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Jones Beach bus service this year


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Will it start Memorial Day weekend again (as in years past) and run weekends only in June?  Then start daily service on/about July 1st thru Labor Day?

 

Perhaps they'll reconsider running empty buses from the beach to Hicksville this year.  The Hicksville-bound buses have at most 3 people left by the time the Jones Beach crowd departs at Freeport.  Meanwhile, the immense weekend crowds (especially at East Bathhouse) cannot even get on a bus since they're filled up by the time they pick up passengers at West Bathhouse & Central Bathhouse.  So NICE loses tons of revenue as these riders give up waiting and take cabs (or hitchhike) back to Freeport.

 

They should get rid of the Hicksville buses and make them all Jones Beach to Freeport only, every 10 minutes all weekend long.

 

As an alternative, some buses (perhaps every second or third bus) may want to go Jones Beach to Freeport, then continue via the N4x route to Parsons-Archer/Jamaica.  There is always a large beach crowd waiting to go back to Rockville Centre, Lynbrook, and Jamaica who do not wish to pay the astronomical LIRR fares.

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Extending the N4 to Jones Beach would cause delays and interrupt service for those who are not going to the beach. What they could do to remedy your situation is have the N88's start from different places heading to Hicksville for example one N88 would start at West & Central Bathhouse and go straight to Hicksville from there and another N88 starts picking up the leftovers at Central Bathhouse, pick up at East Bathhouse and then go to Hicksville. 

 

Of course doing such an operation would require double the amount of buses on the route which I highly doubt Ed Mangano will want to provide funding for so...

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No N87 bus service this year, and no beach bus service on Memorial Day.

Eliminating the N87-esp. the way they ran it last year is one thing, but no N88 service on Memorial Day?? You must be kidding.

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  • 2 months later...

1 of the 2 buses to Jones Beach broke down today, so people were waiting almost 90 minutes for a bus back to Freeport.  On a hot beach day, the crowds were becoming quite annoyed, with one lady even calling the police for assistance.  A bus finally showed up just before 6:30pm.  If a bus breaks down, it shouldn't take almost 90 MINUTES to send a replacement bus; this is total incompetence.  It's a quick ride down the Meadowbrook Expressway from NICE bus headquarters near Mitchel Field/Stewart Avenue.  Shouldn't have taken more than 20 minutes tops.

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1 of the 2 buses to Jones Beach broke down today, so people were waiting almost 90 minutes for a bus back to Freeport.  On a hot beach day, the crowds were becoming quite annoyed, with one lady even calling the police for assistance.  A bus finally showed up just before 6:30pm.  If a bus breaks down, it shouldn't take almost 90 MINUTES to send a replacement bus; this is total incompetence.  It's a quick ride down the Meadowbrook Expressway from NICE bus headquarters near Mitchel Field/Stewart Avenue.  Shouldn't have taken more than 20 minutes tops.

Sounds about right to me. Who uses a NICE bus to go to the beach on Long Island? NYC I understand, but Long Island???

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Sounds about right to me. Who uses a NICE bus to go to the beach on Long Island? NYC I understand, but Long Island???

Its the only way to get to Jones Beach using public transportation... you can get to Long Beach using LIRR, as its only a couple blocks away from the beach, but Jones Beach is in the middle of nowhere. Long Beach also has better bus service as its highly unlikely one would be waiting 90 minutes for the N15 as that is one of NICE's better routes service wise.

 

I have no idea why anyone who doesn't have a car would choose Jones Beach over Long Beach though..

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Its the only way to get to Jones Beach using public transportation... you can get to Long Beach using LIRR, as its only a couple blocks away from the beach, but Jones Beach is in the middle of nowhere. Long Beach also has better bus service as its highly unlikely one would be waiting 90 minutes for the N15 as that is one of NICE's better routes service wise.

 

I have no idea why anyone who doesn't have a car would choose Jones Beach over Long Beach though..

That's kind of my point.  It's not like they're aren't beaches that can be reached that have better transportation.  I've been thinking more and more about going out to the Hamptons, but not during the summer as I don't like the heat.  If I did so it would either be via LIRR, the Hamptons bus or I'd rent a car and drive out there.

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Its the only way to get to Jones Beach using public transportation... you can get to Long Beach using LIRR, as its only a couple blocks away from the beach, but Jones Beach is in the middle of nowhere. Long Beach also has better bus service as its highly unlikely one would be waiting 90 minutes for the N15 as that is one of NICE's better routes service wise.

 

I have no idea why anyone who doesn't have a car would choose Jones Beach over Long Beach though..

There's more "hype" and more people prefer to go to Jones Beach, essentially. Also, Jones Beach is free to access, unlike Long Beach.

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Nice should provide a bus from Hicksville LIRR station EXPRESS non stop to jones beach. They could do this very easily it's all highway, bus can go on the meadowbrook to jones beach. The bus should run from 8am to 8pm, I would say charge each person double fare in Hicksville & at jones beach you won't pay because it's nearly impossible to go to a beach & carry quarters around. I believe the mta provides this kinda service to a island under the rfk bridge.

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Nice should provide a bus from Hicksville LIRR station EXPRESS non stop to jones beach. They could do this very easily it's all highway, bus can go on the meadowbrook to jones beach. The bus should run from 8am to 8pm, I would say charge each person double fare in Hicksville & at jones beach you won't pay because it's nearly impossible to go to a beach & carry quarters around. I believe the mta provides this kinda service to a island under the rfk bridge.

I'm sure they're itching to do that.  I don't think they want too much riff-raff coming to the beaches, so they make travel there by public transportation as difficult as possible. lol

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The abject failure of the N87 proves why this wouldn't work.  95%+ of the N88 riders are connecting from the LIRR, and they want the shortest bus ride possible.  The closest LIRR stop to the beach is Freeport, not Hicksville. (Why would NICE have a bus from crazy places like Great Neck, Mineola or Hicksville to Jones Beach?  They'd get practically zero ridership.)  Riders coming from north/mid-shore towns have very frequent N40/41 or N43 buses to connect to Freeport.

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The abject failure of the N87 proves why this wouldn't work.  95%+ of the N88 riders are connecting from the LIRR, and they want the shortest bus ride possible.  The closest LIRR stop to the beach is Freeport, not Hicksville. (Why would NICE have a bus from crazy places like Great Neck, Mineola or Hicksville to Jones Beach?  They'd get practically zero ridership.)  Riders coming from north/mid-shore towns have very frequent N40/41 or N43 buses to connect to Freeport.

The N87 used to get full, I remember seeing pictures of the bus with no room available, in the LIB. 

 

LIB used to have plenty of Jones Beach bus routes, from Hempstead, Mineola, and even Jamaica. They all got discontinued slowly. Anyways, they should do more about the situation with those buses. Just because it's in the suburbs is no excuse, they should have planned to adequately serve residents. NICE misbudgets its services. All these high ridership routes are being held down by all the low-ridership routes, when there's obviously more that can be done to consolidate routes and save money, so that they can provide better service.

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The taxpayers of Nassau have spoken and Mangano has acted accordingly to get rid of waste by creating NICE. If those who use it don't like it then they can move elsewhere where they have public transportation that is adequate to their needs, but to come to the suburbs and demand public transportation is just a joke.  The upper and upper middle class taxpayers are clearly tired of the overtaxation, and as someone who is overtaxed and also part of the aforementioned group, I'm glad that they're acting accordingly.  The upper middle class and upper class residents should not be taken to the cleaners constantly paying for others who pay into the tax system far less while they receive more in return.  The upper middle and upper class residents of Long Island pay some of highest taxes in the nation, and something has to give, and that something was the public transportation.  Good for them.

 

Source: http://www.newsday.com/opinion/editorial/long-island-s-high-cost-of-living-can-t-go-on-1.10328771

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