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Random Thoughts Thread - Nassau Inter-County Express (NICE)


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My whole problem with stickers/decals is the wear and tear caused by the bus washes especially. Which was why I liked the MTA's reasoning as to paint jobs for the entire bus scheme -- lasts longer and even though labor costs are affected minimally, it gives a better appearance. Nothing tackier than seeing a "bumper sticker" peeling, attracting dirt and just looking like a half-assed band-aid job. And let's face facts: If NICE can't afford regular maintenance, they sure aren't going to be prompt on making sure damaged stickers or decals are replaced to maintain the "fresh" look on new buses. Besides, is the current fleet all in uniform livery as it is, after how many years?

There's still a few buses here and there still sporting the MTA look with NICE decals slapped all around it. And then there's one specifically (can't remember the number) that's, still looking like MTA, but with the back panel being all orange.

 

Looks super tacky lol

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Ever since the Long Island Bus departed from the MTA, buses in LI have gotten scarse. Two weeks ago I was waiting for an N4 bus at 111th Avenue to Freeport and it bypassed me. We need a bus tracker app for the NICE Buses, badly.

There is if you use GoMobile or other tracking app:

http://www.nicebus.com/Passenger-Information/Mobile-Ticketing.aspx

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Ever since the Long Island Bus departed from the MTA, buses in LI have gotten scarse. Two weeks ago I was waiting for an N4 bus at 111th Avenue to Freeport and it bypassed me. We need a bus tracker app for the NICE Buses, badly.

 

The Transit app has one but when I tried it, I could only see one bus at a time...

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It is true, but the new New Flyer buses are already here.  Some are being run as "Training Bus" in the Mitchel Depot area.  They are scheduled to run real routes in November.


If I walked the perimeter of the Mitchel Field depot fence and took lots of photos, would I get escorted away from the facility?  Hmmm.

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How was it? What time did you got on? I was thinking of going to Hempstead Transit Center someday and hopefully to the ride the XN40 on the N6 but I bet 50/50 chance of an Orion Vll NG showing up.

It was fine, both times the bus was basically full so I was standing toward the front. I didn't get to try the seats, but the straps are cool.  other than that it doesn't feel that much different than the Orion Lowfloors

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I've come across a lot of spec changes and some BS revolving around these XN40s.

For one, they disqualified NovaBUS because they couldn't deliver a bus with 40 seats....interestingly enough, these XN40s seats 39, just ONE MORE than the standard LFS. Initially, they wanted buses with 43 seats, and the only manufacturer to deliver with that was DaimlerChrysler with the Orion VII...but none of the other manufacturers could meet that.

Another thing is that they originally ruled out Luminator because of the sign size, hence why Hanover was originally selected.....but somehow, we got Luminators. The seats are also different, and much cheaper than the original spec.

To make it short, they went from spending a good amount on the specs of these buses....to going to the extremely cheap route with these buses.

Someone was in someone else's ear....

Edited by Cait Sith
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Well, at least they got some brand new buses that look fantastic on the outside rather than more of someone else's retired-but-still-have-a-few-years-left retreads from California.  If NICE does the correct, manufacturer-recommended maintenance, they should be good enough for our County for a decade.

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Well, at least they got some brand new buses that look fantastic on the outside rather than more of someone else's retired-but-still-have-a-few-years-left retreads from California. If NICE does the correct, manufacturer-recommended maintenance, they should be good enough for our County for a decade.

 

It's a little worrysome because if they went to the extent of cutting down the cost of these buses by a good margin, it makes me wonder how they'll last in the long run, because we don't know what might've been changed elsewhere.

Edited by Cait Sith
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