Second Ave. Sagas

Three private companies bid for LI Bus as future hazy

Written by

Benjamin Kabak

in

Nassau County has not invested in its own bus system. (Graph via TSTC)

The MTA’s showdown with Nassau County has continued into the fall as neither party has given up ground in the fight over Long Island Bus. The MTA is being forced to pick up millions in costs for Nassau County’s bus system while the county will throw in only $9.1 million. The MTA has, rightly so, threatened to pull the plug on this service without more operating subsidies.

Ideally, as the Nassau County legislature recently discussed, the county would slowly up its contributions to the bus route while the MTA would continue to operate the transit system. The MTA would be receptive to this plan, but the Nassau County Executive has engaged in a classic misdirection. He’s called for Jay Walder’s resignation instead of taking responsibility for his county’s bus route.

The solution from Nassau County’s side has been privatization, and as Newsday reported yesterday, three companies have submitted bids for an LI Bus takeover. MV Transit from Fairfield, California, First Transit from Cincinnati and Veolia Transportation from Lombard, Illinois, have all submitted bids. The county is amidst reviewing bids, but it seems to want a deal that will, as Mobilizing the Region notes, allow it to capture fare revenue without contributing any direct subsidies.

Unfortunately for Nassau County, even in areas of the country where these private operators run bus routes, they do so with heavy subsidies. Veolia, for instance, receives $36 million in subsides from Tuscan, Arizona, where ridership is half that of Nassau County’s Long Island Bus. Nassau County wants to have its cake and eat it too.

The MTA and Nassau County will continue to work toward a solution, and the authority has to give the county 60 days’ notice before withdrawing service. Still, Nassau County is playing chicken with a service that its residents can ill afford to lose. It is a dangerous game indeed. “I can’t get around Long Island without the bus,” one 40-year rider said. “There are a million of us who can’t.”

Comments

12 responses to “Three private companies bid for LI Bus as future hazy”

  1. JoshKarpoff

    I love how all of these Conservatives keep advocating privatizing various transit parts of the MTA, completely ignoring the fact that these services WERE started by private companies, who eventually found their services so unprofitable, that the local government subsidies got so large that it just made it more reasonable for government to step in and run it themselves.

    Reply
  2. Cap’n Transit

    The Newsday article is a little misleading. First Transit and Veolia Transportation are the US subsidiaries of multinational transit operating companies based in Aberdeen and Paris, respectively.

    As I said with Christie’s cancellation of the ARC project, this may be a dangerous game to any sane person, but Mangano clearly sees Long Island Bus riders are “them,” some group of parasitical subhumans who are not his constituents and don’t deserve any money – as opposed to “us,” the driving population of Nassau who deserve free expressways, parkways and parking lots.

    Reply
    1. Al D

      Agreed. Class warfare. The have lots v he have only much, and if the latter don’t like it, they can move out of Nassau which would be the preference of the former.

      Reply
    2. Sharon

      Lets put this idea of a “free expressway” to bed right now. Drivers pay HUGE fuel taxes to maintain those said roads, pay huge license and registration fee’s and lets not forget about the sales tax.

      PLUS these roads would be needed regardless to make deliveries to stores and for public safety access such as police or fire.

      I agree that LI BUS is under funded but the people who really pay the high property taxes out on LI don’t want it and are fed up. they should raise the fare to closer match operating costs. If you can not afford to own a car you should move to a more transit friendly place such as NYC. As a state we need to get out of this costly idea that people should live where ever they want and look to others to pay the bill for them leaving those who work hard to improve themselves to pay their way

      As a rider of the bus service further out east, the service is a service of last resort and always will because the layout of the suburban area of LI means that a potential rider would need to walk sometimes as much as a mile to get to a bus line that takes forever. the average LI resident moved there to live a suburban lifestyle. Each household has multiple cars and pay the taxes and fees to keep them running

      Reply
      1. Andrew

        I’m sorry you don’t like the fuel tax. But the question isn’t whether it’s too high for your tastes; it’s whether motor vehicle users in the U.S. pay there way. And the answer is that they do not.

        Even occasional drivers – people who rent a car a few times a year – have licenses. They pay the same fee as those who drive on a congested highway twice a day, every day.

        And registration fees (or “fee’s”) are likewise charged the same price for cars that are used every day and for cars that are used only once in a while.

        I’m not sure what the sales tax has to do with anything. Everybody is subject to the sales tax.

        Roads would certainly be needed even without private automobiles, but they wouldn’t need to be nearly as wide as they are now, and by and large they wouldn’t need to be grade-separated. Have you ever seen a delivery truck or an emergency vehicle stuck in a traffic jam? That’s because of the private automobiles.

        I agree that “we need to get out of this costly idea that people should live where ever they want and look to others to pay the bill for them leaving those who work hard to improve themselves to pay their way.” That’s why I’m strongly in favor of vastly increasing the use of tolling, congestion pricing, and paid parking (the government should neither provide free parking nor require others to provide parking).

        I understand the plight of the Long Islander in search of a suburban lifestyle. After all, suburbs are so hard to find in the U.S.!

        Your proposed solution – “If you can not afford to own a car you should move to a more transit friendly place such as NYC” – is perfect. Long Island should be only for wealthy people who love their cars. NYC is for the poor who ride the stinky subways and buses. We can ignore the minor details that might make it impractical, such as the cost of housing in NYC and the many working class jobs in Long Island. (Nannies and maids also have to get to work.)

        Reply
  3. John Paul N.

    Has the government of Nassau County ever had a clear vision for its public transportation systems (bus and LIRR)? If its systems had always been poorly supported by the county government with a laissez-faire attitude, then there is no vision at all. This is confirmed by a historically Republican leadership. Higher bus ridership than its closest NYC suburban peer, Westchester, should have signaled to Nassau the heavier reliance on its bus system, thus the need for fair support, but the county funding says to its constituents they should eat cake. The state funding saves this service so Sen. Dilan and others had to recognize that this is an essential service — one thing the state got right.

    Is there any chance the 3 towns (Hempstead, N. Hempstead and Oyster Bay) and local municipalities would pick up the tab?

    I have often thought of a light or heavy rail line with frequent service that would replace the Far Rockaway (and/or Long Beach), West Hempstead and Oyster Bay branches and connect with the LIRR at Valley Stream, Hempstead, and Mineola. (A Manhasset connection would also be ideal.) The LIRR would then be able to put more equipment on its remaining branches. But I imagine NIMBYs and lack of county support makes this proposal dead in the water. If there is one project that could change the reputation of Long Island, this project may be it.

    Reply
  4. Al D

    This bid is just political grandstanding, plain and simple. There is NO WAY a for-profit co. can make money here. But this grandstanding could backfre if the county follows through with a contract, and say 3 months later, the operator says, “Subsidize us or we shut down” which could be their current strategy as they must know that there is no money to be made. Then, they set their own subsidy (i.e. profit margin).

    The whole thing is so pathetically stupid.

    Reply
  5. Alon Levy

    Veolia’s track record at running transit is without parallel.

    Reply
    1. Zmapper

      Because we all know it was the profit seeking Veolia that texted the train driver to crash. Whats to say that a government run train operator couldn’t have crashed instead.

      Reply
      1. Nathanael

        Hypotheticals. Fact is Veolia had the crash. Fact is that Veolia has a terrible record everywhere. Other private contract operators have perfectly good records, but Veolia seems to have the “cheap out on everything, including safety training” mentality.

        Reply
  6. For Long Island Bus, a one-year reprieve? :: Second Ave. Sagas

    […] Nassau County and the MTA continue their standoff over the funding future of Long Island Bus, the authority has made a peace offering. As Newsday reports today, the MTA has […]

    Reply
  7. MTA planning steep cuts to Long Island Bus :: Second Ave. Sagas

    […] Once upon a time, Nassau County vowed to cover the difference between fare revenue and operating costs for the LI Bus routes, but lately, the suburban county has scaled back its contributions. Mangano’s office claims it cannot find the $24 million necessary to support bus service, and it continues to look toward private operators as a potential way out of this problem. As of early November, three companies had submitted bids. […]

    Reply

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