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Via Garibaldi 8

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5 minutes ago, Lil 57 said:

That's good, I was afraid that MJQ or another local Manhattan depot would do the "standby trips" due to it just serving Manhattan.

No. I made that very clear in my express bus network review. Only coach buses for express bus trips. In fact that situation with Baisley Park I had a conference call about. Was addressed immediately. 

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I'm starting to see that there were lots of runs being left unfilled... The more we monitor service, we're starting to see patterns where certain runs are not filled or are chronically late or spotty.  I have to wonder how big of a mess this was. Clearly it was a mess for several months, and even years with some runs.  

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2 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I'm starting to see that there were lots of runs being left unfilled... The more we monitor service, we're starting to see patterns where certain runs are not filled or are chronically late or spotty.  I have to wonder how big of a mess this was. Clearly it was a mess for several months, and even years with some runs.  

I think this is the first time any external group is looking for issues in service patterns over time. It seems to have been the Wild West until now.

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10 minutes ago, QM1to6Ave said:

I think this is the first time any external group is looking for issues in service patterns over time. It seems to have been the Wild West until now.

 

Lol, the Wild West was more transparent. If you had a grievance, you'd air it out, not stuff it inside and keep it hidden.

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21 minutes ago, QM1to6Ave said:

I think this is the first time any external group is looking for issues in service patterns over time. It seems to have been the Wild West until now.

It was and I’m willing to bet that they never expected anyone to do what we’ve done, which is put ALL express bus riders together in one group so that we can ALL see how effed up service is all around the City. This makes it VERY easy for the Comptroller’s Office to see how they haven’t been doing a damn thing to meet that audit. This weekend we had several trips that clocked in 30-40 minutes late and now we see patterns of this no matter when we take QM4, QM5 or QM6 trips. The QM2 is the most reliable on weekends. Today on the BxM2 alone there were at least four missing trips that I knew of, and plenty of others too. You see I’ve noticed that on Mondays lots of drivers either take off or some runs have it where the driver will have say Sunday and Monday off, so you would have fillers. As I said, they’ve been so used to not filling so many trips that the getting became too good. Even now, they still cannot fill all of the scheduled service consistently.

Their on-time performance remains abysmal which is something else that the audit points to. That’s why you’ll notice that you have the buses at the terminals on BusTime a lot more regularly now than before and today they were coming immediately. None of that sitting around at the terminal. They know I’ve been having ongoing discussions with the Comptroller’s Office and we just talked today about meeting in January. I wanted to first gather enough data to show them trends that we’ve seen, and more importantly to say to them, you see this agency hasn’t done a damn thing to make service better and here’s the proof, now go and audit their @sses again and dig nice and deep and see what they’ve doing.

The last thing you want is to be audited for service when you’re supposedly arresting ridership on buses. LOL

Something else I realized today.... Most of the trips that have been going missing have been going missing for MONTHS, a few days here and there. I thought about trips that I couldn’t take last year and then looked more closely and said sh*t there’s a pattern here. In all fairness to my contact he wasn’t in his position at the time but still. They knew very well what they were doing, and they had no one to check them so why not. Just don’t fill the trip, and you and me will stand at the stop like idiots not knowing that such and such bus isn’t coming.

Edited by Via Garibaldi 8
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10 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

It was and I’m willing to bet that they never expected anyone to do what we’ve done, which is put ALL express bus riders together in one group so that we can ALL see how effed up service is all around the City. This makes it VERY easy for the Comptroller’s Office to see how they haven’t been doing a damn thing to meet that audit. This weekend we had several trips that clocked in 30-40 minutes late and now we see patterns of this no matter when we take QM4, QM5 or QM6 trips. The QM2 is the most reliable on weekends. Today on the BxM2 alone there were at least four missing trips that I knew of, and plenty of others too. You see I’ve noticed that on Mondays lots of drivers either take off or some runs have it where the driver will have say Sunday and Monday off, so you would have fillers. As I said, they’ve been so used to not filling so many trips that the getting became too good. Even now, they still cannot fill all of the scheduled service consistently.

Their on-time performance remains abysmal which is something else that the audit points to. That’s why you’ll notice that you have the buses at the terminals on BusTime a lot more regularly now than before and today they were coming immediately. None of that sitting around at the terminal. They know I’ve been having ongoing discussions with the Comptroller’s Office and we just talked today about meeting in January. I wanted to first gather enough data to show them trends that we’ve seen, and more importantly to say to them, you see this agency hasn’t done a damn thing to make service better and here’s the proof, now go and audit their @sses again and dig nice and deep and see what they’ve doing.

The last thing you want is to be audited for service when you’re supposedly arresting ridership on buses. LOL

Something else I realized today.... Most of the trips that have been going missing have been going missing for MONTHS, a few days here and there. I thought about trips that I couldn’t take last year and then looked more closely and said sh*t there’s a pattern here. In all fairness to my contact he wasn’t in his position at the time but still. They knew very well what they were doing, and they had no one to check them so why not. Just don’t fill the trip, and you and me will stand at the stop like idiots not knowing that such and such bus isn’t coming.

I wonder if any of this shows up on the MTA's Performance Dashboard. You should find out. If it doesn't or performance shows to be much better, that would mean that it can't be trusted to measure performance on any route, local or express. 

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15 minutes ago, BrooklynBus said:

I wonder if any of this shows up on the MTA's Performance Dashboard. You should find out. If it doesn't or performance shows to be much better, that would mean that it can't be trusted to measure performance on any route, local or express. 

We're going to have a look.  I believe they showed some metrics in an MTA Board meeting. It was presented by Mr. Irick and I had to contain myself from spitting out the water I was drinking in my office. I think it's a joke.  It's skewed to make it look like service is great.  A simple audit by the Comptroller's Office would show much worse.  I've been using a very simple evaluation.  Compare the schedules they have posted and their time points, take trips or track the buses on BusTime and see how they compare.  If the bus is roughly 5-10 minutes behind schedule we call it on-time. If it's a little under 5 minutes early, we'll even call that on-time to adjust for the time that the drivers may have on their fare box.  Trips that are 20-40 minutes late (as we've seen regularly) are not only late, but unacceptable, and we repeatedly see this out in Queens and in Brooklyn, even on weekends.  Last night we tracked some late QM express buses to Queens when there was no traffic. I know because I took a late bus myself and traffic was just fine.  The bus was still about 15 minutes late finishing, and that tells me that their schedules are a joke. They don't give the drivers enough time along Queens Blvd and they really should be on an expressway with an HOV lane to speed up the buses.  Trips are taking an hour and 40 minutes regularly when supposedly they should be an hour. Same deal with the BM lines. The BxM lines have better written schedules but even there we still count numerous missing trips that aren't being filled.  Yesterday, the 16:05 to Riverdale, the 18:00 to Midtown, the 20:00 to Riverdale and the 17:00 to Midtown all went unfilled on the BxM2.  They did manage to fill the 23:00 to Riverdale after I noted how many BxM2s regularly go missing and have been now for MONTHS.  This does NOT include all of the trips that passengers report missing regularly in our group that we can verify, as they are ongoing as well.  They have a chronic problem making service, and the more that I study which trips are coming and which are missing, the more I realize how big of a problem this is.  

When I meet with the Comptroller's Office, I'm going to show them the patterns that we've seen and how they continue to not fill trips. It's incredible. Staten Island is another animal entirely.  There is a HUGE discrepancy between what the higher ups are told in terms how many trips are being filled daily versus what we're seeing and what passengers are reporting, and no one has a reason to lie. We even stand right at bus stops to see just what happens and compare the schedule, and we repeatedly see large gaps of 40 minutes during rush hour with passengers fuming about not getting a bus.  They will blame traffic, but when they were audited the audit makes it clear that the schedules should be better aligned with real time arrivals, FACTORING in traffic.  Yes, traffic has worsened, but you cannot keep using that as an excuse as to why you can't make service over and over. It goes back to what I said before. They have gotten too comfortable simply not filling trips. The only question is how severe is the problem.  You and I know the deal, and I have folks on the inside who I talk with about the situation, and they know the deal too.  I was talking about Ulmer Park Depot too and the mess there.  We laughed because we all know that the situation at that depot is a chronic problem that will take YEARS to fix. It's been a mess going back to when I lived down there.

Edited by Via Garibaldi 8
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1 hour ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

We're going to have a look.  I believe they showed some metrics in an MTA Board meeting. It was presented by Mr. Irick and I had to contain myself from spitting out the water I was drinking in my office. I think it's a joke.  It's skewed to make it look like service is great.  A simple audit by the Comptroller's Office would show much worse.  I've been using a very simple evaluation.  Compare the schedules they have posted and their time points, take trips or track the buses on BusTime and see how they compare.  If the bus is roughly 5-10 minutes behind schedule we call it on-time. If it's a little under 5 minutes early, we'll even call that on-time to adjust for the time that the drivers may have on their fare box.  Trips that are 20-40 minutes late (as we've seen regularly) are not only late, but unacceptable, and we repeatedly see this out in Queens and in Brooklyn, even on weekends.  Last night we tracked some late QM express buses to Queens when there was no traffic. I know because I took a late bus myself and traffic was just fine.  The bus was still about 15 minutes late finishing, and that tells me that their schedules are a joke. They don't give the drivers enough time along Queens Blvd and they really should be on an expressway with an HOV lane to speed up the buses.  Trips are taking an hour and 40 minutes regularly when supposedly they should be an hour. Same deal with the BM lines. The BxM lines have better written schedules but even there we still count numerous missing trips that aren't being filled.  Yesterday, the 16:05 to Riverdale, the 18:00 to Midtown, the 20:00 to Riverdale and the 17:00 to Midtown all went unfilled on the BxM2.  They did manage to fill the 23:00 to Riverdale after I noted how many BxM2s regularly go missing and have been now for MONTHS.  This does NOT include all of the trips that passengers report missing regularly in our group that we can verify, as they are ongoing as well.  They have a chronic problem making service, and the more that I study which trips are coming and which are missing, the more I realize how big of a problem this is.  

When I meet with the Comptroller's Office, I'm going to show them the patterns that we've seen and how they continue to not fill trips. It's incredible. Staten Island is another animal entirely.  There is a HUGE discrepancy between what the higher ups are told in terms how many trips are being filled daily versus what we're seeing and what passengers are reporting, and no one has a reason to lie. We even stand right at bus stops to see just what happens and compare the schedule, and we repeatedly see large gaps of 40 minutes during rush hour with passengers fuming about not getting a bus.  They will blame traffic, but when they were audited the audit makes it clear that the schedules should be better aligned with real time arrivals, FACTORING in traffic.  Yes, traffic has worsened, but you cannot keep using that as an excuse as to why you can't make service over and over. It goes back to what I said before. They have gotten too comfortable simply not filling trips. The only question is how severe is the problem.  You and I know the deal, and I have folks on the inside who I talk with about the situation, and they know the deal too.  I was talking about Ulmer Park Depot too and the mess there.  We laughed because we all know that the situation at that depot is a chronic problem that will take YEARS to fix. It's been a mess going back to when I lived down there.

When they blame traffic, Trottenberg should be put on the spot to answer what she is doing specifically to reduce traffic at the chronic locations where buses are delayed. 

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6 minutes ago, BrooklynBus said:

When they blame traffic, Trottenberg should be put on the spot to answer what she is doing specifically to reduce traffic at the chronic locations where buses are delayed. 

I know. That's why I have demanded a meeting with the DOT. They've been stalling.  If I don't get one, I'm going to try to get one with an elected official and then have them invite the DOT and put them on the spot.  Trottenberg knows what's going on because she even admitted in one of the board meetings that for hire cars have quadrupled in just the last few years, yet she's been sitting by allowing the situation to worsen narrowing streets with pedestrian plazas and unnecessary bike lanes that people aren't using. Then when the bike lanes exacerbate traffic, they go back and rip up the street again wasting taxpayer dollars. They did the same crap on Dyckman St.  One narrow lane in each direction. If one person double parked, all hell would break loose.  Would take 20 - 30 minutes just to go a few blocks.  Did they really need to waste money to see that it wouldn't work and that no one would use the bike lanes? Obviously they did...

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14 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I know. That's why I have demanded a meeting with the DOT. They've been stalling.  If I don't get one, I'm going to try to get one with an elected official and then have them invite the DOT and put them on the spot.  Trottenberg knows what's going on because she even admitted in one of the board meetings that for hire cars have quadrupled in just the last few years, yet she's been sitting by allowing the situation to worsen narrowing streets with pedestrian plazas and unnecessary bike lanes that people aren't using. Then when the bike lanes exacerbate traffic, they go back and rip up the street again wasting taxpayer dollars. They did the same crap on Dyckman St.  One narrow lane in each direction. If one person double parked, all hell would break loose.  Would take 20 - 30 minutes just to go a few blocks.  Did they really need to waste money to see that it wouldn't work and that no one would use the bike lanes? Obviously they did...

And of course they distort the statistics to show the bike lanes work by comparing how many biked 20 years ago to how many bike today neglecting to mention the increase in bike fatalities and injuries. And when that is pointed out, their response is that they need more protected bike lanes. 

A few months ago de Blasio praised Vision Zero because no pedestrian was killed this year on Queens Blvd. When there was another fatality this week, his response was that Vision Zero still is a success but more work needs to be five. What work? Lowering the speed to 20 mpg? Elimination of another traffic lane? Create more pedestrian space? Reduce more green time for cars and buses? Put a bus lane in the main road because buses were greatly slowed by putting in a bike lane and reducing traffic lanes? 

Love the way they added a protected bike lane to 9th Street in Brooklyn to increase pedestrian safety there after that horrible accident last year. DeBlasio and Trottenberg need to wake up and start telling the truth for a change. 

 

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1 minute ago, BrooklynBus said:

And of course they distort the statistics to show the bike lanes work by comparing how many biked 20 years ago to how many bike today neglecting to mention the increase in bike fatalities and injuries. And when that is pointed out, their response is that they need more protected bike lanes. 

A few months ago de Blasio praised Vision Zero because no pedestrian was killed this year on Queens Blvd. When there was another fatality this week, his response was that Vision Zero still is a success but more work needs to be five. What work? Lowering the speed to 20 mpg? Elimination of another traffic lane? Create more pedestrian space? Reduce more green time for cars and buses? Put a bus lane in the main road because buses were greatly slowed by putting in a bike lane and reducing traffic lanes? 

Love the way they added a protected bike lane to 9th Street in Brooklyn to increase pedestrian safety there after that horrible accident last year. DeBlasio and Trottenberg need to wake up and start telling the truth for a change. 

 

She's the female version of him.  She said at one of the board meetings, that she was hearing all of this talk about buses.  Yeah, you're the commissioner of the DOT, how about you give a damn about moving buses in this City? Then she proceeded to spend an extended period of time talking about Select Bus Service (as usual - you know there are no other buses in this City), bus lanes for them, etc.

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Well if you didn't know as well when deblasio gave us the wonderful 25mph speed limit. Absolutely 0 schedules were adjusted to deal with that. There are still schedules now that have the same run time as they did before when local streets had 30mph limits.

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35 minutes ago, trife86 said:

Well if you didn't know as well when deblasio gave us the wonderful 25mph speed limit. Absolutely 0 schedules were adjusted to deal with that. There are still schedules now that have the same run time as they did before when local streets had 30mph limits.

Some schedules were changed, and you're right, some weren't at all, and we're well aware of this.  This is one of the reasons that we're tracking service aggressively because the 2015 audit calls on the (MTA) to adjust ALL express bus schedules which they can easily do with BusTrek.  In some cases, they have elongated them by 20 minutes or more, and buses STILL are 20 - 30 minutes late.  Adjusting the schedules are important, but at the same time the longer the trips are, the longer and the more expensive they will become, so at some point we have to examine why these trips are taking longer.  In some cases it is due to choke points or buses not having HOV lanes as they should.  Additionally NOT one express bus is using traffic signal priority in 2018, and this falls on the DOT. The only thing that Polly Trottenberg talks about is Select Bus Service.  As I pointed out before the (MTA) Board along with Trottenberg, they purchased some 300 express buses for Staten Island, and not one of them is using technology to speed up those buses.

The other thing a lot of people don't know is, the DOT does whatever the hell they want.  The (MTA) has lobbied for things like no right turns on 5th during rush hour. The DOT balked, so the bus lanes become almost useless at times with cabs, Ubers and other trucks parked in them non-stop.  

Edited by Via Garibaldi 8
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2 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

 

The other thing a lot of people don't know is, the DOT does whatever the hell they want.  The (MTA) has lobbied for things like no right turns on 5th during rush hour. The DOT balked, so the bus lanes become almost useless at times with cabs, Ubers and other trucks parked in them non-stop.  

We know the DOT does what they want. They choose to dilly dally around all these issues and dilly dally they do! 🤣

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1 hour ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

These idiots can't even figure out the bus stops right... They're part of the reason for lines like this:

 

Yea that's pretty ridiculous WFC was always pretty heavy when we had the X routes but I never seen it like that. I've seen 20 30people there but that's crazy.

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9 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

She's the female version of him.  She said at one of the board meetings, that she was hearing all of this talk about buses.  Yeah, you're the commissioner of the DOT, how about you give a damn about moving buses in this City? Then she proceeded to spend an extended period of time talking about Select Bus Service (as usual - you know there are no other buses in this City), bus lanes for them, etc.

You should have asked her why her Woodhaven SBS report states that only three minutes are saved with from the bus lanes AND by paying your fare in advance but only if you travel five miles or more. Does she think that is worth $250 million? And why she is comparing the change in traffic times using BEFORE data from AFTER when the bus lanes were installed. She is not going to get the true traffic delays from the bus lanes by comparing AFTER to AFTER instead of BEFORE to AFTER.

Edited by BrooklynBus
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