PinePower

It's useless, the n27 on weekends, can't understand what the big deal is about extending it to RF. All they need is two buses, that's one more bus in addition to the one used on it now, for hourly service between Glen Cove and RF. However I will say you're a sucker if you take the shuttle to nowhere. I know what goes on, and you're better off getting the LIRR (and paying extra), or if you're coming from/going to Greenvale getting the n20 and changing at Hicksville. It's never gonna change, unless the n27 is extended back. If people are so angry they should be calling NICE Bus, posting on their Facebook, and calling their elected officials. They can bitch all they want in Roslyn but if no one hears them its not gonna do any good. Or they could start their own "Jitney" service like they have in Bergen County. I know I want no part of it, so to me the n27 doesn't run at all on weekends. Roslyn is not a destination and therefore it is completely useless. Good thing I dont need to go to Glen Cove on weekends or live over there in the boondocks. Been burned enough, these people still take it they're asking for trouble. Most of the time they don't even check tickets on the LIRR to Mineola. If everyone just stopped riding and took the train NICE would probably fix it due to lost ridership.

Yeah that's above what most lines I've seen give. Most routes in Nassau & Suffolk generally give only around 10 min layover, some as little as 5. 20 mins is a pretty good deal and I bet a high seniority pick.

Well you don't get named school bus driver of the year for falling behind schedule...sorry I couldn't resist http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPYMm2cAs24

I noticed new bus stop signs on Glen Cove Rd in Carle Place today, but instead of saying n22a, they have n22 on the top, n23 in the middle, and n27 on the bottom.

I think the issue here is that they have to pay twice, once for the LIRR and again for NICE bus to HTC or RF. It pretty much puts Glen Cove in a double-fare zone outside the system unless you allow an extra hour for missed connections.

Suffolk doesn't always provide a replacement bus. Many times the S58 broke down particularly from Middle Island on east, they never got a replacement bus. A couple of times this happened on the 3:40pm S58 from Riverhead, and everyone had to wait for the next one at 4:45pm. To make things worse, that 4:45pm run is often a 30' Orion VII, so it's crushloaded. Because it took so long to get a replacement bus out there, by the time the breakdown driver got relieved he'd have to deadhead to have any hope of being on time. This may change with the Coram depot but from what I hear they dont have many spares, it's either 9908 or one of the clipper buses. The n27 is probably the same situation. A 3rd depot on the north shore would help, but that's an awful large expense for just a handful of routes. I'm not surprised NICE lied about it, because if they could have a 2nd bus on standby, then they'd have 2 buses to run hourly service between Roosevelt Field and Glen Cove. I know originally NICE was supposed to have "standby buses" stationed in various parts of the county in case of a breakdown, dont know what ever became of that. I know I have abandoned the n27 on weekends, more or less. I have to say LIRR should show a little sympathy here and let people ride for free between Mineola & Glen Cove weekends only. This would help, but the has no sympathy, they even have the nerve to make Seniors/Disabled pay full peak one way fare on AM rush hour trains!

They told me at that meeting that spare buses would be available in case connections were missed at Roslyn. Obviously that is not the case. Not wanting to go too much off subject here but I think the lack of outrage from Glen Cove riders has to do with their inability to speak english. Look at how fast they responded to n6 & n6x complaints...so it's obvious NICE isn't getting enough complaints. Probably why they restored the n21 all day weekdays and not the n27 on weekends.

I see NICE lied to me when they said they'd have spare buses available in case of missed connections at Roslyn at the community meeting I went to in Hicksville. This is by and far their biggest blunder and they should have fixed it by now. It's BS they have not restored the n27 to RF on weekends with THREE PHASES OF ENHANCEMENTS this year. Do post what happened to you on their Facebook. I bet that n23 going back was packed, unless some decided to take the LIRR. This is why I call it a useless shuttle because thats exactly what the n27 is on weekends. I will forever be with NICE over this, absolutely no reason unless you want to just abandon Glen Cove riders on weekends. If they dont fix this in January I'm bringing this up at the next TAC meeting...they keep saying they're trying to fix the times but the n27 & n23 are traffic prone routes, this arrangement doesn't work and hasn't worked since April 8 2012.

Huge traffic mess today in the Roslyn/Greenvale area. The n27 was running anywhere from 20-45 min late, not sure if this was affecting the n23 or not but those 27s were pretty crowded and I bet alot of ppl waiting in the cold in Roslyn. Glen Cove road was pretty backed up too. Never heard anything on 1010 WINS or 880 about an accident. I never bother with the shuttle and took the n20, and it was 35 min late going to Hicksville. Funny thing is it was the same bus I had leaving Hicksville earlier just after 4pm, and once in Hicksville later it turned into an n24 which according to schedule is supposed to leave 6:53pm, but didn't until 7:20pm. Not sure what January's schedules will bring but I'm hoping for the n27 situation to be resolved once and for all, all they need is one more bus on that route and 2 buses can provide hourly service between RF & Glen Cove. Brett do you have any further info? They're working on the January schedules now, this was posted on the NICE F/B page.

Not sure if anyone saw the Nassau Co. Exec debate on WCBS & WLNY yesterday but Suozzi looked like a deer in the headlights. Had several opportunities to address transportation issues when Mangano spoke of transit hubs, he could've said "hey Ed if you want transit friendly downtowns why are you not putting more money into NICE?" but he didn't. Suozzi blew it and lost my vote period.

Hate to bump an old post but I took the 7:07am train today. Just to give you an idea of how many ppl transfer from the connecting MU, the staircases get backed up and the platform looks like this. That day they didn't hold the connection must've been a big sh*tshow. All so some suits who have jobs in the city won't get delayed 10-15 min. I doubt there would've been enough buses for everybody, and many probably had to wait for the next train 2 hours later. I wonder how many students missed class just so the suits wouldn't be 15 min late for work?

Yeah the S58 needs more service. Heaviest part of the route seems to be between Middle Island & Smith Haven Mall. The 2 hour gap between 11:40am and 1:40pm from Riverhead is a killer, esp on Saturdays the 1:40pm is crush loaded right outta Riverhead. There also needs to be a later bus back from Riverhead, 5:45pm is way too early, should be another at 6:45pm, which shouldn't be too difficult with an eastbound trip arriving into Riverhead at 6:25pm, instead of deadheading, have it run at least to Smith Haven. They need to convert alot of these deadhead trips to carry ppl.

I think restoring the siding would be worth it, especially considering there's not much legroom at Huntington. The single track really retards reliability on the PJ branch when things go wrong. When was that siding ever in service anyways?

It was 27 minutes late, would've probably arrived in by 7:23am ish, and 604 would've got going by 7:30am less than a half hour late, no Biggie IMO. 604 sits in a siding so it aint tying anyone up. Of course things could run alot smoother on the PJ line if they started using that 2nd track in Greenlawn. SUNY students have only 2 trains to get to school in the morning, whereas the NYC commuters have 8. Stony Brook U is like a minicity, the LIRR needs to wake up and start leveling the playing field a little bit. 613 could've waited at Northport siding and 615 at Smithtown and 617 would've gone out with a minor delay. Let the peakers make some sacrifices... From what I've heard from the students, they're not happy with the LIRR service because its so unreliable and whenever something goes wrong they pay the price. I'm sure if you go around and ask many of the professors they'll tell you many times they have missing students, could be as much as half the class, thanks to LIRR issues. Pretty sure those buses resulted an at least an hour's delay for them (consider rush hour traffic!), just because the RR didn't want to delay the peakers more than 10 or 15 min. This BS has to stop, just because they are students doesn't make them any less important, they still have to be places on time!

Hate to break it to you but 604 carries just as many people as one of those rush hour westbounds east of Huntington. The LIRR under-estimates the usage those things get from SUNY students. The RR culture needs to adapt. So the westbounds would get delayed, they have no problem delaying 604 or the other reverse peak trains when the other direction has a problem. Having the 604 leaving without it's connection is akin to leaving 40 people standing in Roslyn for an hour for the next n27. The LIRR used to always hold connections, but I've been seeing this more & more. You dont run an empty train leaving a 4 car seated load waiting for cheese buses. I'm really surprised no one has capitalized on the idea of starting a bus service that runs from points in Queens and stopping at Hicksville and SUNY Stony Brook. It could run more frequently than trains and give LIRR some competition. Perhaps thats something that 7 bus should think about...I hear they're not doing so well, probably due to the lack of intra-island options.

I think LIRR took a page from NICE, and didn't hold the connecting train at Huntington. ALOT of SUNY students transfer to that 7:07am diesel train. What a completely BS thing to do. A bunch of ppl were late for class today! The 5:47AM train from Penn due Huntington at 6:57AM, is operating 27 minutes late due to congestion caused by a track condition in New Hyde Park. Customers looking to travel east of Huntington will be accommodated by bus. Buses are en route to Huntington but are not currently on scene.

There's more buses than that as I've been told there's about 10 buses there. And as far as routes not just the S58, they have the 5A, S71, S76, S60/69, and some S62 runs. Some routes, including the S58, may share depots. The S110 Clipper may also be at Coram, as I saw a Clipper Bus heading into the yard from Rt.112 the other night. It's a very small operation, and basically it's mostly all the former CBS buses that are back there. And they only have 1 spare bus, 9908, sometimes they have to use Clipper buses as spares, but according to my friend there those are very tired. According to some drivers, many feel this was done to put the former CBS Routes "Back Where they Belong".

Whether they came from Supershuttle or not, I've never seen drivers disregard passengers like that anywhere else, not usually, anyway. I'm not sure why these drivers think they can get away with it, and where they learned such driving styles. Now they do not represent most of the drivers at NICE, in actuality they are probably just a handful. But they keep getting away with what they are doing, thats what irks me the most. I guess a video of them skipping points on the route will be the only thing that may get action...

If you are correct than I'm wrong. I've been told they are only part time and won't allow much more than 20-25 hours a week at around $15/hr. This is coming of course from some drivers I know. If they pay more than LIB thats news to me. But the drivers definately get less hours. Yes I know there's a difference, a big difference between driving a Super Shuttle and a 40' bus, what I'm pointing out here is that some of these drivers act like they're still driving the Super Shuttle. Go on Yelp and read all the bad reviews about them. I had another driver run 10 minutes hot tonight, its like I now have to be at the bus stop at least 10 minutes ahead of schedule, 5 minutes isn't good enough. This is transit, there's a schedule, not just drive from point A to Point B as fast as you can.

Its been going on for the past 5 or 6 months. This same driver also likes to run hot, sometimes leaving RF almost 10 minutes early on the way to Westbury. He's also pulled into the wrong bus bay at RF on numerous occasions. I know NICE is short on drivers but its stuff like this that's causing NICE to lose passengers. LIB never had these problems until near the end. Hound is right about the driver's pay, it's obviously too low, if they cant find drivers and are forced to hold onto ones that leave passengers stranded on a daily basis. You have drivers out there that dont give a damn about the passengers and just do what they feel like because its not a career, it's just a step up from driving a Super Shuttle! disciplined frequently for running hot or missing stops, but at NICE it seems almost a free for all. Of course in their mind if they didn't see it they won't do anything, there's less supervisors. I'm hoping when they finally get a working GPS system stuff like this will be a thing of the past, as dispatchers can monitor the buses and their locations from a central point. That is of course if the dispatchers they're hiring know what they're doing.

While on the n35 waiting at Endo Rd to cross Stewart Ave I saw the 7:25pm southbound trip make a right and skip the college. There were at least 20 students waiting for a bus "to the terminal" there. After seeing this happen again, I complained to NICE. There's a driver on the n35 who routinely skips NCC w/o permission.

Like the LIRR is that much more reliable, perhaps Obernauer should use the LIRR restrooms. Most of the time the doors dont lock, and the sinks dont work, you're lucky if they have soap..and I'm talking about the M7s. LIBRU should be talking about why NICE hasn't restored the n27 to its full length on weekends, instead of this BS. The machines are old, they're having the same problems in the city.

Cant read it or watch the video.....

Well you probably dont have to worry since Mangano has a major lead in the latest poll. http://eastmeadow.patch.com/groups/elections/p/poll-mangano-opens-lead-in-county-executive-race-eastmeadow Another first I was on 1839 and saw the back door blocked off by yellow tape. At first I was like, WTF, but it makes sense now, this way people wont try to use a broken back door.

Yeah the last few months didn't give a damn. I remember the last day of LIB there were so many buses missing and mobs of people at bus stops. There was only one bus on the entire n27 route. I know they did give us the loaner buses, but then took them away on the last days of the year for the scrapper, instead of giving them to us. Well I'll try reaching out to him again another way. If he continues to ignore answering I may have to change my mind, again. I do remember when wanted to paint the V's with a blue stripe, Suozzi protested, and the one or two buses that were taped over had to have the orange and blue restored. Alot of bus drivers over at NICE I know think Suozzi will bring the back, I'm not so sure. What I do want is more funding for buses from the county.