BUS - Random Thoughts Thread

[MHV9218]

48 minutes ago, OrionVIIonM79 said:

 I wish I took a picture... probably the last time that is happening. But I was not fast enough.

Still out there according to BusTime. Just made its way Eastbound and getting to York now.

[paulrivera]

Jiminy christmas.... How are people actually dumb enough to pack into that little thing during a pandemic..?

[Deucey]

3 minutes ago, paulrivera said:

Jiminy christmas.... How are people actually dumb enough to pack into that little thing during a pandemic..?

Having lived up there - pandemic or not, I will get on that overstuffed bus to avoid having to wait in the cold since I got heat at home.

[MHV9218]

That shouldn't be allowed to happen. Guidelines should be NBP / NIS for a bus at more than 50% capacity in these conditions. And then can run artics by now, the roads are very plowed.

[Melbx15]

1 hour ago, OrionVIIonM79 said:

GUYS I JUST SAW A 2008 ORION ON THE M72, #4136

Hopefully this is a start to something new 

are the XE40s  smaller than the Orion nxt gens? Cause 11 is on the M66 

[Kingsbridgeviewer382]

9 minutes ago, MHV9218 said:

That shouldn't be allowed to happen. Guidelines should be NBP / NIS for a bus at more than 50% capacity in these conditions. And then can run artics by now, the roads are very plowed.

Its easy to say that (regarding the roads, not the crowding), but some of the roads still have black ice or the roads still have snow so its best not to risk the artics sliding or getting stuck on stops that were not cleared out.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

20 minutes ago, MHV9218 said:

That shouldn't be allowed to happen. Guidelines should be NBP / NIS for a bus at more than 50% capacity in these conditions. And then can run artics by now, the roads are very plowed.

And who is supposed to be enforcing any of these guidelines? 

[1train2255railfan]

1 hour ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

 

Yeah that's basically it. They use that when the GPS on the bus isn't transmitting properly. On some buses, there's a serious lag on the GPS updating its location. On BusTrek, these buses show up as "ghost" buses when they disappear. On BusTime, they would just disappear previously, or show the last time they updated in red once they went past say a minute without refreshing accordingly (usually update every 30-40 seconds on most buses). 

Glitches happened today with that software. There was an '1111' rolling around, as well as a supposed XD60 '6229' on the M11. 

[Iron Valiant]

1 hour ago, Melbx15 said:

Hopefully this is a start to something new 

are the XE40s  smaller than the Orion nxt gens? Cause 11 is on the M66 

XE40s have run on the M66 numerous times.

[bobtehpanda]

On 12/15/2020 at 2:13 PM, Lex said:

And what the hell does he know?

 

On 12/15/2020 at 7:59 PM, Bay Ridge Express said:

Exactly. Biden just wanted to give his good friend Pete some fancy seat cuz he endorsed him. And you're right... what does he know? Because the only experience that I know he has in transit is getting someone killed by removing a traffic stop. Granted, in that regard, you could argue Trottenberg from the DOT is way worse. I'm guessing he will just focus on investing in infrastructure or something, considering that was part of his platform, but as for understanding commuters and the country's various transit systems... I don't see it.

The head of USDOT is not a policy wonk or a day-to-day bureaucrat (we have a federal civil service for a reason) but is more focused on working with electeds at various levels of government and politicking to get things done. As an elected official who has previously navigated USDOT's grant processes this isn't that crazy of a job.

[MHV9218]

1 hour ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

And who is supposed to be enforcing any of these guidelines? 

Not sure what your incredulous tone is for. I would say...the same people who enforce every surface transit standard: dispatchers and supervisors. This isn't new or uncommon – buses behind schedule are constantly told by dispatch to throw up NBP and move ahead a little. Buses running hot are constantly held at key points along the route. Same types of measures should happen for pandemic overcrowding. 

[checkmatechamp13]

1 hour ago, MHV9218 said:

That shouldn't be allowed to happen. Guidelines should be NBP / NIS for a bus at more than 50% capacity in these conditions. And then can run artics by now, the roads are very plowed.

 

11 minutes ago, MHV9218 said:

Not sure what your incredulous tone is for. I would say...the same people who enforce every surface transit standard: dispatchers and supervisors. This isn't new or uncommon – buses behind schedule are constantly told by dispatch to throw up NBP and move ahead a little. Buses running hot are constantly held at key points along the route. Same types of measures should happen for pandemic overcrowding. 

They did that (loosely enforced) 50% thing until June and then they lifted the restrictions. Now it's the other way: If you turn passengers away you get written up. People have places to be (and if a particular person feels uncomfortable, especially on an SBS route where you have your receipt) they can just get off.

 

[MHV9218]

2 minutes ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

They did that (loosely enforced) 50% thing until June and then they lifted the restrictions. Now it's the other way: If you turn passengers away you get written up. People have places to be (and if a particular person feels uncomfortable, especially on an SBS route where you have your receipt) they can just get off.

However there haven't been any conditions like what we saw yesterday and today, since there haven't been 40-footers running on 60-foot routes. The most crowded lines I've been aware of have been the overnights, but even those I'm not aware of 65 people on a 40-footer. That's what we're talking about in terms of overcrowding. Just glancing at the MTA's loading guidelines for 40-foot routes, the highest avg. load during rush hour (targeted) is 54 riders. And that's outside of a pandemic.

[B35 via Church]

26 minutes ago, 1train2255railfan said:

Glitches happened today with that software. There was an '1111' rolling around, as well as a supposed XD60 '6229' on the M11. 

The former isn't just a today thing; this past Monday, I also saw a bus numbered 1111 on bustime... Don't remember on what particular route it was, as I was checking out a couple of routes at the time.... Think it might have been the B46....

Regardless, IDK wtf's going on with bustime right now....

2 hours ago, paulrivera said:

Jiminy christmas.... How are people actually dumb enough to pack into that little thing during a pandemic..?

1 hour ago, Deucey said:

Having lived up there - pandemic or not, I will get on that overstuffed bus to avoid having to wait in the cold since I got heat at home.

Never having lived up there - pandemic or not, there's no way in f*** I would get on that thing.... Depending on where I have to get to in such a scenario, I'll take some combination of buses & walk as long as I have to from off the last bus disembarked to get to where I'm going... I'm not averse to taking a bunch of buses anyway, so the practice wouldn't be abnormal to me at all...

 

[Deucey]

20 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

Never having lived up there - pandemic or not, there's no way in f*** I would get on that thing.... Depending on where I have to get to in such a scenario, I'll take some combination of buses & walk as long as I have to from off the last bus disembarked to get to where I'm going... I'm not averse to taking a bunch of buses anyway, so the practice wouldn't be abnormal to me at all...

Dude I get on overpacked S52/42 just to avoid walking up/down these mountains from St George to the ferry.

And I used to do it on the Bx12 buses cuz the hills are alive and tryna kill me.

I got three-ply masks out on the street and heat or AC at home.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

1 hour ago, 1train2255railfan said:

Glitches happened today with that software. There was an '1111' rolling around, as well as a supposed XD60 '6229' on the M11. 

You're telling me. I inquired with the  about it this evening. They made an update earlier this week, and the tracking his been a mess since then.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

1 hour ago, MHV9218 said:

Not sure what your incredulous tone is for. I would say...the same people who enforce every surface transit standard: dispatchers and supervisors. This isn't new or uncommon – buses behind schedule are constantly told by dispatch to throw up NBP and move ahead a little. Buses running hot are constantly held at key points along the route. Same types of measures should happen for pandemic overcrowding. 

The reason for my "incredulous tone" is because quite frankly, no one gives a crap about overcrowding at the  . Plenty of bus drivers complain about it on the local lines. Not much has changed.  Sad but true... The only time I've got overcrowding addressed on some express bus lines since this pandemic is by making a stink about it, and that was on a smaller scale, just asking for say one bus. On the local buses, there is a lot more crowding.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Via Garibaldi 8

[QM1to6Ave]

20 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

You're telling me. I inquired with the  about it this evening. They made an update earlier this week, and the tracking his been a mess since then.

It's almost like they put too much data in the feed or something, it takes forever to load on mobile and often won't load at all now 

 

Unrelated, when these snow loans occur, are the buses and BOs loaned out to the other depot, or just the physical bus itself?

[Via Garibaldi 8]

53 minutes ago, QM1to6Ave said:

It's almost like they put too much data in the feed or something, it takes forever to load on mobile and often won't load at all now 

 

Unrelated, when these snow loans occur, are the buses and BOs loaned out to the other depot, or just the physical bus itself?

Here's part of the latest issue. They modified some service because of the pending snowstorm, especially on some of the express bus lines. When they do that, they have to load data into BusTime for the routes, etc. If they don't do it correctly, you won't be able to track your particular route. That happened on at least one express bus route and they have not been able to fix the issue. A few other lines are having problems loading the data, as you mentioned. I mentioned this to them today and they were contacted about other lines as well.

They made upgrades earlier this week to BusTime (desktop version). They no longer support BusTime (mobile version), and it no longer works either (at least for most people anyway - they get an error message). They have done a terrible job of letting people know about this. They are telling people to use the MYmta app. The BusTime mobile version apparently is too old for some of the features they are adding, like being able to see the occupancy level on the bus, the vehicle number, etc.

As far as snow loans go, there is an extra list that the drivers pick with the regular pick for such events like snowstorms, so yes, B/Os will move around. I know a number of Yonkers Depot drivers bounce back and forth between that depot and College Point Depot.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Via Garibaldi 8

[B35 via Church]

2 hours ago, Deucey said:

Dude I get on overpacked S52/42 just to avoid walking up/down these mountains from St George to the ferry.

And I used to do it on the Bx12 buses cuz the hills are alive and tryna kill me.

I got three-ply masks out on the street and heat or AC at home.

Well more power to you, because I outright refuse to voluntarily getting on a crowded (anything).... Multiple reasons for it.

If a bus ends up becoming crowded after I boarded, that's one thing - but for me to see a crowd & purposely add to it after the fact, nope......

[Lex]

4 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

 

The head of USDOT is not a policy wonk or a day-to-day bureaucrat (we have a federal civil service for a reason) but is more focused on working with electeds at various levels of government and politicking to get things done. As an elected official who has previously navigated USDOT's grant processes this isn't that crazy of a job.

In that case, why bother even having the damn position?

[bobtehpanda]

5 minutes ago, Lex said:

In that case, why bother even having the damn position?

One could ask this of most managers.

Realistically it's because they essentially serve as a point person for your mayor, your governor, or your Congressperson to go and ask what DOT is doing for them and what they can do for DOT. Biden is a single person, and a single person cannot spin on a dime and tell you what the status of any random request is for dozens of different agencies. At the same time your congressperson cannot be expected to keep a phonebook and tabs on every single DOT employee.

[QM1to6Ave]

18 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Here's part of the latest issue. They modified some service because of the pending snowstorm, especially on some of the express bus lines. When they do that, they have to load data into BusTime for the routes, etc. If they don't do it correctly, you won't be able to track your particular route. That happened on at least one express bus route and they have not been able to fix the issue. A few other lines are having problems loading the data, as you mentioned. I mentioned this to them today and they were contacted about other lines as well.

They made upgrades earlier this week to BusTime (desktop version). They no longer support BusTime (mobile version), and it no longer works either (at least for most people anyway - they get an error message). They have done a terrible job of letting people know about this. They are telling people to use the MYmta app. The BusTime mobile version apparently is too old for some of the features they are adding, like being able to see the occupancy level on the bus, the vehicle number, etc.

As far as snow loans go, there is an extra list that the drivers pick with the regular pick for such events like snowstorms, so yes, B/Os will move around. I know a number of Yonkers Depot drivers bounce back and forth between that depot and College Point Depot.

Oh wow, that is news to me. I used it earlier today on my phone without any issue. There's no notification anywhere that it is outdated or no longer supported! And it did shoe passenger counts and the bus number (though it is in small print). 

[NewFlyer 230]

I don’t know how this happened but there are currently 7 Q25 buses back to back in Jamaica approaching the last stop. Then there is a massive gap in service. Surprisingly the bus that just came wasn’t too full, I managed to get a seat. I wonder if it’s a MTA bus time bug? 

Edited December 18, 2020 by NewFlyer 230

[Via Garibaldi 8]

3 minutes ago, QM1to6Ave said:

Oh wow, that is news to me. I used it earlier today on my phone without any issue. There's no notification anywhere that it is outdated or no longer supported! And it did shoe passenger counts and the bus number (though it is in small print). 

They may have re-started it again, but in case you get an error message, that's why.