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It's damn near impossible to change his commute.

 

He goes to school in Bay Ridge, and coming from Staten Island, you only got 2 buses to take you across the bridge. The only other way he can get to school is via the SI Ferry & (R) train, but that's a complete backtrack through Staten Island, Lower Manhattan, and a good chunk of Brooklyn.

 

Not many options he has except for the S53/79

His options are MUCH better than what I had when I lived on the island.  He has far more frequent S93 service that runs longer, AND S79SBS service.  There are always options... His options are to LEAVE earlier, or go to a school that's closer on the island.  

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It's damn near impossible to change his commute.

 

He goes to school in Bay Ridge, and coming from Staten Island, you only got 2 buses to take you across the bridge. The only other way he can get to school is via the SI Ferry & (R) train, but that's a complete backtrack through Staten Island, Lower Manhattan, and a good chunk of Brooklyn.

 

Not many options he has except for the S53/79

Oh please.  Look at the arrivals in Bay Ridge between just the hours of 6:00am to 7:30am:  S53--13, S79--14.  There are plenty of opportunities to adjust a commute.

 

You wanna start talking about no real choices?  Back in 2008 when I worked only 25 miles away, I had to budget 2.5 hours (time leaving the house until the time I started work) because buses were on 60 minute headways during AM Peak.  If I drove myself, I could cut that down to around 30 minutes -- and that's in rush hour traffic.  However, I wasn't driving myself, so that's what I had to do via the bus.  I'd leave my house at 5:30am and not return until just before 7:00pm, and then rinse and repeat.

 

Stop thinking that you've got it sooooo hard.  Learn to use the MTA Trip Planner.  Take some responsibility -- you're going to have to do it eventually.

 

Sorry for the confrontational rant, but it just irks me to no end that with your expansive transit system, some will play the "poor me" crap just because it might mean getting an earlier start.  There are LOTS more ways to get around with the MTA than almost any other transit system in the country.

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Oh please.  Look at the arrivals in Bay Ridge between just the hours of 6:00am to 7:30am:  S53--13, S79--14.  There are plenty of opportunities to adjust a commute.

 

You wanna start talking about no real choices?  Back in 2008 when I worked only 25 miles away, I had to budget 2.5 hours (time leaving the house until the time I started work) because buses were on 60 minute headways during AM Peak.  If I drove myself, I could cut that down to around 30 minutes -- and that's in rush hour traffic.  However, I wasn't driving myself, so that's what I had to do via the bus.  I'd leave my house at 5:30am and not return until just before 7:00pm, and then rinse and repeat.

 

Stop thinking that you've got it sooooo hard.  Learn to use the MTA Trip Planner.  Take some responsibility -- you're going to have to do it eventually.

 

Sorry for the confrontational rant, but it just irks me to no end that with your expansive transit system, some will play the "poor me" crap just because it might mean getting an earlier start.  There are LOTS more ways to get around with the MTA than almost any other transit system in the country.

Exactly... I budget 90 minutes now in the mornings to get from Riverdale to my office in the city with the express bus so that I can get a nap and relax.  Sometimes we're 30+ minutes early, so it works out fine. Otherwise I take Metro-North for a shorter commute, but I rarely get a seat.  Gotta roll with the punches.  Now if one of us were complaining about our commute it would be a different story...  <_<

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Exactly... I budget 90 minutes now in the mornings to get from Riverdale to my office in the city with the express bus so that I can get a nap and relax.  Sometimes we're 30+ minutes early, so it works out fine. Otherwise I take Metro-North for a shorter commute, but I rarely get a seat.  Gotta roll with the punches.  Now if one of us were complaining about our commute it would be a different story...  <_<

I'm sorry, but both the S53 and S79, if you took them from the farthest reaches of the route, have a total run of 50-60 minutes (according to the schedules).  So even if you had to transfer at some point, the maximum time you'd spend traveling is most likely under 1.5hr total.  And that's with headways of 3-10 minutes from the island.  So you'd have to leave, what, a whopping 10, 15, maybe 20 minutes earlier?

 

The pity party queue doesn't start here, sorry.

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Oh please.  Look at the arrivals in Bay Ridge between just the hours of 6:00am to 7:30am:  S53--13, S79--14.  There are plenty of opportunities to adjust a commute.

 

You wanna start talking about no real choices?  Back in 2008 when I worked only 25 miles away, I had to budget 2.5 hours (time leaving the house until the time I started work) because buses were on 60 minute headways during AM Peak.  If I drove myself, I could cut that down to around 30 minutes -- and that's in rush hour traffic.  However, I wasn't driving myself, so that's what I had to do via the bus.  I'd leave my house at 5:30am and not return until just before 7:00pm, and then rinse and repeat.

 

Stop thinking that you've got it sooooo hard.  Learn to use the MTA Trip Planner.  Take some responsibility -- you're going to have to do it eventually.

 

Sorry for the confrontational rant, but it just irks me to no end that with your expansive transit system, some will play the "poor me" crap just because it might mean getting an earlier start.  There are LOTS more ways to get around with the MTA than almost any other transit system in the country.

 

And this is the attitude that causes ridership declines. "Just leave earlier". "At least we're better than other transit systems". Talk about crabs in the barrel. Yeah, there's children starving in third-world countries, I guess there's no need for soup kitchens, right?

 

We should be trying to do everything within our ability and financial/operating constraints to improve the service. Transit agencies talk about "choice" riders and "captive" riders, not realizing that it's not as black-and-white as that. Somebody could be living in poverty, but if the bus service stinks, they'll buy a car so they can at keep their low-paying job.

 

I have classmates back in high school who bought a car for that exact reason: They had to leave 20 minutes earlier to reach their destination on-time, so they said screw it and bought a car and now contribute to traffic jams across the borough.

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And this is the attitude that causes ridership declines. "Just leave earlier". "At least we're better than other transit systems". Talk about crabs in the barrel. Yeah, there's children starving in third-world countries, I guess there's no need for soup kitchens, right?

 

We should be trying to do everything within our ability and financial/operating constraints to improve the service. Transit agencies talk about "choice" riders and "captive" riders, not realizing that it's not as black-and-white as that. Somebody could be living in poverty, but if the bus service stinks, they'll buy a car so they can at keep their low-paying job.

 

I have classmates back in high school who bought a car for that exact reason: They had to leave 20 minutes earlier to reach their destination on-time, so they said screw it and bought a car and now contribute to traffic jams across the borough.

How could someone in "poverty" afford a car if they can barely afford the local bus? 

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used 

That doesn't include gas, insurance and maintenance...Even with what I spend a month on the express bus and Metro-North a month, it's still cheaper than me having a car.  With a car, I'd have to pay for a garage, plus insurance, gas, maintenance and whatever car payment I had, as I think it's easier to lease, this way you get a new car every few years.

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Oh please. Look at the arrivals in Bay Ridge between just the hours of 6:00am to 7:30am: S53--13, S79--14. There are plenty of opportunities to adjust a commute.

 

You wanna start talking about no real choices? Back in 2008 when I worked only 25 miles away, I had to budget 2.5 hours (time leaving the house until the time I started work) because buses were on 60 minute headways during AM Peak. If I drove myself, I could cut that down to around 30 minutes -- and that's in rush hour traffic. However, I wasn't driving myself, so that's what I had to do via the bus. I'd leave my house at 5:30am and not return until just before 7:00pm, and then rinse and repeat.

 

Stop thinking that you've got it sooooo hard. Learn to use the MTA Trip Planner. Take some responsibility -- you're going to have to do it eventually.

 

Sorry for the confrontational rant, but it just irks me to no end that with your expansive transit system, some will play the "poor me" crap just because it might mean getting an earlier start. There are LOTS more ways to get around with the MTA than almost any other transit system in the country.

All of that means nothing if there's always traffic on the bridge (like he initially said). You can leave your house on time (hell, even earlier), and once you get on the bridge you screwed. Not like you can get off the bus midway across the bridge and trek the rest of the way. And he STILL has another bus to take once he gets off the S53/79/93. And that's not counting if he has to take a bus to get to the S53/79/93...

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Checkmate is right on with his sentiments. In an urban area like NYC even the poor people are living a fast paced lifestyle with a thousand and one things chipping away at your time and only so much time in the day. So for transit to be attractive it should be minimizing the amount of time you have to spend on it or time wasting to access it. The breath of transit coverage in the city is far from a complaint and for me it's the biggest selling point to using transit in this city. The problem is that transit is primarily used for work commutes (especially in the outer parts of the city) and for work people need to make it on time (without being excessively early). Transit in NYC for some reason has a huge penchant for running delayed meaning trips can be at least 20 minutes longer than scheduled not just on occasion but as a habit. If you add 20 minutes to your scheduled trip to allow for those delays and no delay occurs you now have 20 minutes of time with little productive use. If a delay longer than that occurs, you're late and allowing that extra time had no benefit. The former scenario sucks because those 20 minutes by which I am early just to assure being on time could have been used for extra sleep or to chill at home before getting out. Things more productive then being in an office chair 20 minutes before scheduled.

 

There's not just that but the issue of how your allocated commute time is being spent. This goes into issues such as number of modes used, waiting time, speed of the modes used and each individual will have different preferences in those regards but for me at least my main value in commuting is low waiting time. I find the prospect of standing idle at a subway or bus stop to be extremely wasteful of my valuable time and there isn't a single activity that I've been able to do waiting that I cannot do on the bus or train itself. Waiting time is an issue for many commuters given that our busiest lines can leave riders behind on many occasions due to overcrowding which widens their advertised low headways, and those same lines have issues of bunching on many occasions which can lead to wide gaps in the service as well. Other lines offer high headways that very few riders would bother waiting on and would only time the bus/train exactly if on-time performance is close to perfect. People in fast paced urban areas will pick commute methods that make the most out of their time and if transit fails to do that the individual doesn't have to submit to agency interests and 'commute earlier'. I don't blame people in places like East Queens, Staten Island, South Brooklyn or Northeast Bronx for buying cars since mobility increases tenfold with one.

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Checkmate is right on with his sentiments. In an urban area like NYC even the poor people are living a fast paced lifestyle with a thousand and one things chipping away at your time and only so much time in the day. So for transit to be attractive it should be minimizing the amount of time you have to spend on it or time wasting to access it. The breath of transit coverage in the city is far from a complaint and for me it's the biggest selling point to using transit in this city. The problem is that transit is primarily used for work commutes (especially in the outer parts of the city) and for work people need to make it on time (without being excessively early). Transit in NYC for some reason has a huge penchant for running delayed meaning trips can be at least 20 minutes longer than scheduled not just on occasion but as a habit. If you add 20 minutes to your scheduled trip to allow for those delays and no delay occurs you now have 20 minutes of time with little productive use. If a delay longer than that occurs, you're late and allowing that extra time had no benefit. The former scenario sucks because those 20 minutes by which I am early just to assure being on time could have been used for extra sleep or to chill at home before getting out. Things more productive then being in an office chair 20 minutes before scheduled.

 

There's not just that but the issue of how your allocated commute time is being spent. This goes into issues such as number of modes used, waiting time, speed of the modes used and each individual will have different preferences in those regards but for me at least my main value in commuting is low waiting time. I find the prospect of standing idle at a subway or bus stop to be extremely wasteful of my valuable time and there isn't a single activity that I've been able to do waiting that I cannot do on the bus or train itself. Waiting time is an issue for many commuters given that our busiest lines can leave riders behind on many occasions due to overcrowding which widens their advertised low headways, and those same lines have issues of bunching on many occasions which can lead to wide gaps in the service as well. Other lines offer high headways that very few riders would bother waiting on and would only time the bus/train exactly if on-time performance is close to perfect. People in fast paced urban areas will pick commute methods that make the most out of their time and if transit fails to do that the individual doesn't have to submit to agency interests and 'commute earlier'. I don't blame people in places like East Queens, Staten Island, South Brooklyn or Northeast Bronx for buying cars since mobility increases tenfold with one.

I make a deal with myself that if I take Metro-North, I get to sleep in later and I'll buy myself a cappuccino and a pastry since I rarely get a seat and don't feel comfortable really getting a nap the way that I do on the express bus.  If I get the express bus and I'm early, I go and get a cappuccino or a macchiato and a pastry for leaving out earlier, so it works out.  My preference is the express bus because I can relax and have seats to myself.  The Metro-North seats are extremely uncomfortable and not as clean as the express bus seats, which is another reason I rarely sit on them.

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How could someone in "poverty" afford a car if they can barely afford the local bus? 

 

I said "transit agencies". That's not just the MTA. Ask somebody living in a poor part of Long Island (especially Suffolk) what their primary mode of travel is, and see what they say. When the last bus of the night is 7PM, you may very well need a car for the sake of keeping your low-paying job.

 

Within NYC, I know people who work at the supermarket who own a car. At $9 an hour, if you're a half hour late, that's $4.50 right there (not to mention the risk of losing your job if you show up late too often). Gas isn't that expensive. If a car gets 20 mpg, and your job is 5 miles away, that means one gallon will last you for two round-trips. Car insurance, maintenance, the math might very well work out. 

 

Checkmate is right on with his sentiments. In an urban area like NYC even the poor people are living a fast paced lifestyle with a thousand and one things chipping away at your time and only so much time in the day. So for transit to be attractive it should be minimizing the amount of time you have to spend on it or time wasting to access it. The breath of transit coverage in the city is far from a complaint and for me it's the biggest selling point to using transit in this city. The problem is that transit is primarily used for work commutes (especially in the outer parts of the city) and for work people need to make it on time (without being excessively early). Transit in NYC for some reason has a huge penchant for running delayed meaning trips can be at least 20 minutes longer than scheduled not just on occasion but as a habit. If you add 20 minutes to your scheduled trip to allow for those delays and no delay occurs you now have 20 minutes of time with little productive use. If a delay longer than that occurs, you're late and allowing that extra time had no benefit. The former scenario sucks because those 20 minutes by which I am early just to assure being on time could have been used for extra sleep or to chill at home before getting out. Things more productive then being in an office chair 20 minutes before scheduled.

 

There's not just that but the issue of how your allocated commute time is being spent. This goes into issues such as number of modes used, waiting time, speed of the modes used and each individual will have different preferences in those regards but for me at least my main value in commuting is low waiting time. I find the prospect of standing idle at a subway or bus stop to be extremely wasteful of my valuable time and there isn't a single activity that I've been able to do waiting that I cannot do on the bus or train itself. Waiting time is an issue for many commuters given that our busiest lines can leave riders behind on many occasions due to overcrowding which widens their advertised low headways, and those same lines have issues of bunching on many occasions which can lead to wide gaps in the service as well. Other lines offer high headways that very few riders would bother waiting on and would only time the bus/train exactly if on-time performance is close to perfect. People in fast paced urban areas will pick commute methods that make the most out of their time and if transit fails to do that the individual doesn't have to submit to agency interests and 'commute earlier'. I don't blame people in places like East Queens, Staten Island, South Brooklyn or Northeast Bronx for buying cars since mobility increases tenfold with one.

 

Not only does does it make a difference in getting to work on time, but also in bad weather (hot, cold, rain, etc), standing there for 20-30 minutes is a huge turnoff.

 

It's not even about being a fast-paced area. Even if you go to a more laid-back area, there's a limit to how much extra time people are willing to allow. An extra 10-15 minutes might not make a difference, but when taking transit means that a 30 minute drive turns into a 2 hour ordeal, you're very likely to buy a car no matter where you are. 

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I said "transit agencies". That's not just the MTA. Ask somebody living in a poor part of Long Island (especially Suffolk) what their primary mode of travel is, and see what they say. When the last bus of the night is 7PM, you may very well need a car for the sake of keeping your low-paying job.

 

Within NYC, I know people who work at the supermarket who own a car. At $9 an hour, if you're a half hour late, that's $4.50 right there (not to mention the risk of losing your job if you show up late too often). Gas isn't that expensive. If a car gets 20 mpg, and your job is 5 miles away, that means one gallon will last you for two round-trips. Car insurance, maintenance, the math might very well work out. 

For now it isn't, but I still wonder how a poor person could afford a car... How much would they be spending a month for everything?  My standards are probably too high, but usually someone with a car has a car payment if they lease unless they bought the car outright or they have a beater, and then the insurance, maintenance and gas and the parking... That's easily $800.00 a month.  A monthly is pretty cheap (I forget how much one costs since I don't use them), but for the year it has to be under $2,000.00, versus close to $10,000 a year for a car.  That's a big difference, and someone who is poor (i.e. making $15,000 a year)... The math doesn't add up. LOL

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For now it isn't, but I still wonder how a poor person could afford a car... How much would they be spending a month for everything?  My standards are probably too high, but usually someone with a car has a car payment if they lease unless they bought the car outright or they have a beater, and then the insurance, maintenance and gas and the parking... That's easily $800.00 a month.  A monthly is pretty cheap (I forget how much one costs since I don't use them), but for the year it has to be under $2,000.00, versus close to $10,000 a year for a car.  That's a big difference, and someone who is poor (i.e. making $15,000 a year)... The math doesn't add up. LOL

 

One of my coworkers bought a $400 beater. Insurance is around $200 a month ($2400 a year). Gas is probably less than $50 a month ($600 a year). Maintenance is probably around $500 a year. Parking is generally free in areas like Staten Island. So that's around $4,000 a year. 

 

A monthly MetroCard each month is around $1,400 for the year. For some, that extra $2,600 or so might very well be worth it, even if they're scraping by, especially if it allows you to get a second job, or work later hours after the buses stop running (or if you have to make a transfer between two buses that run once an hour each).

 

In any case, it's lots of grey area between "choice" and "dependent" riders. It's one thing if people are making trips that can't efficiently be served by the transit system. I have coworkers who come from various parts of Long Island and NJ. It wouldn't be realistic for the MTA (or NJT/NICE/SCT) to serve that travel market effectively. But at the same time, when you have high school students from middle-class families who feel the need to buy a car, that's a problem.

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And this is the attitude that causes ridership declines. "Just leave earlier". "At least we're better than other transit systems". Talk about crabs in the barrel. Yeah, there's children starving in third-world countries, I guess there's no need for soup kitchens, right?

 

We should be trying to do everything within our ability and financial/operating constraints to improve the service. Transit agencies talk about "choice" riders and "captive" riders, not realizing that it's not as black-and-white as that. Somebody could be living in poverty, but if the bus service stinks, they'll buy a car so they can at keep their low-paying job.

 

I have classmates back in high school who bought a car for that exact reason: They had to leave 20 minutes earlier to reach their destination on-time, so they said screw it and bought a car and now contribute to traffic jams across the borough.

YOU accept what the MTA gives you.  Therefore, YOU are responsible for shoddy service (if that's what you deem it as).

 

So, in short, YOU are the reason the MTA does what it does.  YOU pay for the service, and yet you're going to complain about it?  You only have yourself to blame.

 

WHY YOU don't hold them accountable is not my fault.  As the axiom goes, "You get what you pay for."

 

Don't direct your anger at me, direct it at the MTA.  Plain and simple.

 

Every time someone comes on these forums to say how the MTA is failing you, YOU are the ones to pull them apart and make THEM the bad guys, yet you do nothing to improve service, because you're more enamored with shiny new buses, new trains and the minutiae associated with them.

 

You're getting played, and it's nobody's fault except your own.

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Checkmate is right on with his sentiments. In an urban area like NYC even the poor people are living a fast paced lifestyle with a thousand and one things chipping away at your time and only so much time in the day. So for transit to be attractive it should be minimizing the amount of time you have to spend on it or time wasting to access it. The breath of transit coverage in the city is far from a complaint and for me it's the biggest selling point to using transit in this city. The problem is that transit is primarily used for work commutes (especially in the outer parts of the city) and for work people need to make it on time (without being excessively early). Transit in NYC for some reason has a huge penchant for running delayed meaning trips can be at least 20 minutes longer than scheduled not just on occasion but as a habit. If you add 20 minutes to your scheduled trip to allow for those delays and no delay occurs you now have 20 minutes of time with little productive use. If a delay longer than that occurs, you're late and allowing that extra time had no benefit. The former scenario sucks because those 20 minutes by which I am early just to assure being on time could have been used for extra sleep or to chill at home before getting out. Things more productive then being in an office chair 20 minutes before scheduled.

 

There's not just that but the issue of how your allocated commute time is being spent. This goes into issues such as number of modes used, waiting time, speed of the modes used and each individual will have different preferences in those regards but for me at least my main value in commuting is low waiting time. I find the prospect of standing idle at a subway or bus stop to be extremely wasteful of my valuable time and there isn't a single activity that I've been able to do waiting that I cannot do on the bus or train itself. Waiting time is an issue for many commuters given that our busiest lines can leave riders behind on many occasions due to overcrowding which widens their advertised low headways, and those same lines have issues of bunching on many occasions which can lead to wide gaps in the service as well. Other lines offer high headways that very few riders would bother waiting on and would only time the bus/train exactly if on-time performance is close to perfect. People in fast paced urban areas will pick commute methods that make the most out of their time and if transit fails to do that the individual doesn't have to submit to agency interests and 'commute earlier'. I don't blame people in places like East Queens, Staten Island, South Brooklyn or Northeast Bronx for buying cars since mobility increases tenfold with one.

Once again, YOU (collectively) allow it to happen.

 

Transit is only important if the RIDERS take an interest.

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YOU accept what the MTA gives you.  Therefore, YOU are responsible for shoddy service (if that's what you deem it as).

 

So, in short, YOU are the reason the MTA does what it does.  YOU pay for the service, and yet you're going to complain about it?  You only have yourself to blame.

 

WHY YOU don't hold them accountable is not my fault.  As the axiom goes, "You get what you pay for."

 

Don't direct your anger at me, direct it at the MTA.  Plain and simple.

 

Every time someone comes on these forums to say how the MTA is failing you, YOU are the ones to pull them apart and make THEM the bad guys, yet you do nothing to improve service, because you're more enamored with shiny new buses, new trains and the minutiae associated with them.

 

You're getting played, and it's nobody's fault except your own.

Your forgetting that the MTA refuses to listen to complaints and elected officials are pretty bad at it too(unless it just happens to be an election year).

 

We can holler all we want but MTA keeps the earmuffs on.

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YOU accept what the MTA gives you.  Therefore, YOU are responsible for shoddy service (if that's what you deem it as).

 

So, in short, YOU are the reason the MTA does what it does.  YOU pay for the service, and yet you're going to complain about it?  You only have yourself to blame.

 

WHY YOU don't hold them accountable is not my fault.  As the axiom goes, "You get what you pay for."

 

Don't direct your anger at me, direct it at the MTA.  Plain and simple.

 

Every time someone comes on these forums to say how the MTA is failing you, YOU are the ones to pull them apart and make THEM the bad guys, yet you do nothing to improve service, because you're more enamored with shiny new buses, new trains and the minutiae associated with them.

 

You're getting played, and it's nobody's fault except your own.

 

You're talking to the wrong guy if you want to bring up stuff about not holding them accountable. I've spent years trying to convince them to do things that are good for them, like restructure routes, extend some short-turns a few blocks, add a few stops at key transfer points, too much padding in the schedules, etc. There's MTA officials who know me by name from all of this.

 

I've done everything within my power to make stuff happen, and tried to convince others to join me (which a few have). So far the results have been minimal.

 

I know you're referring to riders collectively, but you make it sound like it's so simple to convince the MTA to change things. They put up little fliers on the buses advertising these public hearings, so most people don't even know about them. Then even for people like myself who actively attend these meetings (as well as community board meetings, civic association meetings, etc), we get hit with "Oh, we'll look into it" for years on end. Who has the patience for that?

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You're talking to the wrong guy if you want to bring up stuff about not holding them accountable. I've spent years trying to convince them to do things that are good for them, like restructure routes, extend some short-turns a few blocks, add a few stops at key transfer points, too much padding in the schedules, etc. There's MTA officials who know me by name from all of this.

 

I've done everything within my power to make stuff happen, and tried to convince others to join me (which a few have). So far the results have been minimal.

 

I know you're referring to riders collectively, but you make it sound like it's so simple to convince the MTA to change things. They put up little fliers on the buses advertising these public hearings, so most people don't even know about them. Then even for people like myself who actively attend these meetings (as well as community board meetings, civic association meetings, etc), we get hit with "Oh, we'll look into it" for years on end. Who has the patience for that?

I was going to add that they'll use fudged up stats to justify their pre-planned half baked solutions that serve more of their interests than those of the riders but what you said is enough for a rep.
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You're talking to the wrong guy if you want to bring up stuff about not holding them accountable. I've spent years trying to convince them to do things that are good for them, like restructure routes, extend some short-turns a few blocks, add a few stops at key transfer points, too much padding in the schedules, etc. There's MTA officials who know me by name from all of this.

 

I've done everything within my power to make stuff happen, and tried to convince others to join me (which a few have). So far the results have been minimal.

 

I know you're referring to riders collectively, but you make it sound like it's so simple to convince the MTA to change things. They put up little fliers on the buses advertising these public hearings, so most people don't even know about them. Then even for people like myself who actively attend these meetings (as well as community board meetings, civic association meetings, etc), we get hit with "Oh, we'll look into it" for years on end. Who has the patience for that?

Don't think I'm so callous or delusional to think that a huge government entity like the MTA would listen to individuals.  They wouldn't pay attention even if you staged a complete pants-off "no pants" day on the subway or something similar.  Let me be blunt for a minute, since that's my nature, and I tone it down dependent on audience, whether online or IRL:

 

You (collectively, in this forum) f-ck with VG8 whenever he voices how he/others in his constituency complain about Express bus service (and the like) to improve service and basically tell him to f-ck off, stop the "elitist" stuff.  (Sidenote:  Same for BrooklynBus.)  YET, because of his/their efforts, things get attention, and the Riverdale area (golly, some of you are probably gagging yourself to death right now at the very mention of that) has basically told the MTA -- "Look, either you get with the program and serve our area, or all of these taxpayers will make your life a living hell."  It's not about who lives in the area, or who can schmooze, it's about plain and simple facts in the end.

 

Take a lesson from that.  Just MAYBE some of you (on this forum) should collaborate and MAYBE things could happen, taking online to IRL.  You guys know the system backwards and forwards, and if you think the "brains" at MTA aren't looking around here, you're under some serious LSD or other drug' affects.  They DO pay attention here, BUT that should NOT stop you from pestering them, especially if group(s) are willing to stand up and be known that you're real, you're a user, you're a taxpayer, and YOU make the system work -- and expect to be listened to.  (And those MTA "brains" probably agree with you more often than not but don't want to risk things on their end.)

 

Just like on a playground, the MTA is only tough until someone else can "out-bully" them.  So far, the people of NYC are looked at by them as p-ssies: You'll take what they give you (like some here with the fascination of shiny new buses when the current ones can't run on time, ... BUT AT LEAST THEY'RE NEW AND SHINY).  Set your sights low and they'll meet them.  TELL them to raise their sights, pressure them, and they'll meet them.

 

HATE ALERT -- I'm gonna talk about my area:  As I've said before, DDOT (Detroit) has had an ongoing problem (over decades) of never following printed schedules and doing a "free-for-all" type of operation.  And even when the local media has shamed them for such antics (like no buses on the outskirts of the city for 1-2 hours), they STILL (silently) flipped them the finger.  WELL ... things have definitely changed, and it wasn't because of new New Flyers being delivered, it was because people pressured the Mayor and the DDOT Director (who BOTH cut their teeth at SMART) to make serious changes.  24-hour service has been implemented on two core routes, and I'm certain that within the next 6 months some crosstown routes will be added.  Before this, DDOT was seeing a drop in ridership (even when gas prices were above $3.00/gal), and now I'll even accept that overall ridership could be 8% higher year over year.  Customer input DOES make a difference, but it's because of  perseverance.

 

If VG8, BrooklynBus and others in their communities can do it, others here can do it, especially given your knowledge.

/off the soapbox

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