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Lawrence St

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10 minutes ago, RailRunRob said:

Got it.. That gives some reference to the context of previous comments.  So yeah way more moving parts with the between the County local Townships and Cities (ie Yonkers/WhitePlains) plus State. Homework.. Homework..

It’s a pain in the @ss to be honest. Even if it was just the DOT, they are not very receptive and that’s putting it lightly.

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13 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

It’s a pain in the @ss to be honest. Even if it was just the DOT, they are not very receptive and that’s putting it lightly.

Definitely seems so. A lot of people are way to comfortable in these agencies. Time for shake ups.   

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35 minutes ago, RailRunRob said:

Definitely seems so. A lot of people are way to comfortable in these agencies. Time for shake ups.   

I insisted on them being present for my first meeting with the (MTA) . Of course no one came. I mean if the agency is going to improve bus service, they need the DOT on board. It’s that simple, so now we’ll try a second meeting, hopefully with the DOT present.

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  • 2 months later...

I've been riding the W25 & W55 a fair amount as of late, and the following come to mind:


W25 -- The 2:37 PM weekday trip out of Yonkers seems to always be SRO by the time it gets through Ashburton Avenue, and from firsthand experience of having taken that particular trip every now & then since 2009, it seems to have always been like that. My most recent ride on that very same trip on the W25 has made me realize just where is the overload coming from. The trip gets what seems like a normal load boarding in Getty Square, and more people boarding along North Broadway, but what makes the trip always SRO (even with an O5 always assigned to it) is an influx of high school students boarding at each stop along Ashburton Avenue (whose slow traffic only makes matters worse). I do wonder what possible solutions could be considered to alleviate the spike in crowding on this one trip (and I think the 3:00 PM behind it too, but I can't recall offhand).

W55 -- This particular route seems to always have hybrids assigned to almost all of it's trips, I've noticed (I rarely ever see an O5 on it). And it's consistent 30-35 minute frequency, while seemingly fine in the middle of the day, starts to become a bit more packed come the afternoon/evening rush. Then you have the issue of weekday evening departures out of the Bronx start to decline in frequency a touch earlier than they probably should be (at least imo). In particular, the 6:15 PM trip out of the Bronx is always SRO (moreso than any other trip I ride on the W55). And after comparing timetables between the current W55 schedule, and an older schedule (from the early 2000's) that I was able to salvage off of an archived version of the old Bee-Line schedules & maps page...I think I may have found the source of the problem.

Old schedule:

5:00 PM, 5:30 PM, 6:05 PM, 6:40 PM, 7:15 PM, 7:50 PM, 8:30 PM, 9:10 PM

Current schedule:

5:00 PM, 5:35 PM, 6:15 PM, 7:00 PM, 7:45 PM, 8:30 PM, 9:10 PM

Basing on the comparison above, that part of the W55's schedule lost a trip sometime between then & now. And I'd say it definitely shows in the ridership on the trips that are there on today's schedule; they have one less trip than they had previously (I just don't know for sure when this rescheduling occurred). Additionally, one thing I have noticed is that the 6:15 PM trip in particular can never make it to Petrillo Plaza on-time, because of how abnormally crowded it is (in comparison to other W55 trips). It's scheduled time at Petrillo Plaza is 6:29, but from the several times I've ridden it, it's always there at least 6:34 PM, and the B/O on that trip usually flies through North Terrace Avenue & Broad Street/Midland Avenue to make up for the delay. Granted, today's schedule does have one positive that the old one didn't...Hourly Sunday service nowadays, versus just a single bus operating the entire W55 line on Sundays back then.

Thoughts?

Edited by Axis
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12 hours ago, Axis said:

I've been riding the W25 & W55 a fair amount as of late, and the following come to mind:


W25 -- The 2:37 PM weekday trip out of Yonkers seems to always be SRO by the time it gets through Ashburton Avenue, and from firsthand experience of having taken that particular trip every now & then since 2009, it seems to have always been like that. My most recent ride on that very same trip on the W25 has made me realize just where is the overload coming from. The trip gets what seems like a normal load boarding in Getty Square, and more people boarding along North Broadway, but what makes the trip always SRO (even with an O5 always assigned to it) is an influx of high school students boarding at each stop along Ashburton Avenue (whose slow traffic only makes matters worse). I do wonder what possible solutions could be considered to alleviate the spike in crowding on this one trip (and I think the 3:00 PM behind it too, but I can't recall offhand).

W55 -- This particular route seems to always have hybrids assigned to almost all of it's trips, I've noticed (I rarely ever see an O5 on it). And it's consistent 30-35 minute frequency, while seemingly fine in the middle of the day, starts to become a bit more packed come the afternoon/evening rush. Then you have the issue of weekday evening departures out of the Bronx start to decline in frequency a touch earlier than they probably should be (at least imo). In particular, the 6:15 PM trip out of the Bronx is always SRO (moreso than any other trip I ride on the W55). And after comparing timetables between the current W55 schedule, and an older schedule (from the early 2000's) that I was able to salvage off of an archived version of the old Bee-Line schedules & maps page...I think I may have found the source of the problem.

Old schedule:

5:00 PM, 5:30 PM, 6:05 PM, 6:40 PM, 7:15 PM, 7:50 PM, 8:30 PM, 9:10 PM

Current schedule:

5:00 PM, 5:35 PM, 6:15 PM, 7:00 PM, 7:45 PM, 8:30 PM, 9:10 PM

Basing on the comparison above, that part of the W55's schedule lost a trip sometime between then & now. And I'd say it definitely shows in the ridership on the trips that are there on today's schedule; they have one less trip than they had previously (I just don't know for sure when this rescheduling occurred). Additionally, one thing I have noticed is that the 6:15 PM trip in particular can never make it to Petrillo Plaza on-time, because of how abnormally crowded it is (in comparison to other W55 trips). It's scheduled time at Petrillo Plaza is 6:29, but from the several times I've ridden it, it's always there at least 6:34 PM, and the B/O on that trip usually flies through North Terrace Avenue & Broad Street/Midland Avenue to make up for the delay. Granted, today's schedule does have one positive that the old one didn't...Hourly Sunday service nowadays, versus just a single bus operating the entire W55 line on Sundays back then.

Thoughts?

The 25 has been a mess ever since they made Manor House Square the last stop and Yonkers RR Station the first stop, and because the 7 now terminates there, theres no room for 6 and 25 to layover without causing a backup. The 6 can run up to 15 minutes late as well as the 25 because of this.

There should be/was a school trip that is suppose to take High School students during that time to not overcrowd the 25, I will look into this.

As for the 55, dont even get me started...

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20 hours ago, King Transit said:

I don't live in Bronx/near Bee-lines. But I wonder, why did they get to keep their alcoa rims on their buses ? *Jealous*

 

Bee Line has a number of improvements that MTA dosent.

The artic fleet rotates around regularly, and all the buses are well maintained.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I've been using the 25 during late afternoons/early evenings on weekdays a little bit more often now, actively using bus arrival times on Google Maps, and comparing against the actual timetables...it seems like Yonkers-bound trips are either leaving 238th Street too early (if they aren't interlined with Bronx-bound trips that have been running well behind schedule), or they are arriving/departing CCSC ahead of schedule (example: trip scheduled to depart CCSC 7:00 PM leaving at 6:57 PM instead). I'm starting to wonder if certain trips are given a few minutes too many on one side of the route (between CCSC & Bronx), yet nowhere near enough time on another side of the route (between CCSC & Yonkers).

*glares at Ashburton Avenue's horrible afternoon Rush Hour traffic*

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On 1/18/2019 at 2:45 PM, Lawrence St said:

There should be/was a school trip that is suppose to take High School students during that time to not overcrowd the 25, I will look into this.

If there was ever previously a School Days only trip on the 25 during the afternoon rush, I've actually never heard of it. If it never existed...it's definitely needed.

Because it's either that, or taking consideration into completely overhauling the routing layout & timetable to accommodate articulated buses instead of 40 footers, and we all know that's not happening (even though it clearly can if one takes the time to see how it could be done).

Append: I actually want to discuss with some of you in here the idea of changing the routing & timetable for the sake of assigning articulated buses to most (if not all) trips. It's a concept that's been on my mind for the past decade.

Edited by Axis
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3 hours ago, Axis said:

If there was ever previously a School Days only trip on the 25 during the afternoon rush, I've actually never heard of it. If it never existed...it's definitely needed.

Because it's either that, or taking consideration into completely overhauling the routing layout & timetable to accommodate articulated buses instead of 40 footers, and we all know that's not happening (even though it clearly can if one takes the time to see how it could be done).

Append: I actually want to discuss with some of you in here the idea of changing the routing & timetable for the sake of assigning articulated buses to most (if not all) trips. It's a concept that's been on my mind for the past decade.

There are multiple routes that can run artics-they just choose not to.

For example, some of the 13 trips should have artics, but they dont put them on there. A neo used to run on one 25 trip short turn, but that was taken out a while ago.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/18/2019 at 7:12 PM, King Transit said:

I don't live in Bronx/near Bee-lines. But I wonder, why did they get to keep their alcoa rims on their buses ? *Jealous*

 

LOL "get to keep"....  Different Transit agencies/companies spec their buses however they want/need it seems, the (MTA) decided to stop using aluminiums for w/e reason....  I guess they couldn't be bothered to keep them clean. Of course, NICE bus is no better in this regard.

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3 hours ago, Missabassie said:

LOL "get to keep"....  Different Transit agencies/companies spec their buses however they want/need it seems, the (MTA) decided to stop using aluminiums for w/e reason....  I guess they couldn't be bothered to keep them clean. Of course, NICE bus is no better in this regard.

I also found out the tires cannot get hot and burst with those alcoas.

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On ‎1‎/‎19‎/‎2019 at 3:19 PM, Lawrence St said:

Bee Line has a number of improvements that MTA dosent.

The artic fleet rotates around regularly, and all the buses are well maintained.

Preach !

On ‎2‎/‎19‎/‎2019 at 5:06 AM, Axis said:

I've been using the 25 during late afternoons/early evenings on weekdays a little bit more often now, actively using bus arrival times on Google Maps, and comparing against the actual timetables...it seems like Yonkers-bound trips are either leaving 238th Street too early (if they aren't interlined with Bronx-bound trips that have been running well behind schedule), or they are arriving/departing CCSC ahead of schedule (example: trip scheduled to depart CCSC 7:00 PM leaving at 6:57 PM instead). I'm starting to wonder if certain trips are given a few minutes too many on one side of the route (between CCSC & Bronx), yet nowhere near enough time on another side of the route (between CCSC & Yonkers).

*glares at Ashburton Avenue's horrible afternoon Rush Hour traffic*

Smh..... That has been an issue with the route for as far back as I can recall (I'm talking about since the '90's here).... Once buses fill up, b/o pulls out..... Been burned by it quite a bit of times.... The fact that that's still ongoing, leaves much to be desired....

On ‎2‎/‎19‎/‎2019 at 9:03 AM, Lawrence St said:

There are multiple routes that can run artics-they just choose not to.

For example, some of the 13 trips should have artics, but they dont put them on there. A neo used to run on one 25 trip short turn, but that was taken out a while ago.

Their use of artics I've always found to be random.... I throw the notion of a route being an artic route (quote-unquote) straight out the window when it comes to Bee Line...

 

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38 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

Preach !

Smh..... That has been an issue with the route for as far back as I can recall (I'm talking about since the '90's here).... Once buses fill up, b/o pulls out..... Been burned by it quite a bit of times.... The fact that that's still ongoing, leaves much to be desired....

Their use of artics I've always found to be random.... I throw the notion of a route being an artic route (quote-unquote) straight out the window when it comes to Bee Line...

 

The odd thing is...the trips I've been seeing show up to CCSC from the Bronx too early sometimes don't have more than 15 or so people upon arrival (although they usually do end up leaving with more than they arrived with). I feel like this might actually be more of an issue with needing to adjust arrival times at intermediate timepoints for certain trips, depending on the time of day.

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2 minutes ago, Axis said:

The odd thing is...the trips I've been seeing show up to CCSC from the Bronx too early sometimes don't have more than 15 or so people upon arrival (although they usually do end up leaving with more than they arrived with). I feel like this might actually be more of an issue with needing to adjust arrival times at intermediate timepoints for certain trips, depending on the time of day.

Lol, speaking of that;

I dont know why, but they start putting NABI's on the 4 starting at 4:30 and insane... the bus fills up to the brim from Bedford Park to Woodlawn and most of the time we bypass Central Av and leave 10 or 12 people stranded waiting for the next. This needs to stop, the 4 is a heavily used route and most of the time, those 20 trips to Cross County carry nothing but air, but instead they use artics. Thats not fair.

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I guess while I'm at it, I shall bring to light something I've noticed seems to be an ongoing issue with one particular trip on the W20/X line.

Below is a screenshot I took on Google Maps' real-time arrival of W20/X trips on a Saturday morning at the s/b bus stop at Central & Midland:

file?downloadToken=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhb

One thing I've noticed that has been going on as far back as 2017 (from my personal experiences, could be longer than that), is that the 7:45 AM W20X s/b departure out of White Plains on Saturday mornings is very late, and unusually crowded.

When I took the trip a couple of times during Summer 2017, it arrived at Central @ Crisfield at 8:26 AM, 15 minutes later than it's scheduled arrival time of 8:11 AM.

This screenshot was taken on Saturday, December 1st, a few months ago. While I didn't take that trip, I was super lucky in having dodged a bullet, by having avoided said trip, and ending up on the trip ahead of it (which would be the 7:15 AM s/b Saturday morning departure out of White Plains), which was only 2-3 minutes late, in comparison to our troubled trip in-question.

If you look at that screenshot, you'll notice that 7:45 AM trip (and whatever it's interlined with before it) is so late, the 8:15 AM W20 departure which should be behind it, would apparently bunch with it enough to the point of potentially ending up overtaking it (or at least playing a frustrating game of bus bunching leap frog with it).

In short, what should be a sensible spacing of 30 minutes between these three trips, ends up becoming nearly an hour gap. An hour. This needs some seriously looking into.

I don't if it's because of bad interlining (maybe this 7:45 AM s/b trip is interlined with an earlier n/b W20 trip that gets rekt by the onslaught of POP DIsplays workers coming up from the Bronx for the morning shift), or if it's systematic incompetence on the driver(s)' part, or if it's just a too heavily used trip that may need to be split into multiple trips...but it's definitely concerning enough to be worth looking into.

Edited by Axis
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I guess for the record, I should state that if memory serves me correctly, the 7:45 AM trip had at least 50 or so already on-board when I used it back in Summer 2017 (with a few other people waiting for the bus with me at the same stop), while the 7:15 AM trip had no more than 30 on-board in comparison when I used that instead last December (and note, this was with me boarding it further down the line than with the other trip).

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23 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

Lol, speaking of that;

I dont know why, but they start putting NABI's on the 4 starting at 4:30 and insane... the bus fills up to the brim from Bedford Park to Woodlawn and most of the time we bypass Central Av and leave 10 or 12 people stranded waiting for the next. This needs to stop, the 4 is a heavily used route and most of the time, those 20 trips to Cross County carry nothing but air, but instead they use artics. Thats not fair.

Literally any route that you'll see Artics on, but has trips during the thick of rush hour (i.e.; 3 PM to 6 PM) using 40 footers...it never makes sense to me.

For instance, the 5 uses Artics pretty frequently during middays, yet the moment schools dismiss for the day & the afternoon rush kicks in, suddenly the Artics disappear from the 5 when they actually need to be there.

In particular, the n/b 3 PM departure out of Getty Square on the 5 is one I've taken often enough to have realized this, and it randomly uses either a NABI or an O5. An O5 on that trip will have maybe 1 or 2 standees at most (probably just couldn't be bothered to take on of the few remaining seats), and will actually make pretty decent time once it gets past Ardsley Square. But if a NABI ends up assigned to that trip, you'll have roughly 5 or so standees, the bus is going painfully slow, and by the time it gets to Elmsford Square, nothing in life matters anymore. Eventually, I started bailing out from that trip for a 6 (the 2:45 PM departure out of Yonkers) at Ardsley Square whenever a NABI was on the 3:00 PM 5 trip, since I'd end up in White Plains sooner on that 6 instead.

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14 minutes ago, Axis said:

Literally any route that you'll see Artics on, but has trips during the thick of rush hour (i.e.; 3 PM to 6 PM) using 40 footers...it never makes sense to me.

For instance, the 5 uses Artics pretty frequently during middays, yet the moment schools dismiss for the day & the afternoon rush kicks in, suddenly the Artics disappear from the 5 when they actually need to be there.

In particular, the n/b 3 PM departure out of Getty Square on the 5 is one I've taken often enough to have realized this, and it randomly uses either a NABI or an O5. An O5 on that trip will have maybe 1 or 2 standees at most (probably just couldn't be bothered to take on of the few remaining seats), and will actually make pretty decent time once it gets past Ardsley Square. But if a NABI ends up assigned to that trip, you'll have roughly 5 or so standees, the bus is going painfully slow, and by the time it gets to Elmsford Square, nothing in life matters anymore. Eventually, I started bailing out from that trip for a 6 (the 2:45 PM departure out of Yonkers) at Ardsley Square whenever a NABI was on the 3:00 PM 5 trip, since I'd end up in White Plains sooner on that 6 instead.

It's insane. I hate the NABI's with a passion, the walkway is so small and trying to get off when it's so crowded is just...blech.

Their priorities arent in order. Any artic that's on the 4 around 4:30 PM gets sent to the 20, same thing with the 5, which goes to the 7.

Then you got artics showing up on routes that dont even need them (I'm looking at you, Route 6) during the height of rush hour and they're only carrying air.

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37 minutes ago, Axis said:

I guess while I'm at it, I shall bring to light something I've noticed seems to be an ongoing issue with one particular trip on the W20/X line.

Below is a screenshot I took on Google Maps' real-time arrival of W20/X trips on a Saturday morning at the s/b bus stop at Central & Midland:

file?downloadToken=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhb

One thing I've noticed that has been going on as far back as 2017 (from my personal experiences, could be longer than that), is that the 7:45 AM W20X s/b departure out of White Plains on Saturday mornings is very late, and unusually crowded.

When I took the trip a couple of times during Summer 2017, it arrived at Central @ Crisfield at 8:26 AM, 15 minutes later than it's scheduled arrival time of 8:11 AM.

This screenshot was taken on Saturday, December 1st, a few months ago. While I didn't take that trip, I was super lucky in having dodged a bullet, by having avoided said trip, and ending up on the trip ahead of it (which would be the 7:15 AM s/b Saturday morning departure out of White Plains), which was only 2-3 minutes late, in comparison to our troubled trip in-question.

If you look at that screenshot, you'll notice that 7:45 AM trip (and whatever it's interlined with before it) is so late, the 8:15 AM W20 departure which should be behind it, would apparently bunch with it enough to the point of potentially ending up overtaking it (or at least playing a frustrating game of bus bunching leap frog with it).

In short, what should be a sensible spacing of 30 minutes between these three trips, ends up becoming nearly an hour gap. An hour. This needs some seriously looking into.

I don't if it's because of bad interlining (maybe this 7:45 AM s/b trip is interlined with an earlier n/b W20 trip that gets rekt by the onslaught of POP DIsplays workers coming up from the Bronx for the morning shift), or if it's systematic incompetence on the driver(s)' part, or if it's just a too heavily used trip that may need to be split into multiple trips...but it's definitely concerning enough to be worth looking into.

The 20X has been a problem. The last S/B 20 is often close to 30 minutes late, which is really concerning.

Not only that, the 20's routing through Cross County is honestly a waste of time...particularly the S/B, most of the time, no one even gets off at CC S/B. Having a 20x per hour is honestly better.

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3 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Lol, speaking of that;

I dont know why, but they start putting NABI's on the 4 starting at 4:30 and insane... the bus fills up to the brim from Bedford Park to Woodlawn and most of the time we bypass Central Av and leave 10 or 12 people stranded waiting for the next. This needs to stop, the 4 is a heavily used route and most of the time, those 20 trips to Cross County carry nothing but air, but instead they use artics. Thats not fair.

As I see it, as long as there is an over-focus on the Broadway-to-the-(1) corridor, the BL-4 is always going to be second fiddle...... Service-wise, fleet-wise, etc.....

Quite frankly, I favor the BL-4 over the BL-1's & the BL-2 because I favor [the (4)]over [the (1) to the (2)] for getting back to Brooklyn.....

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18 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

As I see it, as long as there is an over-focus on the Broadway-to-the-(1) corridor, the BL-4 is always going to be second fiddle...... Service-wise, fleet-wise, etc.....

Quite frankly, I favor the BL-4 over the BL-1's & the BL-2 because I favor [the (4)]over [the (1) to the (2)] for getting back to Brooklyn.....

I agree with this. The 4 should have more service as it serves a fully express subway line, as opposed to the 40 different 1 varaiants, 2 and 3 buses.

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On 3/1/2019 at 7:52 AM, B35 via Church said:

Their use of artics I've always found to be random.... I throw the notion of a route being an artic route (quote-unquote) straight out the window when it comes to Bee Line...

The only routes I (almost always) see artics on are the 7, 20/21 and 60/62. I say almost always because unless is a Sunday or another time that runs light I always see at least 1 running on the route.

And to be fair I don't find myself in southern Westchester on weekends too often so I may be wrong with the 7 as well.

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4 hours ago, MysteriousBtrain said:

The only routes I (almost always) see artics on are the 7, 20/21 and 60/62. I say almost always because unless is a Sunday or another time that runs light I always see at least 1 running on the route.

And to be fair I don't find myself in southern Westchester on weekends too often so I may be wrong with the 7 as well.

The 7 is 90% of the time artics, the only reason why that is is because some trips are interlined with the 4 which uses 40 footers at random.

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On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 10:55 AM, MysteriousBtrain said:

The only routes I (almost always) see artics on are the 7, 20/21 and 60/62. I say almost always because unless is a Sunday or another time that runs light I always see at least 1 running on the route.

And to be fair I don't find myself in southern Westchester on weekends too often so I may be wrong with the 7 as well.

So, 5 routes.....

Hell, I've seen artics on every single-digit route number alone, save for the #4 & the 9 Yonkers loop.....

You've never seen an artic on the #40?

 

 

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