BUS - Random Thoughts Thread

[Deucey]

On 8/13/2020 at 4:48 PM, NBTA said:

Honestly, branching off of the success that 14th Street had, they should've just made 125th a busway, between Broadway and Lexington (cut it short for Highway users), and have some sort of bus terminal in the area (M15, M103, M100, M35, some sort of M101 split). Would make life way easier for bus ops and passengers.

Harlem didn't want it - there's enough Bronxites that drive to 125th that the parking issue was more of an issue than in other places that turned down bus lanes.

Personally, I would've asked they take the building at St Nick and 125th that used to host bingo - and the two buildings next to it - to build an hourly-only parking garage to free up the parking lanes on 125th, and then create a bus way with islands in the middle (like on Grant Hwy in the Bx) so it doesn't take 25 minutes to go crosstown on 125th via bus.

[Kingsbridgeviewer382]

56 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

Does still use the regular M14 designation to designate short turns or did they stop doing that?

They’re still used.

[B35 via Church]

28 minutes ago, Deucey said:

Harlem didn't want it - there's enough Bronxites that drive to 125th that the parking issue was more of an issue than in other places that turned down bus lanes.

Personally, I would've asked they take the building at St Nick and 125th that used to host bingo - and the two buildings next to it - to build an hourly-only parking garage to free up the parking lanes on 125th, and then create a bus way with islands in the middle (like on Grant Hwy in the Bx) so it doesn't take 25 minutes to go crosstown on 125th via bus.

Enough Bronxites commuting to/from along 125th is the main reason I vehemently disagree with this M125 crap... Splitting Bx15's, truncating M100's, and decreasing the amt. of overall/total BPH along 125th is not going to make buses move any faster... It's a short-sighted solution at best....

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

2 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Does still use the regular M14 designation to designate short turns or did they stop doing that?

In a somewhat peculiar fashion, some of the back signs display M14 SBS, when the front says M14A or M14D.

 

8 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

If this situation happened around midnight or so & the bus first started service around 8 or 9am, that's enough time to disinfect & air everything out... Of course, this is assuming actual, and immediate action was taken....

This was on the 12:00 AM bus from Marine Air Terminal, so it happened around 12:25 or so. It it arrives Atlas Park Mall at approximately 12:45, and then I believe it deadheads from there back to the depot.

When I checked earlier, that bus was last seen on the Q100 at around 9:45 AM, so it was making trips up and down the line before that. The question is since what time (before it was last seen) was that bus out there, and whether the bus was able to be disinfected within that time frame. If that bus was already making rounds in the AM, it may or may not have been disinfected properly (although I sure hope so).

[SoSpectacular]

22 hours ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

If you're eating something, you may want to come back after you're done just in case.

So last night (well, technically early this morning, since it was past midnight) I was on the Q47 (bus 3584) going home after buying a few things. At 69th Street & Roosevelt Ave, some dude gets on the bus (presumably homeless). Anyway, the dude goes all the way to the back (I was in the last row, to the left and he took the rightmost seat). Anyway, not only does dude start putting some towel or something in the seat next to him, but he starts taking off his shoes, started picking his toes or something (IDK for sure, and IDC, but he was definitely touching his feet), and then starts placing his bare feet on the armrest, and eventually starts stretching himself onto the other seats in front of him, barefoot. He also placed his shoes on the seat beside him. Everybody (including me) left that back section as soon as we saw what was going on. It smelled a bit too so windows were being opened.

Since it was gonna difficult to get the B/Os attention, I reported it via Twitter, and got a relative quick response. They said they would alert road supervision, but I don't exactly know what they did, since I was getting off, and the bus doesn't make a return trip since it was the last bus towards Glendale, and that bus doesn't return to LGA in service. I hope that the bus got disinfected after it returned to the depot. IDK how long that process takes exactly, but if what I'm seeing is accurate, then said bus was out on the Q100 earlier (up to around 9:45 AM), so I don't know if said bus was disinfected, especially if it was on an earlier run. 

The last thing any operator wants to deal with is aggressive/unstable looking riders. The most we can do in a situation like that is open the doors and let anyone off who needs and to radio it in to supervision and fill out the incident report so it goes on the record.

Had some fellow get on my bus a while back. Looked normal, except he got INCREDIBLY irate when someone stared in his direction and the situation nearly got physical. I simply pulled the parking brake, opened the doors and half the bus clears out. It was my final trip of the day and I wasn't far from the end. When it all calmed down I continued on, situation defused.

 

[NBTA]

1 hour ago, SoSpectacular said:

The last thing any operator wants to deal with is aggressive/unstable looking riders. The most we can do in a situation like that is open the doors and let anyone off who needs and to radio it in to supervision and fill out the incident report so it goes on the record.

Had some fellow get on my bus a while back. Looked normal, except he got INCREDIBLY irate when someone stared in his direction and the situation nearly got physical. I simply pulled the parking brake, opened the doors and half the bus clears out. It was my final trip of the day and I wasn't far from the end. When it all calmed down I continued on, situation defused.

 

You had no time for that I see, some passengers try to initiate a fight on the bus for no reason sometimes. It's a common theme on a lot of the Bronx lines.

[trainfan22]

3978 needs some TLC, one of its front headlights is out and its sputtering, didn't ride the bus but saw and heard it when it passed me on the street a couple hours ago. It's still out on the B82 in Coney Island right now.

[Iron Valiant]

1 minute ago, trainfan22 said:

3978 needs some TLC, one of its front headlights is out and its sputtering, didn't ride the bus but saw and heard it when it passed me on the street a couple hours ago. It's still out on the B82 in Coney Island right now.

Now that it’s East New York’s bus, hopefully they will fix the issue.

[Calvin]

I wonder if public schools are reopening in September or till later (or in other words, next month, either a school closed schedule or school trippers during the AM rush/noon hour). There is an image on NYC.gov of deep cleaning inside the classrooms. 

Edited August 16, 2020 by Calvin

[Ultimategamer12c]

Well, #1076 was not too long ago on the B68 sadly I didn't  catch it but it was off surprise for today.

[Future ENY OP]

21 minutes ago, Ultimategamer12c said:

Well, #1076 was not too long ago on the B68 sadly I didn't  catch it but it was off surprise for today.

The 68 should be an artic line. 

[Iron Valiant]

4 minutes ago, Future ENY OP said:

The 68 should be an artic line. 

If only we got more NFI XN60s.

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

Currently I'm on the outbound QM17 (2:15 AM from Midtown). Was considering taking the Q60, but the QM17 leaves me much closer home. I thought that the reduction to hourly service would actually reduce ridership, but apparently it hasn't. Besides me, there are seven other people on this bus. Looks like people are just readjusting their commutes under the new schedule. That's great that people aren't abandoning it.  Makes sense thinking about it, because Rockaway residents and people living down south in Howard Beach & Ozone Park don't have any efficient way to commute to/from Manhattan with the not running.

One thing I noticed though, is that the schedule gives the operators 28 minutes to get from 34th Street & 3rd Avenue to 57th Street & 3rd Avenue. That's way too much time. If anything, about 15 minutes should be fine. There's no traffic at that time. They don't even give the Union Turnpike expresses that much time on a regular weekday (which should have something close to 28 minutes during certain periods). 

[B35 via Church]

8 minutes ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

One thing I noticed though, is that the schedule gives the operators 28 minutes to get from 34th Street & 3rd Avenue to 57th Street & 3rd Avenue.

YGBFKM.... Looks like a copy & paste job or something, IDK... Doesn't reflect just how dead E. Midtown is.

[trainfan22]

6590 got road called on the B20

[Future ENY OP]

1 hour ago, trainfan22 said:

6590 got road called on the B20

Bus is heading to the scrap yard. 

[trainfan22]

1 hour ago, Future ENY OP said:

Bus is heading to the scrap yard. 

Might not be. The mechanics was trying to fix whatever was wrong with the bus

[WorkerX]

On 8/14/2020 at 10:25 PM, Deucey said:

Harlem didn't want it - there's enough Bronxites that drive to 125th that the parking issue was more of an issue than in other places that turned down bus lanes.

Personally, I would've asked they take the building at St Nick and 125th that used to host bingo - and the two buildings next to it - to build an hourly-only parking garage to free up the parking lanes on 125th, and then create a bus way with islands in the middle (like on Grant Hwy in the Bx) so it doesn't take 25 minutes to go crosstown on 125th via bus.

The interesting thing is between the Pathmark closing on on Lexington and the parking garage between 7th and Lenox, there were garages to use.  People do drive to 125th as you said, bu getting them to pay for parking when they would park on the street (possibly for free).  It's the double parking between mainly 8th and 5th that really hurt since the creation of the buslane.

On 8/12/2020 at 5:37 PM, B35 via Church said:

Putting this another way, the same way they throw a ton of service on the M101, they could've done the same thing to the M102 & kept that route running to City Hall... Routing-wise, I don't have a problem with the thing (M103), but service-wise/reliability wise, it's a god damn joke... Don't know how many times I've waited for an M103 in Kips Bay/Murray Hill to get to the Bayard stop, to see a sea of M101's & M102's before I get fed up & walk over to 2nd for the M15 to get to Chatham Sq.... Basically, the M103 looks good on paper, but in actuality, runs like garbage.

What you say about the M103 in the southern part of Manhattan, people north of 96th complain about with the M102.  So see a sea of M103s and M101s going north before a M102 shows up is annoying and then what's further annoying is that it will be usually a bunched M102s meaning if you miss that batch, you have to wait again.  

The other thing is this past Saturday morning before 8 AM, I'm waiting for a  M116 to go to home and in the span of 7 minutes, I see 2 M102s going uptown in a time when there's barely anyone out.  Even the M7 doesn't run that often on a Saturday Morning and any other time on Lenox you will more likely see a M7 come (unless it's those bunched M102s)

[Calvin]

September 1st is the start to asking, "Can I get a ride?" as fares collection on-board local/limited routes resume on the last day of August on a Monday. 

 

Edited August 18, 2020 by Calvin

[B61In2002]

40 minutes ago, Calvin said:

September 1st is the start to asking, "Can I get a ride?" as fares collection on-board local/limited routes resume on the last day of August on a Monday. 

 

That's gonna be a mess unless they put up posters and such.

[GreatOne2k]

Buses will still be free from 1am to 5am

[B35 via Church]

6 hours ago, WorkerX said:

What you say about the M103 in the southern part of Manhattan, people north of 96th complain about with the M102.  So see a sea of M103s and M101s going north before a M102 shows up is annoying and then what's further annoying is that it will be usually a bunched M102s meaning if you miss that batch, you have to wait again.  

The other thing is this past Saturday morning before 8 AM, I'm waiting for a  M116 to go to home and in the span of 7 minutes, I see 2 M102s going uptown in a time when there's barely anyone out.  Even the M7 doesn't run that often on a Saturday Morning and any other time on Lenox you will more likely see a M7 come (unless it's those bunched M102s)

Yeah, that's true too, and it's largely because they prioritize M101's over M102's for transporting people to/from E. Harlem & Harlem....

Thing that bothers me with the (SB) M102 is that it has a tendency to tank, after it turns off 116th (then of course, it commences picking up pax. down along Lex).... This kind of correlates with how the NB M103 starts dying, upon reaching E. Harlem....

[SoSpectacular]

On 8/16/2020 at 1:26 PM, Ultimategamer12c said:

Well, #1076 was not too long ago on the B68 sadly I didn't  catch it but it was off surprise for today.

It was a B35 run covering a quick trip for the day

[paulrivera]

“This is Bx10 to Norwood-205th Street Staah.”

[Iron Valiant]

12 minutes ago, paulrivera said:

“This is Bx10 to Norwood-205th Street Staah.”

What? Lol.