BUS - Random Thoughts Thread

[MTAbus677]

I LOVE the Oatly milk ads!!! On buses and trains!

[MTAbus677]

On 7/10/2019 at 9:10 AM, XcelsiorBoii4888 said:

They definitely still do every weekday. Right now there's 11 NGs on the line, the rest are 2019 LFS. Weekends they limit them and run maybe one or two at most. 

There is just two NGs now.

[Iron Valiant]

47 minutes ago, MTAbus677 said:

There is just two NGs now.

I think he means at the depot.

Edited July 13, 2019 by Snorunts

[Iron Valiant]

52 minutes ago, MTAbus677 said:

I LOVE the Oatly milk ads!!! On buses and trains!

Yep. They crack me up!

[Future ENY OP]

This ad will end soon. By far one of the best campaigns I’ve seen in a long time. If this ad also came in a 30x 240 with headliner or driverside wrap all the bus divisions citywide would of picked it up. 

A well executed bus campaign. 

[Around the Horn]

6 hours ago, Lil 57 said:

Remember those Museum of Sex ads that went viral because they were on the front of the bus and the B/Os were getting harassed? Well they are back on the front of the buses but with an American flag background instead of a black  background. Let's see how long it takes before they get ripped off again. They are in the process of taking off the oatmilk ads so you won't see them that much right now.

BOO HISS. Those Oatmilk ads were fantastic. I hope one of them ends up in the transit museum archives or something.

An honorary mention also goes out to the Uber Eats ads because they were great as well... Some of the pictures of the food actually made me hungry at times.

[MTAbus677]

1 hour ago, Snorunts said:

I think he means at the depot.

Actually running on the S79.

[B35 via Church]

Guess I'm in a minority then, because I don't like anything about those oatmilk ads - from the product being advertised, to the lackadaisical attempt at witticism, down to the font...

[Iron Valiant]

26 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

Guess I'm in a minority then, because I don't like anything about those oatmilk ads - from the product being advertised, to the lackadaisical attempt at witticism, down to the font...

Don’t worry, they’ll be removed soon.

[Future ENY OP]

51 minutes ago, Around the Horn said:

BOO HISS. Those Oatmilk ads were fantastic. I hope one of them ends up in the transit museum archives or something.

An honorary mention also goes out to the Uber Eats ads because they were great as well... Some of the pictures of the food actually made me hungry at times.

Too bad those Über eats didn’t make into Brooklyn Division depots. 

Edited July 13, 2019 by Future ENY OP

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

Never thought I'd see the day where I would see a jam packed M55, especially at this time. This is the most I've ever seen the M55 crowded.

Edited July 14, 2019 by BM5 via Woodhaven

[Calvin]

This is the second time the M55 was full to South Ferry. 

[B35 via Church]

2 minutes ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

Never thought I'd see the day where I would see a jam packed M55, especially at this time. 

You could guess as to why....

[DetSMART45]

8 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

You could guess as to why....

Found it quite funny last night with the Blackout how inept the MTA was. According to the many reports, things went dark right around 7:00 pm, and naturally, people were flooding social media with their own information. I didn't notice it until opening the computer at around 8:30 pm, and went to MTA homepage. Subway lines (except  and  IIRC) had the same generic message under whatever warning message of "We've been informed of some problems at stations of electric problems", and until 9:06 pm, the Manhattan buses were only with the "Service Change" on the widget. Then, the message of "Delays" was put up and an overarching "All Manhattan Local, Limited, Select and Express buses are running with delays due to a power outage."

Didn't even bother to snoop around on BusTime to look at the carnage. But to think for basically two hours, the MTA wasn't getting any feedback from their operators, road supervisors, dispatchers (whatever you call the doofuses standing on the streets) to relay out?

Was going to try the various MTA social media accounts, but, oddly, the "old" MTA site doesn't have anything listed (from the link at the bottom of the page), and the "new" site only has Instagram ones, no Twitter or Facebook links.

[Joel Up Front]

Do fareboxes accept pennies?  I annoyed B/O's sometimes whenever I paid in dimes and nickels because I only had $1.00 in quarters.

[QM1to6Ave]

10 hours ago, Joel Up Front said:

Do fareboxes accept pennies?  I annoyed B/O's sometimes whenever I paid in dimes and nickels because I only had $1.00 in quarters.

Last I checked, they do, even though the sign says they don't. I remember someone on here a few years ago talking about annoying a B/O they didn't like by paying entirely in pennies once. 

[XcelsiorBoii4888]

12 hours ago, Joel Up Front said:

Do fareboxes accept pennies?  I annoyed B/O's sometimes whenever I paid in dimes and nickels because I only had $1.00 in quarters.

They definitely accept pennies, here in Staten Island I've seen people put in $0.03, and $0.08 into the machine to pay their "fare". 

[Lil 57]

NYCT ridership data form 2018: 

NYCT

SI took a big hit with ridership last year with all routes seeing declines as much as 16.3%.

 

Edited July 15, 2019 by Lil 57

[Lex]

1 hour ago, Lil 57 said:

NYCT ridership data form 2018: 

NYCT

Someone screwed up the 2013 Manhattan figures...

I'm really concerned about some of those numbers, particularly for routes like the B41 and Bx36.

[XcelsiorBoii4888]

2 hours ago, Lil 57 said:

NYCT ridership data form 2018: 

NYCT

SI took a big hit with ridership last year with all routes seeing declines as much as 16.3%.

 

That's sad how EVERY SINGLE Staten Island route local / express COMBINED, lost ridership on every route...

A part is A LOT people stopped paying because the routes don't help commuters get to/from work on time. 

Edit: I've lost hope for this city, nothing will ever get better in terms of transportation. As soon as I get financially stable I'm moving out. 

Edited July 15, 2019 by XcelsiorBoii4888

[Lil 57]

1 hour ago, XcelsiorBoii4888 said:

That's sad how EVERY SINGLE Staten Island route local / express COMBINED, lost ridership on every route...

A part is A LOT people stopped paying because the routes don't help commuters get to/from work on time. 

Edit: I've lost hope for this city, nothing will ever get better in terms of transportation. As soon as I get financially stable I'm moving out. 

The S89 gets a pass for 2018 due to all of that Bayonne Bridge work which added more time to the trips, which detoured ridership, with the work on the Bayonne Bridge complete, ridership should increase this year.

I do believe that increased fare evasion is a major part of the ridership decreases shown because if the B/O doesn't click F5 for every farebeater, they won't be counted as a rider. B/Os try their best to count every farebeater but if you pull up to a stop and 30 people farebeat, that could be hard to count, especially if they are entering through the rear door. Fare evasion was at 25% before the crackdown began and I doubt that the B/Os counted everyone so that's probably why the decreases are more drastic than they actually are. Hopefully the farebeaters will learn there lesson when their service is cut.

Some routes also have a hard time when it comes to reliability. S44 buses tend to bunch all day. The S79 bunches in threes and fours. The S78 is always delayed. These are issues that also detour ridership.

Edited July 15, 2019 by Lil 57

[Uncle Floyd Fan]

3 hours ago, Lil 57 said:

NYCT ridership data form 2018: 

NYCT

SI took a big hit with ridership last year with all routes seeing declines as much as 16.3%.

I guess the MTA Bus Co lines have flat ridership as they weren't listed. Granted, it's an NYCT list. But still, they'd have to merge the lines eventually for operational and reporting purposes.

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

1 hour ago, XcelsiorBoii4888 said:

That's sad how EVERY SINGLE Staten Island route local / express COMBINED, lost ridership on every route...

A part is A LOT people stopped paying because the routes don't help commuters get to/from work on time. 

Edit: I've lost hope for this city, nothing will ever get better in terms of transportation. As soon as I get financially stable I'm moving out. 

They're not accurate because of the service changes that went into effect August of last year, and they don't really account for that, they just post all ridership statistics for the entire year, even if the routes started/stopped running sometime in the year. I did the math and the X11/SIM32 ridership went up. The X21/SIM22 ridership went up 13% too. However, the X17/SIM4/SIM8 ridership, as well as the X30/SIM30 ridership, went down.

For that reason, we won't be able to say how certain the SIM buses are preforming for another two years (when the 2020 stats come out).

Edited July 15, 2019 by BM5 via Woodhaven

[checkmatechamp13]

@Lil 57 @XcelsiorBoii4888 Here's the thing with fare evasion: Supposedly these numbers don't include farebeaters (even if the B/O pressed F5). A few years ago they mentioned something about it only including people who dipped a valid pass (honestly I think it might've even excluded their own employees who ride for free)

In any case I remember back in 2010 they released the 2009 ridership numbers and the S46/96 showed 8600 riders (in the booklet where they described the reductions they would make) Then on that spreadsheet on the website (the one @Lil 57 posted) they showed 7200 riders. Maybe that means there were 1400 farebeaters, or maybe that means they were just sloppy with their numbers. So always take these stats with a grain of salt.

5 hours ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

They're not accurate because of the service changes that went into effect August of last year, and they don't really account for that, they just post all ridership statistics for the entire year, even if the routes started/stopped running sometime in the year. I did the math and the X11/SIM32 ridership went up. The X21/SIM22 ridership went up 13% too. However, the X17/SIM4/SIM8 ridership, as well as the X30/SIM30 ridership, went down.

For that reason, we won't be able to say how certain the SIM buses are preforming for another two years (when the 2020 stats come out).

Exactly. With all of the routing and scheduling changes made between August and December 2018, the SIM ridership numbers are meaningless. (Especially since between August and October the schedules were an absolute mess, forcing people to take routes they wouldn't normally take, even after August there were many issues)

In any case, if any type of comparison is to be made, it should be weekday ridership vs. weekday ridership and weekend ridership vs. weekend ridership (problem is that as you said, the average includes timeframes when the route didn't run because it didn't exist)

But for the weekday routes you can count the number of weekdays (or better, the number of days a weekday schedule was operated, so it excludes holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc) and divide annual ridership by that.

The problem with the SIM4/8 is that the SIM4 numbers include SIM4C riders (and the SIM4C covered some X10 riders). And some X17 riders in Arden Heights were covered by the SIM2. The SIM2 saw a huge increase but the question is, how many were from the Hylan Blvd portion and/or off-peak compared to the original rush hour X19 service area (Arden Heights and Travis)?

[DetSMART45]

1 hour ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

@Lil 57 @XcelsiorBoii4888 Here's the thing with fare evasion: Supposedly these numbers don't include farebeaters (even if the B/O pressed F5). A few years ago they mentioned something about it only including people who dipped a valid pass (honestly I think it might've even excluded their own employees who ride for free)

In any case I remember back in 2010 they released the 2009 ridership numbers and the S46/96 showed 8600 riders (in the booklet where they described the reductions they would make) Then on that spreadsheet on the website (the one @Lil 57 posted) they showed 7200 riders. Maybe that means there were 1400 farebeaters, or maybe that means they were just sloppy with their numbers. So always take these stats with a grain of salt.

In this day and age, the figures should be the figures, no salt added. STOP giving them any leeway in excuses -- THEY have made people want to use anything but the PRODUCT they are selling, plain and simple.

And, more importantly, the MTA should be held to account for doing such. (They really ARE, but nobody wants to acknowledge that fact.)

You "youngsters" might only know of "New Coke" because of some Netflix series. But, let me tell ya, when that actually happened, Coca-Cola took a WHOLE LOTTA SHIT for their f**k-up (pre-internet, natch) by shareholders, and most importantly, the buying public. No "oops we misjudged" or "Take those figures with a grain of salt, we're doing fine."

Plain and simple: THE MTA LOST CUSTOMERS and if they were like Coca-Cola, they would actually "feel it." Since they're a "government entity," they can spew any type of bullshit and people will look the other way.

THAT is what they count on -- NOT getting better in any way, shape or form -- due to that shield.

Do some reading on the former USSR, especially within the transportation-realm. You're not far from it, Komrade.

 

Edited July 16, 2019 by DetSMART45
Tidying up a bit