Burrstone

Hmm NICE makes me wonder how things would of went if the MTA never took over the 7 private bus operators in the city. Who knows those 1993 RTS's and a lot of the Orion V CNG's might have still been in service. I wonder how many Nassau County riders want the MTA to take things over again. I know I do because I feel sorry for those people who have to wait 30 minutes to an hour especially in the Queens portion for a bus to show up. They either don't show up or they break down which those new 1800's bus are starting to fit in with the other buses.

Search this section for MTA and skeleton system and tell me how much better you think things would be if was still around.

As Brett explained (and I have painstakingly explained over the years) is that given proper funding Veolia is a better bet to run the system over the MTA because Veolia runs the system for a less when broken down per hour, so whatever funding goes into the system Veolia does more per dollar, so the rider gets more per dollar from Veolia.  Pretty sad IMO considering this is true and Veolia is making a profit and still does more per dollar than the MTA did.  I thought this would have set alarms, having people in the city demanding an audit, but people still blindly think the MTA is best to run (whatever system).

I know, but its not like I'm using a regular Metrocard, it's an EasyPay with my name & photo ID. 

What is this EasyPay?  

I'm sure even easy pay can go empty, so what if your pictures on it? How's the driver supposed to know your card with your picture on it has money on it as opposed to Joe Blow who's picture is also on the card with no money trying to scam a free ride? 

...and while we're on the topic people need to start getting quarters before they get on the bus, walking up the down the bus with 2 dollar bills in your hand looking like an idiot.  Everybody knows you're lazy or trying to get a free ride hoping no one will have quarters (or will want to part with their quarters) so you get a free ride. If you don't have coins you should get kicked off immediately,sure I've seen  some people who are unfamiliar with the system, honestly forgot their change, or didn't have time to get change, but others are ridiculous with this  (you can tell the difference).

That is only speculation. The order has not been placed yet to the best of my knowledge. Please don't go spreading rumors.

He acted like the order was already made or was told from mgmt. But I think (and hope) it will be New Flyers. I sure hope its not crappy Gilligs...

I assume it will be New flyer BUT we haven't even seen a RFP put out for this order have we?

I don't have a CDL but maybe I'll check it out

Unless things have changed you need a CDL B with Passenger endorsement to be hired...

Don't waste your time. You're better off driving a school bus.

Long Island bus offered me part time (labo) for less money an hour than I was making driving a school bus, it wasn't worth it.  They had a pension if you were in it for the long run (how'd that work out lol) but I wasn't trying to make a career out of driving a bus (no offense to those who have or want to).  

Most were always better off driving off a school bus.  Even driving the able ride buses for Suffolk County starts off around $18-$20 an hour...

You'll make a hell of lot more money delivering school & transit buses than driving any school or transit bus locally.

I'd rather drive an Orion than a school bus any day, even if the Orion is likely to breakdown.

I'd rather drive a New Flyer C40LF but that doesn't mean I'm willing to go work for the in the city. 

And Long Island Bus tested buses like they did in the city?  When was the last test fleet or test bus in the LIB system?  Give me a break.  How do you know Veolia can't analyze data from fleets of different manufacturers in service around the country?  Are we going back to to the Veolia can't do like the assumptions again?

1008 was broken down on the side of Commack Rd earlier today hazards on, triangles behind it, it looked like they left it waiting for a tow.  Sunday evening I was near EBTs yard and 1004 was being towed...  These "newer" Orion.s are dropping like flies...

I could ask you the same question, couldn't I? No, I was actually doing something productive that day.

Come on man you have your entire life to be productive, how many more opportunities will you have to ride that bus?!

That would be slick, in the contract but also good publicity.

Someone at NICE went to school for marketing (or at least took a marketing class) making class lol...  Using  contracted service on social media to make them look like a good Samaritan on social media..  "Genius!" lol

NICE took the Fishbowl out today to Freeport:

 

Damn, I wanna drive that bus..

LI Operator ( http://www.nyctransitforums.com/forums/user/8792-li-operator/ ) was NICE enough to post this image of the Fishbowl on the n43:

 

 

117 went for a ride on the n43 line today down to Freeport before changing signs to remind people that n88 Jones Beach Service will soon be back!

 

http://www.nyctransitforums.com/forums/gallery/image/689-msba-117/

So this bus was actually in service?   Taking passengers?  

NICE GOING!

 

We currently have Service Quality Managers on the scene of the fire on North Central in Valley Stream providing shelter to evacuees with our Para buses.

 

 

 

This service must be in Veolia's contract with the County, I've been thinking this since I've also seen this on News12 with evacuated UPS employees keeping warm on a NICE bus as well evacuated residents in Massapequa after the oil tanker caught fire on Merrick rd.

What is the hickup?  I've never heard of the n19 terminating at the mall, then again I don't follow NICE nicebus on twitter,,,,

The n19 wastes so much time by traveling on Sunrise Hwy (some times of the day the traffic is heavier at times and the lights on Sunrise are long).  

The n19 should only cross cross Sunrise, it shouldn't travel it.  Also, the routing to the mall needs to be changed, 

I even dare to say the n19 should be routed to the Amityville RR and drop the mall all together, the bus would save so much time.  Passengers could transfer to a majority of SCT and NICE lines at Amityville RR if not they could transfer at the RR and take the S33 or n54/n55 from the RR to the mall.

The S1 should be extended to Montauk Hwy to connect with the N19. Either that or the N19 should divert to Amityville RR.

Amityville is the only town in Suffolk where particular road is called Merrick Rd not Montauk Hwy, come on Hound I thought you knew everything...   lol  It's not your fault, if you've driven the N19 I'm sure you've heard years of the bus announcements calling it Montauk Hwy.

Anyway, I agree with you, I have been saying both on here for years.  The shoulder is wide enough on both sides at the end of 110 and is far enough away from the corner of 110/Merrick that it wouldn't interfere.  There is a big community lot right there that the bus could turn around in.  As for the n19, I have shown (sometime somewhere here) that rerouting the n19 through Amityville RR and to the mall would not only route it through the RR but save it time getting to the mall rather than it's current route traveling on Sunrise HWY, there is no reason that bus needs to be on Sunrise as it doesn't even have any stops on Sunrise.  

I don't think you don't know what your talking but you have told me before Transdev's responsibility to your system over there is different than her, no?

Anyway all I'm saying is Veolia is given money to run the system, that is theirs just like a grocery clerk is given money by a company to provide their services to a grocery store (stocking shelves, using a cash register etc).

Veolia is also given funding from Nassau County, NYS, the federal government to run the system. This money pays to run the system as well things like buying buses. There may be provisions in the contract that Veolia has to lay for, but that's part of doing business.

Now let's say I run a snow plow company and you own a store with a parking lot in Nassau County. We have a contract that you will pay me $X to keep your lot and sidewalks clean of snow. I go out by a plow truck shovel to fulfill the contract, it is also in the contract that I must repair any potholes come the spring because of the plowing. In the spring I go out and buy the materials to repair the potholes. Am I throwing in money to upgrade your property? Of course not I was fulfilling a service and being paid to do the service the contract requires. I was paid to provide a service and I had to spend some of that money to fulfill the contract.

@Brett: The LIB announcements are still there on some buses.

 

Btw, congrats on your NICE Instagram featuring

 

@Burrstone: Transdev *will* kick in money *if* NICE asks them for extra money.

This is very different here, it is not Veolia/Transdev's responsibility to "kick in" money, fund, or in anyway subsidize Nassau County's bus transit system.  They won a bid to run the system for $X and nothing more.  This scenario could be different if let's say the contract required Veolia/Transdev to provide the equipment, then again 

Veolia has already kicked in some money into the system. They kicked in some money for the tracking system IIRC.

Can you provide a source?

http://www.nassaucountyny.gov/agencies/CountyExecutive/NewsRelease/2013/11-01-2013.html

"It will be paid for with an 80 percent grant from the Federal Transit Administration, with the remainder coming from New York State and Nassau County."

Anyway, like an equipment requirement Veolia could be required to provide this or required to provide a service that this technology allows such as better tracking of buses, bus timeliness, better tracking of buses/drivers etc.   (it takes money to make money).

Are we really debating whether a company could/would/should/is kicking money into the system?  That is not their job, they take /make money to run the system, they do not have an obligation to fund the system in any way.

Back onto the original topic of kicking in money for buses, it would be too sticky *if* they did and asking for huge problems when/*if* they lost the contract with the county.  Besides I think Veolia is smart enough to know that buses bought with any portion of federal funding have to stay in the municipality they were meant for.

How is it going off topic if I'm still talking about NICE and just reiterating what I said? It's not, and you're talking out of your ass right now.

How exactly am I talking out of my ass?

Regardless if you said *if* or not it was a follow up statement.  I saw *if* and my comment would have been the same whether you said if or not....

You talk about this section getting off topic, yet you feel the need to bring this conversation off topic to make me take notice you said *if*....  Are you serious?  Can we move on now?

The "buy NY" policy is a longstanding MTA policy. It's one of the reasons why Nova/Prevost is getting the bulk of their orders lately and why Orion was the MTA's "favorite company" when they were around. 

Is that why bought just under 350 Nova's between 2011-2013, bought about 750 New Flyer's between 2011-2013, and has an order in for 276 more New Flyer's?  lol

Obviously it means nothing now and NICE has no reason to give Nova (the last NYS builder) priority over any other builder just because they're in NYS.

I'm pretty sure I remember (without taking the time to look) that there was some sort of $incentive$ attached to this, if it's still around it could mean something to NICE.

No, but because Nassau funds part of the bus system, they may have a rule in place to take the lowest bidder of buses, and New Flyer or even NABI may get underbid by Gillig. If Transdev ends up providing extra funding for new buses, the rule may be put to the side.

Veolia/Transdev is not funding anything. lol  It works the other way, Nassau pays them to run the system, they don't fund anything...  This will go down as it always has (and usually does in most municipalities) 80% of the buses are funded, the local municipality or transit authority funds the balance and the buses are are the property of the local municipality.  Could you imagine the mess if Veolia kicked in extra money to buy buses, lost the contract at the end of this contract and they felt they were owed money or would take buses with the,?  Yikes!  lol

For the next bus order, i have a feeling that NICE will order some Gillig CNGs, seeing as though they are too poor to order New Flyers, unless the MTA steps in and pays for some XN40s.

The MTA has nothing to do with NICE, they handled the contract for decades and now Veolia runs the system.  The MTA stepping in to offer funds would make as much sense as SCT in Suffolk County or RGRTA up in Rochester stepping in to offer funds.

Are you forgetting that NICE has a successfull company behind them called Transdev? Transdev does invest in NICE and they can always ask Transdev for some extra investment. And as someone who occasionally works with Transdev, I can assure that will happen. So maybe they will go for New Flyers.

80% of the funds will come from state/federal funding and 20% comes from the municipality, in this case Nassau County...  Nassau County would be the owners of the buses, cut and dry...

I don't think Gilligs would perform well in the NICE system plus there's got to be a reason why the didn't buy them. This is a similar system to the one for buses. I'm sure New Flyer, knowing the neighboring system, would bid low enough for NICE to accept them.

I think the reason Nassau has an all ORION fleet is the same reason there are no Gillig's in the fleet, geography.  Orion was located up near Utica, NY and Gillig is located on the other side of the Country.  Besides, I think there was some sort of "buy NY" incentive offered, because I always remember schumer sticking his in the press talking about upstate workers building a bus for a downstate system.   blah blah blah...

With Gilligyou are talking about a 3,000 mile trip (an extra 3,000 on the odometer) and at least $6,000 to $9,000 in delivery expenses per bus with 40 buses that's $240,000 to $360,000 just for delivery.  Compare this to Orion in Oriskany, NY, less than 300 miles away, your talking 10% the cost for delivery.

Now for everyone saying NICE can't "afford" New Flyer, for the money allocated for new buses it comes out to about $400,000 per bus, which if you look at recent New Flyer orders it comes out to about $400,000 per bus.  The last NICE order was spec'd buses and if they do the same orders stripped down buses.  Believe me some places order buses with all the "bells and whistles" where the orders the bare bones.  

Speaking of the Veolia and the have a good working relationship, just ordered 276 Xcelsior buses, I wouldn't be surprised at all if NICE hammered out a deal to by some of those buses, NEw Flyer builds some in that order for NICE, or NICE excercizes an option for buses the MTA has on "order."

Just a heads up for anyone riding or planning on riding the n19...  I just saw on news12 that a tanker truck carrying home heating oil aught fire on Merrick rd in Massapequa in front of St. Rose church, I would expect a detour somewhere Lakeshore BLVD and Park Blvd on Massapequa.  It took hours took about 2 hours to put the fire out, residents were evacuated and just allowed back in the area.  Officials say they are now waiting on a crew to clean up the mess.  

In addition to a detour I would expect delays on n19....

Well, it's not like that in all of Nassau County. I've seen on-board videos of NICE in Nassau County (so not the Queens part) where there's a bus stop every block. If you live in b/w them you can choose whichever one you wanna walk to lol. And even then it's like a 2 min walk max.

I was joking, I ride both NICE and SCT and it seems people get a ride and I dont't want to say "a lot" but "I often" see people getting rides and the person giving the rides just cuts off the bus, slows to a stop, and the person gets on....

The n17 could really use more stops b/w Mercy MC and Rockville Centre. It's a beautiful route and I would die to live there but seeing the many miles b/w the stops... wow, I'd need a car to drive to the next bus stop.

LMAO welcome to Nassau County!  Actually don't worry about buying a car just have a friend or significant other drive you to the bus stop, and make sure you wait for until the last possible minute so the bus pulls out of your spot, follow it until you can get in front of it, put on your hazard lights, cut in front of the bus, slam on your brakes (forcing the bus to stop), you get on, whalla the Nassau County way...  lol

NYCT and MTA Bus Company (together, “MTA”) comprise the largest transit agency in North America with over 5,700 transit buses in their fleet of which approximately 1000 or 17% are New Flyer buses.  Over the last three years, New Flyer has delivered 668 transit buses or 758 equivalent units (“EUs”) to MTA with both clean-diesel and natural gas propulsions systems in 40- and 60-foot configurations.  In 2013 alone New Flyer built 118 buses or 138 EUs for MTA. 

 

 Can't believe the is only 17% New Flyer...

Just saying but that's kinda old news. It's part of the bigger 690 order split with them and Nova and Nova getting a bigger piece of the pie

Yeah, we've known about this for a bit...

Still beats those damn Novas.

Just reporting news that was posted on the New Flyer website, as it was only posted there Monday

NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT AWARDS NEW FLYER A CONTRACT FOR 276 40-FOOT XCELSIOR® BUSES VALUED AT $138M

http://www.newflyer.com/index/2014_02_03_new_york_award

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada – February 3, 2014: (TSX: NFI) (TSX: NFI.DB.U) New Flyer Industries Inc. (“New Flyer” or the “Company”), the leading manufacturer of heavy-duty transit buses in the United States and Canada, announced today that New York City Transit Authority (“NYCT”) has awarded New Flyer a firm contract for 276 heavy-duty 40-foot Xcelsior® clean diesel powered buses.  The contract is valued at $138 million.

NYCT and MTA Bus Company (together, “MTA”) comprise the largest transit agency in North America with over 5,700 transit buses in their fleet of which approximately 1000 or 17% are New Flyer buses.  Over the last three years, New Flyer has delivered 668 transit buses or 758 equivalent units (“EUs”) to MTA with both clean-diesel and natural gas propulsions systems in 40- and 60-foot configurations.  In 2013 alone New Flyer built 118 buses or 138 EUs for MTA. 

Paul Soubry, New Flyer’s President and Chief Executive Officer, announced, “We are very proud to have been awarded yet another opportunity to build buses for the NYCT, the largest bus operator in America.” Soubry added, “NYCT has among the harshest and most demanding operating profile of any transit agency in North America, so continued contract awards to New Flyer reaffirms our Xcelsior, offering world-class quality and industry leading product support with comprehensive warranty, service and lifetime customer care is meeting our customers needs.”

Production of the 276 Xcelsior® buses is expected to begin in the third quarter of 2014 with the delivery of four pilot buses.  All production buses are to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2015.

I wonder how they got that Pass-up count.  There are probably 100 a week on the n6 alone

Maybe they have someone watching the video's from the cameras on the buses, counting "pass-ups"?

If there are Gangsters riding the bus I've watched enough rap videos to know they are doing something wrong...  LMAO  But seriously, fake thugs carry real guns, so...

The passengers would yell at me though. Or just close it. Many don't seem to want fresh air. I'd open the window on cooler summer days when the air is off and the pax would ask me to close the window, even if the bus was stifling inside. I don't get it either... 

I open 'em, people sometimes give me a dirty look but if i'm hot and your cold you can put on carry a hoodie or jacket, I'm not sweating because your chilly.  Some people run hotter and colder than others, if you run cold bring something to put on, don't expect us to sweet.

Screw them, I'd pay no mind. lol

lol, you just have to be careful, some don't know any better. I've seen fights on the bus.(not over the windows though)

@Turbo19 No offense and not trying to start so don't blow up over a comment, but it's easier said than done when you're not used to the local clientele on these buses.  Most of these people are f**king crazy, not even kidding.

But whenever anyone says anything to me (unless I know them) the response is "Yea, okay" as I look the other way.  Translation: I don't give a shit...  lol

No the new ford SUV's they use for dispatchers and officials ... Maybe a para dispatcher? The veterans hospital is not that far way...