The Commute: Just Another Day Riding The Buses

THE COMMUTE: Last week, a one-and-a-quarter-mile afternoon trip took my friend one hour and 20 minutes using two buses. He waited 28 minutes for the B68 and another 30 minutes for the B82 in Coney Island. Three B68s came at once, and he just missed the B82. BusTime obviously is not being used to regulate the buses. What the MTA is doing, however, to help buses adhere to their schedule is putting pressure on bus drivers not to be late. What other explanation could there be for the following?

On Friday, October 17th, I was waiting for the westbound B1 bus at West End Avenue and Oriental Boulevard. No buses had passed by for at least 10 minutes — not the B1 or the B49. A B1 bus stopped at the traffic signal rather than pull into the bus stop. I was the only one waiting, so I walked over to the bus in the center of the street, the driver opened the door and I get on. I wondered if he would not have stopped if the signal had been green. I wondered correctly. At the next stop, Corbin Place, he made no attempt to stop, as the only passenger waiting was waving frantically and threw his arms up in disgust as the bus zoomed past him.

There still were five seats left on the bus and no bus behind. So why should someone be forced to wait an additional 10 to 15 minutes or more for a bus, in addition to the 10 or 15 he already waited? How much time is being saved by skipping a stop where someone is waiting? Thirty seconds, at most.

Years ago, it was a priority for buses to service all customers. Drivers always asked passengers to move to the rear and sometimes refused to move the bus if passengers did not comply. Those days are long gone with the uptick in bus driver assaults. Bus operators no longer insist that passengers move to the rear or even pay their fare because they fear for their safety.

So today, bus operators seem to pick and choose whom they will pick up. Buses frequently skip stops when there are as few as 10 standees standing in the front of the bus and even when there are empty seats. This causes extra long waits. There used to be a requirement for drivers to note when a bus stop is skipped because the bus was “too crowded.” This is known as “flagging” a bus stop. Now it is done routinely, without any records being kept. Why? It is because the MTA does not care about its customers. It’s only the revenue and operating costs that interest them.

I reported this incident via email with the time and bus number, first, to the man in charge of bus operations, Darryl Irick, with a copy to the NYCT President, Carmen Bianco. I did not receive any response. This is in contrast to my previous correspondences to MTA top officials such as Howard Roberts and Joseph Smith, which were responded to, sometimes with personal meetings with road personnel, in which I explained the situation in detail. Promises were made as well as were attempts to solve the problems. That is now no longer the case, so I have resorted to the traditional MTA email complaint system. I have now done that twice. Both times I received responses that the complaint will be forwarded to the proper area for action and the case is then closed out.

As regular readers know, I have written numerous times about overcrowded B1 buses skipping stops in Manhattan and Brighton Beach in the afternoon. In 2010, I documented 14 in service buses in a row skipping West End Avenue at school dismissal time resulting in long waits. Numerous unsuccessful attempts have been made to alleviate this problem. Last week, I gave up and walked after three full B1s in a row skipped my stop. Has the situation improved in the past four years?

The Proper Way To Handle Customer Service

You do not mark a case as closed simply by referring it to a department for action and respond that a new case number will be created if you have further questions. By doing that, at the end of the year you can say x number of cases were handled satisfactorily and x-y were closed out. That gives no indication of how many problems were investigated and how many were solved. Your statistics are meaningless. Cases need to be closed when a problem is either solved, determined to be unsolvable because inadequate information was provided, or after it is investigated and categorized as not being a problem with the reasons reported to management. Merely referring a problem for action does not close out the case. Any company or agency truly interested in providing good customer service knows that. Problem referral is the first step, not the last. There needs to be follow-up, action taken, and that action needs to be reported back to the customer. Otherwise, there is no incentive to even investigate the problem. If it is ignored, upper management is unaware.

How To Get Results

The only way is for our elected officials to become involved since the MTA either does not care, or does not have the proper resources in the right places to investigate and respond to customer complaints. Elected officials also need to be relentless, by questioning the MTA and not blindly accepting MTA excuses and statistics. They need to follow up. Avenue R is still not an SBS stop on the B44. B44 SBS buses are still operating nearly empty in both directions south of Avenue U, which is inefficient and wasteful given that other neighboring bus routes are overcrowded. The MTA needs to examine the possibility of extending the B44 SBS to Kingsborough Community College (as I previously suggested at the end of this article) to maximize use of SBS buses and reduce the strain on the B49 and B1. Instead, the MTA is testing articulated (extra long) buses on the B49 as a shuttle service between Sheepshead Bay and the college, a service that rarely attracts more than 15 passengers. However, who are we to question their wisdom? They are the “experts.”

Let’s End On Some Positive Notes

Enough doom and gloom. This piece has been filled with a lot of complaining but I believe in being fair. Every bus trip is not a nightmare. Sometimes the system works well. Another friend reported to me that, on a recent evening, she took the M15 SBS from South Ferry and was in her Upper East Side apartment in only 33 minutes. It was quicker than taking the subway and transferring for the bus. However, she also cautioned me that she would never use the SBS during the day because of the traffic. I have always stated that SBS helps those making long trips, but those are atypical of bus riders whose average trip is only 2.3 miles. The SBS will not solve most of the problems with local bus travel today, as the MTA is trying to convince us.

In other news, DOT last week promised to restore the lighting on the Belt Parkway near Plumb Beach today. It was knocked out two years ago as a result of Superstorm Sandy.

I have never spoken about specific MTA employees other than top management, but I believe this is worth mentioning. Years ago, most people spent their entire career with one employer. Today, that is a rarity. However, at the MTA, a significant number of employees make it their only career. One such employee is Frank Gurrera, as reported by the NY Daily News.

Gurrera is nearly 90 years old and is still working as a subway machinist at the MTA’s Coney Island Overhaul Shop on Avenue X in Gravesend. Let’s give Frank a great big shout out!

The Commute is a weekly feature highlighting news and information about the city’s mass transit system and transportation infrastructure. It is written by Allan Rosen, a Manhattan Beach resident and former Director of MTA/NYC Transit Bus Planning (1981).

Disclaimer: The above is an opinion column and may not represent the thoughts or position of Sheepshead Bites. Based upon their expertise in their respective fields, our columnists are responsible for fact-checking their own work, and their submissions are edited only for length, grammar and clarity. If you would like to submit an opinion piece or become a regularly featured contributor, please e-mail nberke [at] sheepsheadbites [dot] com.