MTA NYC Transit Announces Community Workshops to Help Reshape the Future of Bronx Busing

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Just now, Lawrence St said:

I honestly feel like Bee Line should allow MTA to extend some of their routes into Westchester because the way how Liberty Lines is running the routes aint working. There shouldnt be a reason why theres a 45 minute wait for the next 4 bus during rush hour.

No, the answer is to let Westchester PAY for their services and stop stealing City services.  They're in a different county for a reason. It's bad enough with them coming down to use the subway as it is. The problem is the more monied folks in Westchester don't want the poor folks going there so they cut local bus service to deter them from moving there.  That's what it boils down to.  That and taxes are so high that the big income earners up there complain about them and the politicians look to see what they can cut... Can't cut from the school budget because that'll kill property values, so what's the easiest thing?  Bus service. They know poor folks don't vote and speak up so they take advantage.   Same deal out on Long Island with NICE. 

[MysteriousBtrain]

8 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

No, the answer is to let Westchester PAY for their services and stop stealing City services.  They're in a different county for a reason. It's bad enough with them coming down to use the subway as it is. The problem is the more monied folks in Westchester don't want the poor folks going there so they cut local bus service to deter them from moving there.  That's what it boils down to.  That and taxes are so high that the big income earners up there complain about them and the politicians look to see what they can cut... Can't cut from the school budget because that'll kill property values, so what's the easiest thing?  Bus service. They know poor folks don't vote and speak up so they take advantage.   Same deal out on Long Island with NICE. 

If we have MTA routes in southern Westchester, the MTA gives liberty money and vice versa for bee line in the Bronx. You can't be in different counties unless one company pays another for service.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

5 minutes ago, MysteriousBtrain said:

If we have MTA routes in southern Westchester, the MTA gives liberty money and vice versa for bee line in the Bronx. You can't be in different counties unless one company pays another for service.

I believe Westchester does give some sort of funding for the BxM3 to run into Yonkers, but still.  It's pretty lopsided how much Westchester residents benefit from our transit services. They run their buses within the City borders closed door and we don't.  Over the last few years it's definitely become much more noticeable. If I decide to take the  train at say 231st, sometimes the train is already almost standing room only, and that's all people getting on at 242nd from Westchester moreso than people from Riverdale, so it's becoming our problem more and more.  I know of a few people that can't afford to live in the City anymore so they moved just over the border in Yonkers to have access to the subway, etc., even if it requires taking Bee Line.

[checkmatechamp13]

Just now, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I believe Westchester does gives some sort of funding for the BxM3 to run into Yonkers, but still.  It's pretty lopsided how much Westchester residents benefit from our transit services. They run their buses within the City borders closed door and we don't.

...except on the 60/61/62 on Boston Road...

[Lawrence St]

5 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I believe Westchester does give some sort of funding for the BxM3 to run into Yonkers, but still.  It's pretty lopsided how much Westchester residents benefit from our transit services. They run their buses within the City borders closed door and we don't.  Over the last few years it's definitely become much more noticeable. If I decide to take the  train at say 231st, sometimes the train is already almost standing room only, and that's all people getting on at 242nd from Westchester moreso than people from Riverdale, so it's becoming our problem more and more.  

Not all lines are closed door though. Some of them are closed door for a reason since they duplicate another service pattern run by MTA. I.E the 1/2/3 replicate the Bx9.

[WestFarms36]

24 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

I honestly feel like Bee Line should allow MTA to extend some of their routes into Westchester because the way how Liberty Lines is running the routes aint working. There shouldnt be a reason why theres a 45 minute wait for the next 4 bus during rush hour.

That is the most Incoherent thing that could ever be done. Westchester's problems are not  problems... Our Taxpayer dollars and Farebox revenue already Subsidize the  from us City residents using a city service. I am not at all bother if someone from Westchester or Nassau is using our Buses, they have every right to as long as they are paying the fare. As much as Westchester is running their bus service, it is not our problem, and it would be a waste of money extending Bus Routes to Westchester County for the preference of someone. If you don't like the way Bee Line is dealing with their services and don't want to move to NYC, then take a Cab, use Uber, Buy a car, or travel by Bike. If you certainly want to stick with Public Transit, if you have enough in your budget, then use Metro North to get into the city. Deplorable Bus service from Neighboring Counties is not an excuse to beg for the  to extend its services outside of city boundaries unless there is a profitable location.

[Lawrence St]

1 minute ago, WestFarms36 said:

That is the most Incoherent thing that could ever be done. Westchester's problems are not  problems... Our Taxpayer dollars and Farebox revenue already Subsidize the  from us City residents using a city service. I am not at all bother if someone from Westchester or Nassau is using our Buses, they have every right to as long as they are paying the fare. As much as Westchester is running their bus service, it is not our problem, and it would be a waste of money extending Bus Routes to Westchester County for the preference of someone. If you don't like the way Bee Line is dealing with their services and don't want to move to NYC, then take a Cab, use Uber, Buy a car, or travel by Bike. If you certainly want to stick with Public Transit, if you have enough in your budget, then use Metro North to get into the city. Deplorable Bus service from Neighboring Counties is not an excuse to beg for the  to extend its services outside of city boundaries unless there is a profitable location.

So I cant advocate for a combined transit agency? If MTA were to run all these agenices under one, we wouldnt have the problems we have now. Heck in fact, I asked one of the higher ups when they were going to do a redesign and she responded "redesign? Ha your funny. All the routes are fine the way they are."

[Via Garibaldi 8]

1 minute ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

...except on the 60/61/62 on Boston Road...

Yeah for the benefit of primarily who? Primarily residents in Westchester.  Those buses connect them to several City services, so they benefit more than City residents overall.

Just now, Lawrence St said:

Not all lines are closed door though. Some of them are closed door for a reason since they duplicate another service pattern run by MTA.

Yes I know, but I'm thinking specifically of all of the Westchester residents that come over the border just to use City services.  There's a guy that I know that lives up in Bronxville. He's too cheap to pay for Metro-North so he drives all the way down to the Bronx and uses the subway from there. It's actually such a big problem that my elected official stepped in to curb it.  They take up all of the damn parking to go take the subway.

Quote

 “Those spots were being used for commuters,” Dinowitz said. “Most of them were from Westchester, and I didn’t think it was fair for a piece of our neighborhood to be used for parking for Westchester.”

http://riverdalepress.com/stories/commuters-no-longer-welcome-around-college-parkway,66635?

I agree with Dinowitz 100%.  They scorn us but then want to come in and take up the parking and use our services but some of them look at us with disgust when we use Metro-North like they're better.

[WestFarms36]

2 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

So I cant advocate for a combined transit agency? If MTA were to run all these agenices under one, we wouldnt have the problems we have now. Heck in fact, I asked one of the higher ups when they were going to do a redesign and she responded "redesign? Ha your funny. All the routes are fine the way they are."

It is up to the county to make that decision, not the  Plus we shouldn't be thinking about expansions until we contain and control the problems with our current system. It's nice to grow, but when you're existing system is shit, you cannot make an expansion for you to then spend more and have less...

[GreatOne2k]

49 minutes ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

...except on the 60/61/62 on Boston Road...

Also the 45 in Pelham Bay Park and the 54 on Mundy Lane. 

[East New York]

On 9/6/2018 at 7:05 PM, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I'm writing to Byford and Irick right now talking about these re-designs and their lies about how they're a "success" and questioning how they came to that conclusion. I want to see if I get a response from either of them.

How can you say they are lying? You don’t even know what they are using to measure the success that they are talking about. 

Why don’t you ask before you start jumping to conclusions as usual....

[Future ENY OP]

From reading this particular thread I’ve gather some information. If Westchester folk want to utilize city services than move to Woodlawn, Bedford Park, Riverdale and Kingsbridge for accessibly instead of driving from Bronxville, Scarsdale, and White Plains. 

Right now the  doesn’t want to get into a dog fight with Liberty lines // Bee Line of Westchester. There are routes that the  can use and provide express services between White Plains and Manhattan. If we want to have regional bus service than both entities need to have their shit in order and provide the services. It’s a matter of who’s going to flip the bill.

Look at what happen when  took over the private lines. Yes, they improved under the . However, will be the same if Liberty lines // Bee line give  their lines???

[Via Garibaldi 8]

17 minutes ago, Future ENY OP said:

From reading this particular thread I’ve gather some information. If Westchester folk want to utilize city services than move to Woodlawn, Bedford Park, Riverdale and Kingsbridge for accessibly instead of driving from Bronxville, Scarsdale, and White Plains. 

Right now the  doesn’t want to get into a dog fight with Liberty lines // Bee Line of Westchester. There are routes that the  can use and provide express services between White Plains and Manhattan. If we want to have regional bus service than both entities need to have their shit in order and provide the services. It’s a matter of who’s going to flip the bill.

Look at what happen when  took over the private lines. Yes, they improved under the . However, will be the same if Liberty lines // Bee line give  their lines???

The can't even run what they have now. The re-design may be a success to them but not to most commuters. Byford and I exchanged a few more e-mails that I didn't post here regarding the re-design. I want him to explain how they arrived at that conclusion. I asked him point blank once and he skirted my question saying that the agency can't please everyone. It's a pretty straight forward question. If we want to use their own run times, then it's been a failure since most trips are taking longer. They promised service not spans would be the same if not better. Not happening on some lines. Service has also not been frequent given how many missing buses have been reported so what metrics are they using? 

[Future ENY OP]

12 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

The can't even run what they have now. The re-design may be a success to them but not to most commuters. Byford and I exchanged a few more e-mails that I didn't post here regarding the re-design. I want him to explain how they arrived at that conclusion. I asked him point blank once and he skirted my question saying that the agency can't please everyone. It's a pretty straight forward question. If we want to use their own run times, then it's been a failure since most trips are taking longer. They promised service not spans would be the same if not better. Not happening on some lines. Service has also not been frequent given how many missing buses have been reported so what metrics are they using? 

If this agency is going to boost success on this Staten Island Express re-design they all better go to HELL. I’m not from Staten Island and I could even tell this re-design is completely bascura. My concern is will they add new lines in the future for Staten Island? 

I seriously want to pray that the Bronx doesn’t get screwed. 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

22 minutes ago, Future ENY OP said:

If this agency is going to boost success on this Staten Island Express re-design they all better go to HELL. I’m not from Staten Island and I could even tell this re-design is completely bascura. My concern is will they add new lines in the future for Staten Island? 

I seriously want to pray that the Bronx doesn’t get screwed. 

I've been communicating with various express bus riders since the re-design and while there are some that have shorter commutes on Staten Island, the majority of them furious because they are seeing longer commutes, lots of missing buses, lots of standing room only or no room to get on at all, large gaps in service, etc., so it's clearly not working.  The agency will never admit that something is a failure.  The message I received in correspondence with some people at the  and others is that we know we f-ed up, and we're "fine tuning" it.  They also believe that they've "learned from their mistakes", so I'm going to be inquiring at the upcoming workshops as to what sort of mistakes they felt that they learned from.   

[limitednyc]

20 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I've been communicating with various express bus riders since the re-design and while there are some that have shorter commutes on Staten Island, the majority of them furious because they are seeing longer commutes, lots of missing buses, lots of standing room only or no room to get on at all, large gaps in service, etc., so it's clearly not working.  The agency will never admit that something is a failure.  The message I received in correspondence with some people at the  and others is that we know we f-ed up, and we're "fine tuning" it.  They also believe that they've "learned from their mistakes", so I'm going to be inquiring at the upcoming workshops as to what sort of mistakes they felt that they learned from.   

it's probably the problems that has been  happening for years especially with buses returning for second trips in am .  i wonder if thay  reviewed deadhead times and pull out time im the pm  from si.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

8 minutes ago, limitednyc said:

it's probably the problems that has been  happening for years especially with buses returning for second trips in am .  i wonder if thay  reviewed deadhead times and pull out time im the pm  from si.

I've been an express bus rider out there for some years and when I first saw the proposals I knew they wouldn't work.  There's a lot of problems, but one of the big ones is they tried to combine too many buses into one line, and then they didn't add enough service to cover the new lines.  On top of that they called themselves addressing the congestion issue by concentrating certain buses down particular corridors to take advantage of the bus lanes, but they are useless because they aren't enforced.  Even Byford admitted that it's been an ongoing problem in my correspondence with him, and it's something we are going to chat about personally more at the workshop. They have got to do a better job of coordinating with the DOT and the NYPD to ensure that there's daily enforcement of these bus lanes, and I also want to get an idea of timelines for traffic signal priority.  They seem to be quite behind on it despite claiming that they've provided funding for it.

Not only that but I don't understand why they can't make service.  They have so many missing trips that they aren't filling. How do you create schedules and then you can't fill the trips? I'm not talking about revisions they've made. I'm just talking about the schedules they put out in the beginning. There isn't a day that has gone by without some commuter complaining about large gaps in service and multiple buses simply not showing up, forget about them being late.  That is what is exacerbating the problem.  I am very concerned about the re-design for the other boroughs given how this has turned out.  I think Byford means well, but this was not thought out well at all.

[B35 via Church]

2 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I've been communicating with various express bus riders since the re-design and while there are some that have shorter commutes on Staten Island, the majority of them furious because they are seeing longer commutes, lots of missing buses, lots of standing room only or no room to get on at all, large gaps in service, etc., so it's clearly not working.  The agency will never admit that something is a failure.  The message I received in correspondence with some people at the  and others is that we know we f-ed up, and we're "fine tuning" it.  They also believe that they've "learned from their mistakes", so I'm going to be inquiring at the upcoming workshops as to what sort of mistakes they felt that they learned from.   

Yeah, but you don't pull this ******* garbage at the expense of riders - they didn't learn from shit & they're only "fine tuning" it because the right people are raising a stink about it....  The more I read about this redesign & how real commuters (you know, the ones the MTA are supposed to have in mind) have been affected, the angrier I get - and I have not once resided in Richmond County a day in a my life..... They may not have known the extent of the ensuing chaos that ended up emerging, but they knew exactly what they were aiming to do with this plan....

If you could, I'd like to read up on what supposed mistakes they learned from too, because I don't buy it for a second.... The whole thing comes across as canned BS..... They don't know how to effectively serve their riders/riderbases as it is (before & after this SI redesign), so to tell me you've learned from something when it's not on your hard drive to begin with, is fallacious....

Thanks.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

2 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

Yeah, but you don't pull this ******* garbage at the expense of riders - they didn't learn from shit & they're only "fine tuning" it because the right people are raising a stink about it....  The more I read about this redesign & how real commuters (you know, the ones the MTA are supposed to have in mind) have been affected, the angrier I get - and I have not once resided in Richmond County a day in a my life..... They may not have known the extent of the ensuing chaos that ended up emerging, but they knew exactly what they were aiming to do with this plan....

If you could, I'd like to read up on what supposed mistakes they learned from too, because I don't buy it for a second.... The whole thing comes across as canned BS..... They don't know how to effectively serve their riders/riderbases as it is (before & after this SI redesign), so to tell me you've learned from something when it's not on your hard drive to begin with, is fallacious....

Thanks.

We shall definitely see.  I don't know how much time I'll have to speak with Byford but hopefully enough to get some answers to the questions I have.

[bobtehpanda]

18 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

So I cant advocate for a combined transit agency? If MTA were to run all these agenices under one, we wouldnt have the problems we have now. Heck in fact, I asked one of the higher ups when they were going to do a redesign and she responded "redesign? Ha your funny. All the routes are fine the way they are."

The MTA is a combined transit agency. Long Island Bus was not that hot. How well do the LIRR and Metro North work together? Etc. etc. etc.

[Mtatransit]

They can talk about redesign all they want but if there is missing buses and buses coming more than half an hour late then, the ridership will continue to drop. 

This is evident on the new SI Exp schedules. It seems like they used the old run times and hope it would work.

[checkmatechamp13]

1 hour ago, Mtatransit said:

They can talk about redesign all they want but if there is missing buses and buses coming more than half an hour late then, the ridership will continue to drop. 

This is evident on the new SI Exp schedules. It seems like they used the old run times and hope it would work.

That's not the main issue. The main issue is the lack of frequency on some routes (e.g. SIM4C and SIM7) that I took one look at the schedule and said "every bus will be overcrowded"

The other issue is the gaps between peak and off-peak service. Try getting home from Downtown between 7pm and 8:30pm and see how limited your options are.

[Mtatransit]

43 minutes ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

That's not the main issue. The main issue is the lack of frequency on some routes (e.g. SIM4C and SIM7) that I took one look at the schedule and said "every bus will be overcrowded"

The other issue is the gaps between peak and off-peak service. Try getting home from Downtown between 7pm and 8:30pm and see how limited your options are.

It’s not the main issue but it’s a significant issues. It’s an issue plaguing the entire city. A lot of times a SCHEDULED run will not show up, and people will have to wait for the next one, which because the MTA is stingy with the bus service, may not have room for everyone.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

47 minutes ago, Mtatransit said:

It’s not the main issue but it’s a significant issues. It’s an issue plaguing the entire city. A lot of times a SCHEDULED run will not show up, and people will have to wait for the next one, which because the MTA is stingy with the bus service, may not have room for everyone.

I agree. It's really a big problem Citywide. I have never had this many issues with missing buses particularly during the morning rush.  It's so obvious too. I've been burned several times this year calling myself leaving earlier to make a stop before heading to my office.  I get to the stop before the bus is due. No bus on BusTime and the bus NEVER comes.  Then you try the same bus again the next day. Same result. I've had numerous instances where a bus won't come for two or three days in a row because the driver is out sick or on vacation and they are not replacing the drivers.  It's something I'm going to raise at the workshop.  They are simply not meeting service.  Then when you complain to your elected officials, the  's response is "we haven't cut any service", so then where in the hell is the bus???  Yesterday morning my BxM2 was 20 minutes late. He was off of BusTime entirely and he was so late that I had given up on him coming.  A bus that is 20 minutes late when it only runs every 30 minutes most of the day during what is supposed to be rush hour.  The drivers show up like everything is normal too.  They make no effort to get back on time and then wonder why passengers are pissed off.

Yesterday was Rosh Hashanah so schools were closed, which should mean buses should be on time given how light traffic usually is.  I have been able to take later buses on that holiday for years and get in on time. Well not yesterday. I was about 15 minutes late with all of that. 

[East New York]

Don’t forget you all have to factor in the daily “unplanned service disruptions” like accidents, breakdowns, traffic issues, and other road calls. 

By no means am I defending the many ongoing and widespread problems, however missing buses are most times due to one of the issues above.