway all day long using 1 bus Far Rock to the Long Beach city line.

-n35 Eliminate Westbury service. Terminate NCC when in session, else Hempstead.

-n36 Eliminate.

-n45 Eliminate.

-n46 Restore. Go down Newbridge Road to Bellmore Avenue.

-n47 Eliminate.

-n48 Eliminate Saturday service and Jericho Quad shuttle.

-n49 30-40min Saturday headway. Extend all trips to SUNY Old Westbury.

-n51 Eliminate.

-n54/55 No n54 Amityville service. All Saturday service runs n55 route through Massapequa.

-n57 Use minibus.

-n58 Eliminate north of USMMA.

-n70 No service east of SUNY Farmingdale.

-n71 No change.

-n72 No service east of Rt 110/Rt 109 (serve the shopping center there though, 7 days a week)

-n78 Eliminate.

-n79 Keep.

-n80 Eliminate.

-n81 Minibus, hourly weekdays only. Operate via n80 route to Central Avenue, then Central up to Stewart, then divert up to Bethpage LIRR, then resume regular route via Stewart Avenue south.

-n88 Not sure, there has to be some savings that can be gotten here, though. Maybe some weather clause.

-Shuttles: Eliminate Mercy, FPT, RVC. Hicksville-Wantagh remains.

-Elmont Flexi: Keep, hourly, dropping all Flex stops except for Fletcher/Dutch Broadway.

http://nicebus.com/Passenger-Information/Schedule-Changes.aspx

It's more or less what we expected. The details of the "major" reductions:

-Elmont Flexi and n27 reduced to hourly

-n71 not running to Amityville (I'm not sure what this means, the route doesn't run to Amityville as is)

-n70/72 no service east of Farmingdale, might as well drop a designation (though that may be politically difficult)

-n80/81 combined and van

Setzer wrote a letter to the Legislature:

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nice-letters-to-nassau-legislators-1.13042137

I'm pleased to report to you that we have found ways to offset the $5 million in cost increases. It will involve painful actions like closing a facility, layoffs, forgoing merit increases, and other steps [including MTA fare hike] that will pose some challenges. The responsibility for bringing all those savings to reality will be Transdev's.

Signs have been seen on buses advertising hearings at 3pm and 6pm on Feb 16.

I'm suprised with no change/cut on the n21. Now it has bare bones service already, but most people want the n20H over the n21

Yeah. It seems that NICE is only looking at entire routes or hours of entire routes to cut, and not looking deep enough into segments (Glen Cove part of the n21, Kings Point n58, Jericho Quad n48, etc.) They may be small savings each, but added together it's sizeable, especially if you can save peak vehicles.

The threshold for committee action is 25% of the service hours on a given route.

This is a totally different set of cuts than I expected...I wonder why the n48 Jericho Quad is staying, that segment has almost no ridership.

That portion is also closed for work.

It's not closed, but do you really want all in the Cranberry?

The budget is due in April, so "Setzer said he intends to make another push for 'deep service cuts' next month"

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/pol-seeks-nassau-county-audit-of-nice-bus-contract-1.12990994

They should be able to get a whole lot of work done, there's full weekend outages between and after the two night 6 Av shutdowns 

New schedules for 11 routes will go into effect this Sunday January 15, 2017.

http://nicebus.com/Passenger-Information/Customer-Advisory-Committee.aspx

New sheets

Weekday

Saturday

Sunday

Not all that many changes. Timetable ends April 8.

My instinct is that there's some Jerome express run that's not yet posted, and that this is a flagging thin-out.

Are all the XN40's ordered on property yet? Saw 1961 yesterday on the n20G in Flushing.

ok so I guess it's valid, however out of curiosity, what happens if you have to transfer trains such as Penn to Oyster Bay with a Manhasset to Penn Ticket, do you need to tell the conductor? Do they punch a new ticket?

Just tell the conductor you're going to Oyster Bay, and it'll be punched accordingly.

Every LIRR ticket has 3 punch targets per direction for this reason (east of Jamaica leg 1, east of Jamaica leg 2, west of Jamaica). Being on the same stock, MNR tickets also have 3 punch targets. But being that their tickets are only serviced once unless a transfer is required, I'm not sure how theirs works.

That's it NIFA approves new budget 4 million cut from NiCE Bus so with a 2.6mi Subsidy, I guess it would be a mix of Jan and April cuts http://longisland.news12.com/news/nifa-approves-nassau-county-s-amended-budget-1.12758171

Mix of, and more, since the January cuts aren't taking effect in January.

Just wondering have A R/T ticket from Penn to Manhasset. Used one portion of it, can I use the other portion of it from Woodside to Mineola on a later date? Does the Same rule apply to Metro North?

A ticket is valid for any station within the zones printed on it. The two halves of a round trip are treated independently. Both Woodside and Penn are in Zone 1, both Manhasset and Mineola are in Zone 4. So your ticket is valid.

Same rule applies on MNR between the Hudson and Harlem lines.

I'm just loving this random guessing...I don't think anyone will get it right LOL, it's that wonky. 

What was the n73/74 ridership in 2015?

 

And yeah, I don't see a point in restoring these services just to cut them a few months later. You destroy the ridership because each time you cut a route, people find alternatives (buying a car, changing jobs, etc)

 

 

The n88 is too busy for them to cut. It actually makes money. 

I got the 2015 numbers from last year's service cut presentation, which only provided them for n6, n4, n40/41, n22, n20/21, n31/32, n14, n17, n50, n51, n62, n80, and n81.

Yep, I agree with you. Surprised the n80/81 drop was as small as it is.

From the image in the post above (https://www.flickr.com/photos/114577165@N06/31406339881/) the n88 has a $6.55/rider subsidy.

I'm curious where we go from here. We need to wait for the legislature and NIFA to both approve their budgets, which should be soon, and possibly for the MTA to approve the fare hike, which should be in January. STOA won't be known until the state budget is done, which is in April, way too late. I'm not sure what the board members' arguments for voting no were, but one possible thing was that Setzer said that the January cuts save $1.5M and the MTA's fare hike brings in at most 1M. Those numbers are close enough...