QM1to6Ave

19 hours ago, 7-express said:

Is this the first instance of express buses ever being cross-honored in the LIRR?

 

I don't remember seeing this before either, but when I think about it, they do it somewhat often for when the subway GOs are in effect, so they should certainly do it for express bus changes with a travel disaster like we had yesterday!

I caught a 40 foot bus on the M34A this morning, which I have not seen outside of the ice/snow days. I joked to the B/O that they are giving out short buses now, and he laughed and said they didn't have enough artics this morning to make service, so they gave him this. 

Interestingly, I noticed that despite the destination sign saying M34 A SBS, the rear door OMNY reader was not working and still said "enter through front door" or whatever it says on local routes. I thought the readers were tied into the destination sign? I've noticed the same thing when one of the non-branded M15 local buses are put on the M15 SBS, onkly the front OMNY reader works 
 

17 hours ago, vbede1 said:

I just got through a full week of using an unlimited express bus card. It's been a stressful week waiting for $0.00 and the rejection noise every time I used it, but it went through every time. 

The most frustrating thing was indeed that the operators had no idea that there was a problem, or what the $0.00 message meant. Only two operators knew of the problem and waved me on without hassle. The rest either tried to tell me that I was not using an unlimited, or that unlimiteds don't work on express buses (wtf?), or that I had no money on my card. So frustrating. I know more about the cards and farebox messages than they do. 

 

Yup, that all sounds right! The passengers usually know more about these kinds of things than the BOs

This is so pathetic that the MTA had such a glitch go on for so long...odd timing that the OMNY auto-pay glitch also stated occurring around this time. 

I know exactly the feeling expressed here of being tired of dealing with A**hole BOs who think it's their job to police the Farebox when they are actuslly instructed NOT to do so by command

8 hours ago, 7-express said:

Does auto-reload based on value for pre-tax benefit cards work again?  I had switched to a time based reload temporarily to keep it working.

I'm not sure as myself and the people I know who have one don't use the workplace benefit cards. But it seems to be fixed, so it's probably worth a shot to switch back...it seems like it was an issue for all credit cards, not just benefit cards 

18 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

A lot of people in the express bus commuting groups were pissed (mine and the Staten Island ones) about the change and I had everyone in those groups file formal complaints demanding that they change it back since I had heard from Customer Service that they were piloting the change. That's basically what happened. They received a ton of complaints and backtracked. When there is an uproar in the groups about service issues, I try to get those commuters to direct their issues at the  and not just complain on social media. It's been successful more times than not. Surprisingly, a lot of people also received personal responses, something else riders have complained about. They DO follow a large number of the commuter groups (I won't go into details, but there are a lot of  personnel in them), and sometimes I would "imagine" they even have meetings on things that transpire in them. 

A few of the bigwigs have retired, but I've been in meetings previously with the folks at the very top. How long all of this lasts... Who knows, but it's about time the riders have some say in the service they're paying for. I forgot that the SI Advance is in the groups. I should've reached out to one of the reporters I've spoken with before that has interviewed me, but they did a story on this, so yes, as I said, the  received a ton of complaints about it, which I encouraged express bus riders to do.

https://www.silive.com/news/2024/08/mta-restores-express-bus-seat-counts-on-mobile-app-heres-what-you-should-know.html

Excellent! I figured my lone email couldn't have been the tipping point. Glad that they gave so many individual responses 

8 hours ago, 7-express said:

Great that they gave you a real response rather than canned garbage.  At least they listened to the feedback quickly.

They could just have a traffic light AND passenger count to give the best of both worlds so they could appeal to the casual user and the power user/frequent commuters.  But that would make too much sense right?

HA! That's exactly what I suggested in my feedback email...I said that they should use TrainTime as a model for how to give both a color and a number.

On 7/31/2024 at 12:18 AM, Kamen Rider said:

So the ERA newsletter Calvin shared suggested they’re demolishing the old Marcy Avenue tower…

 

if they are doing it… they’re moving at an absolute snail’s pace.

so far, to my “passes that thing multiple times a day” eye, all they’ve done is take the door off the bottom floor.

i am off the next three days (bereavement leave, my grandmother passed on Saturday), this weekend, there is another GO cutting service back to Hewes… like last weekend…

if the tower looks exactly the same on Monday as it did today, I am seriously calling that report into question…

I'm sorry for your loss!

10 hours ago, 7-express said:

Some OMNY news in this post...saying there are no plans to bring Trip History back.  Pretty shitty since we're basically going backwards from the good experiences with MetroCard EasyPayXpress to this piecemeal system we have now.

https://gothamist.com/news/why-the-mtas-bus-drivers-dont-enforce-the-fare

Woww...at least the OMNY auto-pay system seems to have come back online after whatever glitch stopped it from working. 

@TyBusLover1 and @7-express, believe it or not, I actually got the following response from the MTA today from my email about the passenger count disappearing. I wonder how many other complaints they got--I find it hard to believe they actually changed it back just because of my one little email!

Thank you for using MTA Bus Time. We piloted the color-coded system in Bus Time, which can be more meaningful to less frequent bus riders, in place of providing specific passenger counts. We heard your feedback, and have restored the passenger counts. We are looking at how to present this information in a way that is helpful for all our customers.

We take the concerns of our customers very seriously and thank you again for taking the time to contact us.

Ben D.
MTA Customer Experience

10 hours ago, TyBusLover1 said:

@QM1to6Ave @7-express So it seems that BusTime has bought back the passenger count & the traffic light system is no where to be seen.

Go figure! Either they took my complaint email VERY seriously lol, or maybe they were just beta testing it. I wouldn't be shocked if it reappeared suddenly again. I know @Via Garibaldi 8 had previously been in touch with the BusTime team, but who knows if that team even still exists

2 hours ago, 7-express said:

If I had to guess, it's probably calibrated to be what a local bus would be so it's jacked up when standees are rare for an express bus but the norm for a local bus.  It really should be yellow above 25 people and red past 40.  Setting red to max seat capacity at 55 would be nuts lol.

I sent in a request to bring back the passenger count. Let's see what they say

6 hours ago, 7-express said:

It also broke the MTA app, which doesn't support the traffic light occupancy indicators.  Now, clicking on a bus on the route just shows ~0 passengers.

Already got burned by the new passenger count system. Get on a QM35 that is showing the green/seats available but I ended up having to share a seat because there were at least 30 people on board already. It at least needs a yellow/moderately full level, like Train Time. 

I'm guessing it goes from green straight to red when 57 pax get on board an exp bus

37 minutes ago, 7-express said:

It also broke the MTA app, which doesn't support the traffic light occupancy indicators.  Now, clicking on a bus on the route just shows ~0 passengers.

Typical MTA lol

1 hour ago, 7-express said:

I saw some with limited availability on local buses but haven't found any reds yet.

I feel like most express buses will just be green even though we all know over a certain amount, you're going to be sharing a seat with someone else.  But no real way of being able to tell that anymore...

Ugg yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. I'll send in a comment requesting that they put back the numbers in addition to the color coding, like they have on Traintime

22 hours ago, 7-express said:

Has anyone noticed they changed the bus occupancy indicators on BusTime?  Gone are the approximate passenger counts, replaced by a traffic light system to tell if seats are available or not.

I just noticed that today! I wish they still included the passenger count in addition, as I don't know what their criteria are for the categories. I only saw the green "seats available", what else does it show?

6 minutes ago, 7-express said:

I found out on Reddit that OMNY has disabled auto-reloads from transit benefits cards based on value.  Apparently it will only auto reload based on a scheduled time for now.

Really makes no sense why they made this change.  It worked like this for years with the EasyPayXpress MetroCard with no issues.  Now, you have to go through more leg work to keep your card topped off.

You have to cancel your auto-reload via the Digital Assistant and then manually reset it.  Really dumb they have to hide this through a buggy interface and force you to use the Digital Assistant to get anything done right.

You know what, maybe 5 mins ago I got an alert from my bank that OMNY did an auto-deduction, and sure enough I just logged in and now it is back to saying "auto-reload when value falls below $30", like I had set it originally. I can't explain how or why it disappeared and suddenly reappeared. I'm using a standard credit/debit card btw, not a transit benefit card. I'll keep monitoring and report anything new.

13 hours ago, 7-express said:

On my OMNY account, they seem to list "Personal Funds" and "Pre-tax Benefits" now.  Previously, everything was just personal funds regardless of funding source.  But I guess they're segregating funds from a pre-tax card now?

Auto-reload still seems to be dead though.  Anyone else still seeing this problem?

Yup, auto reload suddenly disappeared. WTF. Nearly had an empty balance today, and I don't see the option to re-enter auto-reload info when I log in.  Mine is stuck saying "reload in progress", but I can manually reload without issue. 

21 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

So the updates to the September schedule have come out, and oh boy does it look like GCT was a massive waste of money for LIRR…

Non-Daytime Weekend West Hempstead service now ends at Jamaica. Daytime Weekend service serves Grand Central exclusively, eliminating all through service to/from Atlantic Terminal on weekends. 

Weekend Long Beach services runs to Penn Station exclusively.

Oyster Bay now has two direct trains to Penn Station.

Weekend daytime Far Rockaway service will serve Grand Central exclusively.

Middays, late evenings, and weekend Port Jefferson trains will run to Penn Station exclusively.

Middays, late evenings, and weekend Ronkonkama trains will run to Penn Station exclusively.

 

Wowww...are they trying to make BK service truly just a shuttle to/from Jamaica?

8 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Yes it's helpful, though the issue has primarily been on the X27, X28, X37 and X38.  I received a message this morning that the problem seems to be an issue that is not related to the actual Metrocard, but they don't seem to know exactly what the problem is at the moment, which is not good because that means that this may go on for a while before it is fixed, so for @vbede1 @Mc76nyc @abc12345 @cabby @QM1to6Ave and anyone else that uses a 7-Day Express Bus Metrocard... Management is aware of the problem and trying to figure out how to resolve it.  I would keep all of your receipts and document when you started having a problem and when it is resolved, see if you can be reimbursed if you were forced to pay $14.00 extra per day because your 7-Day express bus pass could not be read by the farebox.  

It seems that as of this morning, the issue may not be isolated to just the X27, X28, X37 and X38, but may be an issue on a wider scale, but too early to be certain.  If I were you, I would NOT start a new express bus pass until this is resolved and I will circle back here when I have more updates.

 

Thank you!!

57 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

What’s going on with the numbers on 302 lol

Ran out of 2's and it was cheaper to turn a 5 backwards LOL...probably put in for overtime to do that

1 hour ago, 7-express said:

Yeah it's definitely unreliable if say 60-70% of the trips are run by drivers rushing back for an OT run.  But I guess it's useful to document the extent of the driver shortage since every one on the list represents a missing regular driver/standby driver and is made up by management throwing out as much OT as humanly possible.

Absolutely--or sometimes the other trick they use is if, say, there's a 15 min gap between buses, the dispatcher has the first bus wait around for like 8 mins and then start his run, to try and semi-combine the two runs (and have a packed bus)

10 hours ago, Kingsbridgeviewer382 said:

No, they’re for service. One of them has already been painted in the old MTA colors (2200) and the other 14 are being fixed up. You can find a picture of it on the Fleet & Depots thread.

Cool, thanks! I can't find the pics in the thread...do you know what page they are on?

On 5/18/2024 at 8:20 AM, NewFlyer 230 said:

I use the LIRR at least once a week, however some weeks I use it more times and today is the first time in a few months (3-4 months) since I caught a M9.  These trains are a nice little upgrade from the M7’s but it’s like they don’t exist at times. 
My biggest complaint with the M7’s are those nasty windows that you can’t see out of. 

On 5/18/2024 at 3:18 PM, danielhg121 said:

I believe the M9’s have the same windows lol. They’ll crystallize, fade or haze eventually.

I thought it had to do with the type of window cleaner they were using, combined with sun exposure? I remember something about MNRR not having the problem because they used a different cleaning process or something. 

On 5/16/2024 at 7:06 PM, 7-express said:

Even though this thread is dead, it's no surprise to learn most of the missed runs have been caused by insufficient operators.  And a minority of issues caused by bus maintenance issues: https://www.thecity.nyc/2024/05/16/express-bus-canceled-mta-drivers/

This week, I saw back to back QM2/QM20 PM trips cancelled leading to a huge gap in service in the middle of the PM rush.  Crap like that is not what we need leading up to congestion pricing kicking in and you're left waiting 30+ mins for another bus during rush hour.

It’s so funny how every so often, they suddenly bring back the emails that list the individual trips that are being cancelled…except it is inaccurate so much of the time! They end up making service on a number of the trips, making the whole system useless.