BUS - Random Thoughts Thread

[NBTA]

Just now, QM1to6Ave said:

I noticed the same thing with the X63/4/8 counters. And, what's with all the bustime errors as of late with bus numbers? They are often totally wrong on various lines.

BusTime falling down just like the rest of this company at one point..what do you expect? Lol

[XcelsiorBoii4888]

27 minutes ago, QM1to6Ave said:

I noticed the same thing with the X63/4/8 counters. And, what's with all the bustime errors as of late with bus numbers? They are often totally wrong on various lines.

After trying months to get the BusTime team to fix the S86 and S90 routes, and they REFUSED to fix them, that's when I realized this agency is garbage and full of corrupt leaders. 

[Lawrence St]

17 hours ago, QM1to6Ave said:

I noticed the same thing with the X63/4/8 counters. And, what's with all the bustime errors as of late with bus numbers? They are often totally wrong on various lines.

Right? I was going to ask Via but he hasn't said anything in a while.

[NBTA]

6215 was making runs on the M15 Local today.

[Iron Valiant]

41 minutes ago, NBTA said:

6215 was making runs on the M15 Local today.

Wonderful.

[SoSpectacular]

On 10/1/2021 at 11:03 PM, QM1to6Ave said:

I noticed the same thing with the X63/4/8 counters. And, what's with all the bustime errors as of late with bus numbers? They are often totally wrong on various lines.

It's something to do with the software network the division uses to keep track of all the buses. It also affects us on the road as the buses won't have their information displays or announcements working correctly at times. They're still working on that, but it's slow going.

I've had buses that called out the limited stops when I was running as a local! 

[NBTA]

12 hours ago, SoSpectacular said:

It's something to do with the software network the division uses to keep track of all the buses. It also affects us on the road as the buses won't have their information displays or announcements working correctly at times. They're still working on that, but it's slow going.

I've had buses that called out the limited stops when I was running as a local! 

This happened to me yesterday, an M101 was running limited even though by the time I got on the bus, it was supposed to be running local. Got home way faster than expected.

[trainfan22]

SMH none of the buses on the B42 are tracking, neither on the MTA website nor the bus time app I use. Had to walk in this hot, humid weather to the train cause I had no idea if any buses was running on the B42 at the moment. When I finally get to the train station, I see one B42 at the stop with a whole bunch of people waiting there. That one bus I saw on the B42 is not tracking. Usually on weekends the B42 uses 2-3 buses.

[TomaszSBklyn]

Pretty sad week for Ulmer Park. As per Citizen, another artic from UP, 7364 running on B1 (Oriental Blvd bound) was involved in an accident on 86th Street in Bath Beach not far from where another UP artic struck a pedestrian about a week ago. According to the Citizen, yesterday (10-02) around 2:22pm, the bus collided with an SUV. Video showed minimal damage to the SUV. As per the video and the comments section, the NYCT Bus driver went to the left side of the 86th Street in order to pass a double parked SUV. And while many "commentators" quickly jumped to conclusion and assigned a blame to the NYCT Bus driver, I am not buying this at all unless evidence from a camera or credible witnesses in a form of multiple coherent statements is provided.

The 86th Street in Bath Beach, runs below elevated subway tracks (D-line) from New Utrecht to Stillwell. It is a nightmare to drive a big and wide vehicle there, so my heart goes to the MTA bus operators that have to drive there. I rode on the B1 through this stretch of 86th St and noticed that the bus would come almost to a halt while passing another bus or a truck driving in the opposite direction. Passing was slow and painful. The stretch of this street is treacherous as the subway tracks sit on the top of metal pillars sitting on top of concrete pyramid like bases that are quite wide at the bottom. While this is easy to notice while driving a regular car it may be harder to estimate the width of these columns while sitting high above the ground in an SUV, a bus or a truck.

Earlier during the past week I saw B1s rerouted through Bath Avenue between 20th Avenue and some other street (did no see which one). Normally only B64 runs there, but it is served by  regular 40 footers and not artics. Bath Avenue can be a headache as well. In both the 86th Street and Bath, one of the worst headaches is an infestation of double parked troublemakers delaying traffic and forcing other users of the road go into left side of the street to pass.

[JeremiahC99]

5 hours ago, TomaszSBklyn said:

As per Citizen, another artic from UP, 7364 running on B1 (Oriental Blvd bound) was involved in an accident on 86th Street in Bath Beach not far from where another UP artic struck a pedestrian about a week ago.

7364 is not an articulated New Flyer XD60 bus. Rather, it is a standard length New Flyer XD40 bus. 

[TomaszSBklyn]

58 minutes ago, JeremiahC99 said:

7364 is not an articulated New Flyer XD60 bus. Rather, it is a standard length New Flyer XD40 bus. 

Not correct. I have seen the video. The bus number showing there was 7364 and it was an articulated bus.

Edited October 4, 2021 by TomaszSBklyn
typo

[Iron Valiant]

2 minutes ago, TomaszSBklyn said:

Not correct. I have seen the video. The bus number showing there was 7364 and it was an articulated bus.

Bro, you're wrong. 7364 is a standard 40 foot bus. There's no debate.

[SoSpectacular]

4 minutes ago, TomaszSBklyn said:

Not correct. I have seen the video. The bus number showing there was 7364 and it was an articulated bus.

7300s are all 40-foot Xcelsior diesels. Only the 4700s are articulated

[Via Garibaldi 8]

On 10/2/2021 at 4:57 PM, Lawrence St said:

Right? I was going to ask Via but he hasn't said anything in a while.

BusTime should be working again, though I've been e-mailing them with various issues for the last few months. There are a few BM trips that no longer track, so they are looking into that. Passenger counts are back. Likely did a reboot of BusTime, as it was needed, but I have to check on the other issues. 

@QM1to6Ave Each express bus stop is different. Some drivers know the arrangement about where to stop and some don't, but generally speaking, express bus riders form their own line separate from local bus riders if local and express stop at the same stop. At big stops, as you know there are lines, and the formation of those lines can vary on the stop. I've seen a little bit of everything. 

Your other question, "PayGoRecover" happens when they don't charge you immediately upon you seeing the "GO" option on the OMNY reader. If you have an OMNY account, and link the cards you use with OMNY to your account, it will show you your rider history and you can see if the charge is legitimate or not. Some of them are indeed incorrect and they have not figured out the cause of those, so those you either dispute on the OMNY website or call them if there are several charges. For a few weeks, they were having problems with charges posting to users accounts, so there was a delay of several days. I believe that has been fixed.

@trainfan22 Express bus riders are a clannish group. We tend to take the same buses every day, Years ago, in fact there were some buses where it was understood that we had our daily seats even. This was true on the BxM1. That lasted for about a year or so as people moved or whatever, but each stop is different.  At big stops, it's understood that there's a line, and if you skip they'll be hell to pay. You will hear people say something, and perhaps confront you directly, but this varies on the stop. If it's a stop where the bus won't be too crowded, people may not care. If there's no line, it is usually understood that whoever was at the stop first gets on first, unless someone either doesn't care or allows you to go first. If multiple express buses stop there, you often times will see one long line, and people will just step and look to see if anyone else does before boarding, so as not to skip anybody. As I said, as a regular, you pick up on these things, see the same faces, etc. so you can usually tell who is waiting for what bus, and eventually regulars will chat on the line with each other if you know each other over time.

@paulrivera That happens (selling food) on the Deegan Northbound by Yankee Stadium and often by 230th.

[trainfan22]

Even though they have been here for a decade, I only been on the Allison transmission Nova LFS once, way back when they was at CAS. Today, I did some NICE bus fanning and took the N6 back into Queens, thought about getting off along Hempstead turnpike/Springfield Blvd? stop for the Q2 to 165th terminal but didn't feel like it. As my N6 gets futher into Queens I check bustime and see that the Q2 I would have ended up on was LFS #8000.... an Allsion transmission unit, so yes, I took an L there lol

 

 

BTW I rode down Hillside during the PM rush and only saw three QV Old Gen hybrids. 

[Lawrence St]

Whats with the BxM3 during the morning? It's all over the place with the super express trips and the trips that start in the middle of nowhere on Sedgwick.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

20 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

Whats with the BxM3 during the morning? It's all over the place with the super express trips and the trips that start in the middle of nowhere on Sedgwick.

What do you mean by start all over the place? Those Super Express trips exist (historically) to prevent overcrowding and also to provide a quicker trip to people in Riverdale and Yonkers. I have used them myself at Broadway & W 246th when I needed to refill my Metrocard pre-pandemic and they were pretty crowded. Buses that start at Bailey & Van Cortlandt Av West do so because the Super Express BxM3s make their last pick-up at Broadway & W 246th, then they jump on the Deegan. Those trips deadhead from Yonkers, layover at W 246th & Broadway or by Bailey and Van Cortlandt Av West and then start. 

The signage is exactly the same too. No different since a rider in Kingsbridge Heights or Van Cortlandt Village or areas East or South won't see those Super Express trips.

Edited October 5, 2021 by Via Garibaldi 8

[N6 Limited]

https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/transit/2021/09/22/new-bus-lane-queens-nyc-merrick-boulevard-warning-fines-coming

Quote

NEW YORK —  On his way to work Tuesday, a driver yelled his frustration out his car window about the bus lanes along Merrick Boulevard.

“One lane! It’s ridiculous!” the driver said.

But he is not alone; most other drivers had the same gripe. One woman said it doubled her commute time, and another said it had taken her about 30 minutes to travel three miles.

...

https://www.change.org/p/new-york-city-department-of-transportation-demand-rush-hour-only-bus-lanes-on-merrick-blvd

Quote

Many drivers now avoid Merrick Blvd altogether, and choose to drive through already congested, narrow and overburdened residential streets. Most importantly, it hurts our local businesses, as drivers are now avoiding one of our main commercial corridors at all costs.

 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

31 minutes ago, N6 Limited said:

https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/transit/2021/09/22/new-bus-lane-queens-nyc-merrick-boulevard-warning-fines-coming

https://www.change.org/p/new-york-city-department-of-transportation-demand-rush-hour-only-bus-lanes-on-merrick-blvd

 

Maybe those people can use mass transit. That's novel idea. It's about time the City starts prioritizing mass transit instead of people driving solo in their cars, who are the ones creating the congestion.

[N6 Limited]

1 hour ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Maybe those people can use mass transit. That's novel idea. It's about time the City starts prioritizing mass transit instead of people driving solo in their cars, who are the ones creating the congestion.

Mass transit is slow, and this is southeast Queens, Cars are faster than buses.

Also, it's slow and Uber/Lift drivers causing the congestion. 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

12 minutes ago, N6 Limited said:

Mass transit is slow, and this is southeast Queens, Cars are faster than buses.

Also, it's slow and Uber/Lift drivers causing the congestion. 

Mass transit is slow in part because buses are stuck in vehicular traffic, and I'm sorry, but Uber & Lyft vehicles have been capped, so not as many of them around. I'm well aware of where this is. I've been working from home since the pandemic began, but I am still out and about and I see A LOT of people driving in their personal vehicles solo because no one wants to use mass transit. I'll be the first one to admit that I use a car here and there, but I still use mass transit more.  This is NYC. It's not feasible to have all of these people driving.  I live in a subway desert so I know all about limited options. Today, I went by car to the Metro-North station and took the train into Manhattan.  On nice days, I skip the car entirely and walk to the station.  So many of us can afford to drive in, but we sacrifice, otherwise no one can get around.

The only way to curb this is to prioritize buses. It's that simple.  All of the people sacrificing and not driving deserve better, because people like to say that mass transit is slow, but a lot of those people drive and don't want to give up their vehicles, which is fine.  They should be paying more to do so, handsomely more.

This is turn should force the  to offer better service, because quite frankly, the service has sucked for a good ten plus years.   Car registrations are up across the City, so those are personal vehicles, not Uber or Lyft vehicles.

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a37293032/what-will-new-york-do-with-the-cars-they-purchased-during-the-pandemic/

 

[JeremiahC99]

1 hour ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

The only way to curb this is to prioritize buses. It's that simple.  All of the people sacrificing and not driving deserve better, because people like to say that mass transit is slow, but a lot of those people drive and don't want to give up their vehicles, which is fine.  They should be paying more to do so, handsomely more.

This is turn should force the  to offer better service, because quite frankly, the service has sucked for a good ten plus years.   Car registrations are up across the City, so those are personal vehicles, not Uber or Lyft vehicles.

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a37293032/what-will-new-york-do-with-the-cars-they-purchased-during-the-pandemic/

And for Southeast Queens, could that mean implementing Select Bus Service on the Q5 to speed things up? If I recall correctly, the Q5 Merrick Blvd corridor was flagged for a potential bus rapid transit corridor in Queens in 2004, but this was scrapped. How about giving the SBS run on the Q4 and Q5 a go?

[Via Garibaldi 8]

16 minutes ago, JeremiahC99 said:

And for Southeast Queens, could that mean implementing Select Bus Service on the Q5 to speed things up? If I recall correctly, the Q5 Merrick Blvd corridor was flagged for a potential bus rapid transit corridor in Queens in 2004, but this was scrapped. How about giving the SBS run on the Q4 and Q5 a go?

What de Blasio has been promising is to ramp up the installation of more bus lanes with camera enforcement to stop the abuse of them, as people in their personal cars constantly drive in them, park in them, etc. 

I see it in other areas too. For example, there are so many people that abuse the bus lane around Mount Sinai now that have stopped taking transit and drive in. The bus lane is supposed to be in effect from 7am - 10am along 5th Avenue north of 60th St. What happens is they all come and park in the bus lane and sit there to "preserve a parking spot".  Despite all of the traffic agents out writing dozens of tickets, there are too many people abusing the bus lanes to keep up. I've seen traffic cops writing a ticket on one block and a few blocks down, someone else is in the bus lane. It's endless, and the people that complain about the tickets keep abusing the situation, so they obviously have the money to pay them. All of this significantly slows down buses, as they have to fight through vehicular traffic.  I have been pressing the DOT to address such issues, as the people sacrificing and using public transit and leaving their cars at home are the ones stuck in traffic, with some commutes now two hours one way.

In the case of Merrick Blvd., those bus lanes would've been 24/7, but elected officials came out in opposition of it. Why? Because they drive. Nevertheless, 6am - 7pm is a decent compromise.  It certainly shouldn't be anything less. 

The excuse of living in a transit desert does not mean that everyone stops using transit, because those areas don't have the infrastructure to handle such high volumes of vehicular traffic. Some of them are fairly dense. Saw the same thing on Staten Island. You had two or three cars per residence.  It doesn't work. If it were the suburbs with amble parking and less dense areas, sure, but not in NYC. The balance of people using transit vs those driving has shifted in the wrong direction to where too many are now driving.

Edited October 10, 2021 by Via Garibaldi 8

[JAzumah]

When the government implements a vaccine mandate that indicates that it is unsafe to be around unvaccinated people (when that is not true), you are going to get depressed transit ridership forever. No one wants anyone sitting next to them and no one wants to see other people on the bus that wear their masks until it is dirty on the blue side. How much is that worth to you, especially if you are a city worker that was forced to return to the office? Mixed signals lead people to choose what is best for them and that means driving as long as you can get parking on both ends.

The mayor has no real interest in bus lanes or anything bus-related. Look at the level of investment in bike lanes versus bus lanes. You do not need a study to put in a bus lane.  Did they do a full environmental study on the first Fifth Avenue bus lane? No, they put it in and it filled up, so they did a small study and put in the second lane. However, the cyclists represent a class that does not include the folks on Merrick Boulevard. We got four busways in the same time we got how many ferries? We've had tons of discussions about how the rail system is Manhattan centric, so faster non-Manhattan regional services are needed.

We won't get that and new bus lanes until we hold up the CBD Tolling District over it. They will put in all of those facilities to get that new toll revenue passed. This is how the city plans to pull themselves out of funding the MTA entirely. Once the tolling district exists, expect them to give the MTA the city owned bridges in exchange for washing their hands of MTA subsidies. They learned from the last time (in 2008) to break up what they want into smaller pieces.

[JeremiahC99]

4 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

What de Blasio has been promising is to ramp up the installation of more bus lanes with camera enforcement to stop the abuse of them, as people in their personal cars constantly drive in them, park in them, etc. 

I see it in other areas too. For example, there are so many people that abuse the bus lane around Mount Sinai now that have stopped taking transit and drive in. The bus lane is supposed to be in effect from 7am - 10am along 5th Avenue north of 60th St. What happens is they all come and park in the bus lane and sit there to "preserve a parking spot".  Despite all of the traffic agents out writing dozens of tickets, there are too many people abusing the bus lanes to keep up. I've seen traffic cops writing a ticket on one block and a few blocks down, someone else is in the bus lane. It's endless, and the people that complain about the tickets keep abusing the situation, so they obviously have the money to pay them. All of this significantly slows down buses, as they have to fight through vehicular traffic.  I have been pressing the DOT to address such issues, as the people sacrificing and using public transit and leaving their cars at home are the ones stuck in traffic, with some commutes now two hours one way.

In the case of Merrick Blvd., those bus lanes would've been 24/7, but elected officials came out in opposition of it. Why? Because they drive. Nevertheless, 6am - 7pm is a decent compromise.  It certainly shouldn't be anything less. 

The excuse of living in a transit desert does not mean that everyone stops using transit, because those areas don't have the infrastructure to handle such high volumes of vehicular traffic. Some of them are fairly dense. Saw the same thing on Staten Island. You had two or three cars per residence.  It doesn't work. If it were the suburbs with amble parking and less dense areas, sure, but not in NYC. The balance of people using transit vs those driving has shifted in the wrong direction to where too many are now driving.

I know what you're talking about. In fact, I often see bus lanes blocked on my home line the B46. The worst offender is near the northern end of route every morning I pass by there (at around 7:30 AM), and guess who parks there? The NYPD (considering the district is nearby). Constantly parking on the curbside bus lanes (where a bus stop is right there no less) with zero regard for bus lane hours or bus riders in general

I do appreciate the expansion of camera enforcement of the bus lanes, though some improvements can be realized if we get these vehicles out of the way: THE NYPD.

Also, my question was geared towards SBS installation but I do appreciate the response.