Vistausss

It will be easier to implement when every bus could be tracked by GPS. now, they would have to have dispatchers all around at timepoints.

You're right, I didn't think of that. In that case it makes sense for them to start enforcing the new rules in Q3/Q4 instead of March 30th  

Like I said last year: here in The Netherlands and since Q4 2013 also in Germany, Transdev started enforcing new, strict rules about running on schedule in their companies. If you're too far behind schedule and it's something *you* as driver could've prevented, you get a warning. If you're running early (even as early as 3 minutes early - they measure it via the black box), you have to wait at the next stop (or sometimes next timing point, depends on the route) until you're back on schedule again. If not, you'll get a warning. 3 warnings and you're fired.

IIRC, Transdev wanted to enforce this on NICE as well starting Q2 2014. But maybe they've changed the date on that (wouldn't surprise me, sometimes they're quite unpredicatble ), I'll ask them next week.

Oh, I just received word that those new rules are to be put into effect on NICE at or around the final rollout of 'the new system' (by which they mean the first day of Clever, which was Q4 IIRC?). Well, better late than never, I'd say, although for image sake they should've put the new rules into effect by March 30th IMHO.

People being unfriendly doesn't say anything about satisfaction. Ratings over here in my city are pretty good every year yet a lot of people are unfriendly to b/o's. I've noticed it in videos of Express Buses as well.

It says more about the people being rude (and sometimes obnoxious) than it says about service, really.

It's good to see that at least one Orion VII is getting a repair job They can do better still but hey, one fixed = one problem less at least.

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

I accidentally hit the -1 button on your post. I'm sorry Was supposed to be a +1

Well I can tell NICE bus is failing. I've never taken any Nassau routes but the N20/21 waiting times in Flushing is becoming worst. It wasn't the best under the MTA but at least you had a bus show up. Some people on the N20/N21 line said that they have waited at times for almost 2 hours and the drivers always say that the buses breaking down a lot. Last week I saw a newer 1800 series Orion 3G bus being towed in Flushing. I notice the same in Jamaica when I used to take the Q41 at 165st terminal I would literally see a lot of Long Island buses going in and out of the terminal. This was on Saturdays back before LIB became NICE bus. The Q41 has suck headways on the weekends often times having you wait 20-30 minutes at times and now (2013 and 2014) I may only see only 1 or 2 NICE buses leave the terminal.

 

I guess the is never going to run Long Island Bus again since Nassau county only offered $4 Million.

If did so well with maintaining buses, then why did even the newer bus not pass the inspection? Yeah, good maintenance ! [/sarcasm]

Conclusion: both LIB and NICE are no king of the hill when it comes to maintaining buses.

-

For once I'm being skeptic about NICE and now I'm getting the ball lol. Nah, I totally understand

Anyway: it might as well be the fan belt. Or something's loose underneath the bus scraping against the asphalt or something else's loose in the motor. Anywho, they should fix it if they want to prolong the life of the bus (esp. when it's only 3 years old!).

Totally agree with you guys. Smart Cards, in any form including the MetroCard, are 100x better than carrying all that cash or paying per zone.

PATH is overseen by Port Authority of New York and New Jersey so no wonder they accept MetroCards. SCT, on the other hand, is not overseen by NY or NJ. NICE isn't either, but LIB was and besides, there are too many NICE MetroCard users to call it quits.

Riding 1832 this afternoon. Very sad how a bus that's just over 3 years old sounds like this. I mentioned it to the driver, he said there's no maintanance and they won't fix it until he gets stuck with it. Sounds like the fan belt.

 

 

 

 

 

Although I've tried to be optimistic, I have to say it's worse. Before Mangano & co came along MTA LI Bus was increasing ridership. Especially once NYCT got involved out here, the buses were cleaner and more reliable. Let me first say that when you're spending less on buses, and the moneys allocated to NICE by the County are lower than that under LI Bus, service will suffer. Quite a few routes run less often, meaning longer waits and more overcrowding. There's a lower quality of maintanance, so there's more equipment failures. The buses are definately dirtier. The $36 Million the MTA was demanding from the County was reasonable when compared to other nearby systems, but Nassau said they could do it for less. But it's of lower quality. You get what you pay for, just like getting fooled by those "deals" from Bob's furniture, but you then find out it's junk.

Now I'm not hating on Veolia, they're just doing what they can afford, they only get $2.6Million from the county, that's about a quarter of what MTA got, so of course service is going to suffer. I've seen the lost ridership first hand, as I find myself taking the 6:48pm n51 from Merrick often, and we used to pick up a group of commuters. I even remember their faces, but they no longer ride, and now I'm often the only one on the bus. Most now drive or get picked up, I guess after some no-shows and being left waiting at the station they had enough. Sorry to be so down on this system but I've given up, not worth my effort anymore, no one in Mineola cares and the people who could make choices have left the system, and what remains are the poorest of the poor. Ed Mangano's State of the County is tomorrow night, and I'm sure he'll continue to throw us all under the bus.

Regarding your video: are you talking about that screeching noise? I heard that last year on new MAN CNG buses in Arnhem as well. Those buses were just over a year old and do get maintenance.

Now I'm not defending NICE, I just thought that with new CNG's it's normal for engines to sound like that but seems like it isn't because I've never heard it on other Orion's before. So thank you

I'm not seeing that much dirt in NICE bus videos but I won't say they're clean either. But don't pin it on NICE, Transdev cut a lot of contracts with cleaning companies last year to fill the budget gap. Buses over here are getting dirtier as well because of that. I wish I'd taken a picture for you this afternoon to show you the dirty side panels and windows (and the chassis of one of the buses I was on this afternoon was veering like crazy, like I was sitting on a trampoline, not sure what's up with that because that isn't how it normally runs, but I'm gonna ask Transdev executives this month what's up with the low maintenance on both Connexxion and NICE!).

Lol. Would people really be attracted to the R179's (I'm talking about train riders)?

Of course. They all come running to the to hear Pellet's "Stand clear of the closing doors" announcement at every station.

It's a hell of a lot faster than the majority of the b division in Manhattan.

Like it should. Else the wouldn't live up to the old name (Interborough RAPID Transit) lol.

I wonder if Broad Channel is the only station in the entire system located at a Dead End.

South Ferry NEW comes to mind but there are probably others as well.

Extend the to Co-Op City. Although just like my to Riverdale-263rd Street, it will never happen, even though it would make plenty of sense due to how busy Co-Op is.

Not really the best idea. The is only a few blocks away and Norwood is not really the best place when it comes to terminating trains. So a nice, new terminal at Co-Op would be great. The also isn't that far from Co-Op, it even crosses the border with Eastchester to reach Dyre. But I'm in for the because of the wider trains and the better terminal argument.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ci5K8ROMgE

Dang, woman is pronouncing 'Dyre Avenue' so much faster compared to announcements she did on other lines.

Sorry, my bad. I clearly am a fool sometimes lol. I confused the n19 with the n80/n81, so please when you re-read my previous post, substitute 'n19' with 'n80/n81'.

I do agree with your n19 proposal though

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.  

Plus whenever there's a hickup at Sunrise Hwy (happens once in a while going by the info that @thenicebus and @SCTBusInfo give) the n19 gets either rerouted via a strange route or doesn't serve the mall at all. By routing it via Amityville RR, in worst case scenario it can always terminate there. Better to temporary terminate it at Amityville RR then to cut half of the route because of a hickup.

There is nothing wrong with the running local in Manhattan 24/7 like many people make it out to be. There are many reasons why its done that way.

There's also many reasons why they ran it express before 2010. But Im not saying they should run it express again, I was just going through his list of ideas and the one actually seemed like a good one to me in *comparison* to the rest, but that's all I meant

@Burrstone: Over here Transdev doesn't invest as much in Veolia. But that's only because the funding is a lot better. Esp. the province of Limburg, where almost everything is Veolia, invests heavily in the train and bus system and thus in Veolia. And the other areas also provide better funding. But if they were to **** up (like Connexxion did in my city), they'd get a cut on their funding for one year.

Transdev is about to boot Veolia Transport Netherlands so they don't invest in it anymore. They want them to continue with the same name on their own. They wanted to give them the boot last year, but didn't. But now it will happen in a few months because Connexxion, the largest Dutch bus company which Transdev bought last year, has been a sinking ship for years and on top of that, they have to pay millions of tax dollars back this year, according a court ruling. (they = Connexxion, but obviously Transdev will have to cover their ass else Connexxion would be defunct)

Anyway: I'll ask the manager of Transdev again when I see them next month about the investment in NICE, even though they have told me last time that they do invest and even pumped a little bit extra last year.

: implement peak-direction express service on the entire Woodlawn Line on weekdays.

: 7-day service to/from Brooklyn College-Faltbush Avenue, have Nereid Avenue trains run express north of East 180th Street, late night extension to Grand Central-42nd Street via Lexington Avenue express and Bronx local.

: bring it back and have it run express in peak direction from 96th to 145th Street and Dyckman to 242nd Streets while the stays local.

: all service to Far Rockaway-Mott Avenue and have Rockaway Park trains run express in Queens.

: operates on weekends with its usual weekday route.

: extended to Lefferts Boulevard-Ozone Park whenever it operates. The late night shuttle can stay the same.

: implement a new West End peak direction express service, does not have to use the same letter.

: during rush hours, have Coney Island trains run express in Brooklyn in either peak direction or both ways depending on section.

: expand skip-stop service to the full rush hour frame and in both directions, or have reverse-peak direction trains that originate/terminate at Broadway Junction run express between there and Myrtle Avenue.

: rush hour skip-stop service with a new letter, peak or both direction.

: have it run express on Broadway on weekdays again.

 

All other services can stay the same.

- Would be hard to given that the middle track was never built for express service in the first place...

- Will not work, just as last time. Nobody wants the .

- Leffers people want the express, not the local. Multiple thread have been locked because they kept bringing up this subject.

- This actually seems like a good idea. It used to work before, it could work again.

I lIke the support for 5 service On the weekends 238-Flatbush....And whas wit the hate of the Diamonds??? I think its a good look to differentiate bet exp and lcl!!! #BringbacktheDiamond 

What hate? We re not hating, the doesnt want to use diamonds for new services anymore. But they will probably find something new in the future. I mean, they also dropped the double letter signage (AA, HH, etc.) in the past and found something new...

@Burrstone: It's not different over there. Transdev already invested some extra money in NICE last year and they will continue to do so if NICE asks for it. As someone like me who actually meets up with Transdev managers every once in a while, I know what I'm talking about

@Orion: I'll ask them at the next meeting, wouldn't be surprised if they did kick in because it's not an easy nor cheap task to replace everything.

As I previously noted, I would look at using the unused portion of The Bowery Station for the purpose of relocating the Transit Museum if necessary in order to re-activate Court Street as part of a extension into Brooklyn via the Fulton Street line.

That's actually one of your less crazy ideas, probably because that was the original 1929 plan for the

But I don't think Bowery will cut it for the TM, it'd be too small. If anything, they could finish one track connection to Roosevelt Ave and house the TM in there. It's a pretty big space given that it was supposed to be a terminal. The extra space also allows for future train sets to be stored (I mean: the current fleet won't run forever...).

I think that the   train should go on Second Avenue with the   . The   Starting from Seneca Avenue, then going up onto Queens Blvd Line, onto Second Avenue, then Fulton, and terminating at Lefferts Blvd. This will free up the    so it can go to Far Rockaway 24/7 and the    can go to Rockaway Park. I don't really care were the goes as long as there is Manhattan and Bronx service.

service 24/7 to Far Rock isn t really needed and to Rockaway Parkway is definetly not needed. With the exception of Far Rock and Broad Channel, the Rockaway stations are among the lowest in the whole system. Besides, the to Lefferts is not feasible (if anything, even the crazy serveral times debunked local to Lefferts would be more feasible than that!) and the will cause congestion on Second Ave. Unless you mean it should use SAS but then there s no room for it in the current plan because it will be two tracks only in most places. Unlike the last century plans ranging from 3-6 tracks.