Archive for the 'Buses' Category

MTA to ramp up fare enforcement on Select Bus Service lines

Friday, July 18th, 2008

With fare evasion fines now sitting at $100 and an experiment in place in the Bronx that could revolutionize bus service in New York, the MTA is going to ramp up its fare-evasion countermeasures. According to Daily News reporters Tayanika Samuels and Pete Donohue, transit officials are going to stop warning people who don’t pay […]

Why Manhattanites loathe the bus

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

This afternoon, I had to run an errand during lunch time. I left my office on 9th Ave. between 15th and 16th and walked over to 14th St. As I crossed 14th St. and 9th Ave., I passed in front of an M14D, waiting for the light to change so it could turn onto 14th […]

The antithesis to Ikea’s free shuttles

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

As we continue to debate the impact Ikea Shuttles are having on public transit in Brooklyn, another blogger has picked up this story as a way to highlight another private transit option. The new site Politics as Puppetry looks at the NYU buses and criticizes their elitism. Much like the Ikea Shuttles, NYU Bus system […]

MTA, Straphangers square off over bus service report

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

Once more unto the buses we go. Today’s bus story comes to us via the old reliable Straphangers Campaign. The transit advocacy group has released a report accusing bus service of lagging behind ridership demands, and the MTA isn’t happy about it.
In short, the Straphangers believe that bus riders are getting short-shrifted. “Crushed by […]

As BRT rollout proceeds apace, Express Bus service receives middling marks

Monday, July 7th, 2008

The New York buses are, for better or worse, a begrudgingly accepted part of the transit landscape. Their schedules are unreliable and service is painfully slow on a good day. But as buses go, the last few weeks have been rather momentous.
First, we saw the roll-out of the MTA’s new Select Bus Service. With […]

Assessing the BRT debut

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Yesterday morning, Bus Rapid Transit service in New York City made its long-awaited and highly anticipated debut. While we won’t enjoy camera-enforced dedicated bus lanes thanks to this absurd Representative from Rochester, I received a few missives from readings clamoring to find out how day one went. To that end, both The Times and […]

How Gantt defeated the BRT camera bill

Friday, June 27th, 2008

Bus Rapid Transit proponents were pretty outraged when Assembly Rep. David Gantt killed any effective BRT enforcement measures. Today, ten days after our rage has subsided, Streetsblog revisits the issue with a stellar piece that explores how Gantt bent the rules and shunted aside the democratic process to a kill a bill he knew little […]

Upstate Assembly reps kill City-endorsed BRT measures

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Rochester, New York, is so far away from New York City that a search for directions on Google offers up flight information before it provides driving instructions. Rochester, New York, is so far away from New York City that Google recommends a three-state drive that covers 333 miles and would take nearly six hours […]

Roberts, thinking aloud, yearns for double-decker buses

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

Might New York City’s Fifth Ave. see a return of the days of double-decker buses? If New York City Transit President Howard Roberts gets his way, the answer could be yes. Opining on the state of the city’s buses yesterday, Roberts expressed a desire to bring the tall buses back to the city’s thoroughfares. While […]

An MTA Bus buyout by any other name

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

MTA CEO and Executive Director Lee Sander’s efforts to overhaul MTA management wrapped up this week when 37-year-old agency vet and MTA Bus President Thomas Savage retired.
Savage’s retirement came just a little over a week and a half after the MTA announced an extensive overhaul of the management at their bus company holdings. As […]