MHV9218

Problem is salt isn't effective below about 25º, so most of the big freeze won't be impacted. They really need to brine more than salt. We might get lucky if this rain wraps up early enough in the day. I wouldn't wanna drive tomorrow morning though, I'll say that. I'm dreading the salt for my car, which is gonna get covered in the stuff, but so be it.

Stengel had the colors changed a few years ago too, that was also an update.

This seems like an easy one for me. Quill has been best in the city ever since the new West Side building opened around twenty years ago. ENY probably second best in terms of mechanical shape, cosmetically not always quite as much (some of the customers don't help).

It is a "net zero." Nobody got seriously hurt, the passengers are fine, and the guy will go rot in jail for a while. The death-by-auto alternative proposed here accomplishes not much.

This incident had a net zero effect on society. Your alternative kills a guy, traumatizes the bus op forever, and suggests we embrace vigilante justice. Why is that better?

The quote I responded to, if you read any of these posts besides making up a conversation, was that crime was worse "than ever." Nobody brought up this year against last year. And by the way, the crime rate is actually far lower than the 1990s, as surprising as that might seem. I don't disagree with you about the presence of EDPs or the problem at hand. Agreed. That much is definitely back – it chills me how often I hear from people of all ages now that they stand with backs against the wall when a train approaches. For my part, I definitely look over my shoulders. Not something I did as much a few years ago.

What exactly is the point of this statement? I offered you crime stats from a period in the 1980s and 1990s, and crime stats from the present day. I didn't compare last year to this year, or two years ago to this year. What was "wrong" about anything I said? You can disagree with things I've said, not things I haven't said.

You're definitely right that it's gotten out of hand down there, and it's really going to reduce ridership until the NYPD and TA can get things cleaned up underground. But I don't know if I would agree that it's worse "than ever." There were more than 15,000 transit felonies in 1981, about 14,000 in 1990. 2022 had 1,500 transit felonies as of October, meaning we can probably expect around 2,000 over the year. Unless there was a major shift in how certain felonies are classified that I'm not aware of – which is possible, I'm not a crime expert – I think we can safely say it's a lot safer than it used to be.

Good memory! Not my photo - comes from WorthPoint's archive: https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0321/06/vintage-nyc-subway-lawrence-sign_1_49bf387a3b0ba67e2c422a1a9d354873.jpg These come up for sale every 6-12 months, I'd say. Usually $300 and up depending on condition.

What the hell could have hit that?

Kind of a straw man, the guy who shot up the N train wasn't concerned about cameras because...there were no cameras. And then when they caught him after, it was from cameras on the street. Hard to see how that isn't a useful tool. And $6 million pays for like, four hours worth of NYPD. Would require a way more substantial investment.

Lot of Aesys-sign XD40s getting their fonts adjusted. Not all of them have the angular "NOT IN SERVICE" reading anymore, that's been re-coded to have the same rounded letters as a lot of the standard Luminator/Hanover buses.

I've been seeing Quill buses on the Flatbush Extension getting on the Manhattan Bridge around 5-7pm for the past couple days. What are those buses doing out there?

The MTA only getting 12-13 years out of those NGs (depending on build date in 2009) really is an indictment on those buses and those batteries. I can't think of a 40-foot order that aged that badly for the TA in ages.

Yeah, I'm fairly certain some of the 1996s overhauled in the "Program" in 2016 or 2016 made it to 700k or higher. 500k is standard for a bus of 12+ years. What people might be confusing is the MINIMUM life, not MAXIMUM life. The FTA regulates that federally-funded buses need to run for 12 years OR 500k miles. If a transit agency retires a bus before that point, and it's federally-funded, the FTA can say the agency is delinquent and refuse to give them as much money in the future. So you'll never see the MTA retiring buses before 12 years or 500k miles, unless it's a demo/niche fleet purchased without federal money. After those thresholds are met, then the agency can start retiring the fleet. The MTA will run a bus for 700k, 800k miles if they think it's still valuable in terms of replacement cost. That's what happened with the RTS fleet. The OG hybrids or some of the D60s, not so much.

Seems like 5878 as well. Wonder why Quill needs the buses.

Generally speaking els were considered loud, ugly, and inconvenient. They make the streets below them dark and they depress real estate value in the immediate area due to their noise. Underground lines don't have any of these issues. Els were demolished in denser, wealthier areas with more political power and kept in neighborhoods that were poorer and had less political say. The same has largely been true the world over with the exception of the Chicago Loop, as well as some neighborhoods in NYC which became prosperous only decades after el demolition had stopped (like Long Island City).

You guys see the mess in Connecticut? Every XE40 pulled from service after spontaneous combustion at a depot. Doesn't bode amazingly for the fleet.

Crazy the roof is already breaking apart, that's not an old building by any standard. Contractor should have some questions to answer.

Saw a NG with the Luminator muticolor sign running the M20 today. Anybody identify the bus? Assume it came from MV.

Some of the LFS HEVs are getting the same tiny text error on the front destinations that the LFSAs had for a while a year or two back. Looks goofy again.

6218 was running out of TU today with Hale stickers still on (and the wrap ofc). Is that a loan or sticking?

Hey, I don't blame the old people with flip phones, I blame Transit for not planning a way to reach the old people with flip phones. It was the same story when they took down posted timetables at bus stops and replaced it with a QR code to scan, which in my eyes was just a terrible idea and took away a ton of useful information from riders. Sometimes your phone dies, sometimes you don't have one, etc. But you're right, there's also a wall they hit here, which is people just ignoring the notices until it happens.

Some of those XD40s from the second batch still really move. Was on 7363 today, absolutely flying and crazy sounds to it as well. Really hung in the lower gears which was nice for acceleration. Reminded me of an LACMTA Xcelsior a bit.

Interesting. Sounds like wishful thinking in terms of demand... seems like half the Bronx is still trying to figure out what the hell happened. I know they announced everything online months ago, but half the riders on Bronx local buses are old people with flip phones who don't speak English as a first language. Announcing everything on Twitter doesn't exactly help them.