Bus schedules often wrong, Captain Obvious reports

At every bus stop is a schedule, and people waiting for the buses in New York take that schedule to be the gospel truth. I don’t know why.

It comes as no surprise then that the New York City Transit Riders Council has issued an indictment of the bus schedules. The buses, you see, don’t really run on time. From amNY:

A survey by the New York City Transit Rider Council found buses are an average of 5 minutes and 15 seconds behind their published schedules.

Many of the delays are caused by “bunching,” when one, two, or even three buses arrive at the same stop almost simultaneously, the survey concluded.

The report was quick to blame conditions out of the hands of the MTA such as traffic, the weather and alien abduction. It’s certainly not the MTA’s fault that they publish schedules that do not reflect the reality of driving around New York City.

The report also had a great stat about bus signs:

The report also found that 5 percent of all bus destination signs had some sort of problem that “did not correctly reflect the route to be traveled.” Some buses displayed wrong signs, such as “Not in Service,” “Subway Shuttle” and even “Evacuation Center.”

So the next time you see an M104 incorrectly labeled as an Evacuation Center bus, don’t worry; we’re not under attack.

In other bus news, the MTA will roll out a new $7 million GPS tracking system on seven bus lines that will tell riders when the next bus will arrive at their station. This service will be available on the M15, M31, M35, M57, M66, M72 and M116 bus routes with plans in the works to expand it. Hopefully, this fancy system will be a little more accurate than the current schedules.