$99 Millon Dollar GPS Bus Plan Stalls
A Bx31 that won’t be seeing GPS anytime soon if ever departing the Westchester Square terminal. Rezied photo courtesy of Eye On Transit.
So were you one of many hoping for the MTA to install GPS systems on their bus fleet which would have enabled buses to be tracked & “real” time arrivals to be posted at bus stations? Well if you fall in that category, I urge you not to hold your breath as if you do, you won’t survive. MTA’s New York City Transit may pull the plug on the $99 million dollar deal that would have provided such technology to buses such as the one pictured above. New York Daily News transit reporter Pete Donohue has more in this report:
NYC Transit may pull the plug on a troubled $99 million project to track buses and post “real” arrival times on bus-stop message boards, the Daily News has learned.
Officials have halted some work “pending a decision on the future of the project,” according to a report by the agency’s outside engineering consultant.
NYC Transit lawyers also are reviewing legal options, according to the report, which says the contractor is two years behind schedule and still having technical problems with the GPS tracking system.
“It’s a dirty, rotten shame,” Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign said. “A bus locator system could greatly improve bus service with better dispatching and more real-time information. If your car’s GPS can guide you around town, I don’t see why buses can’t do the same.”
The report by the Carter-Burgess engineering firm refers to problems in general terms, citing software issues, a high failure rate of onboard equipment and inaccurate arrival times relayed to message boards placed on just a handful of routes in Manhattan so far.
Citing inaccurate data, bus managers turned off the dozen or so electronic informational screens that had been installed along East Side bus routes.
Click here for the complete report.
This is a shame as a city that is supposed to be so advanced continues to lag behind others in transit technology. The MTA really needs to find a way to make such a plan work as riders deserve this & so much more.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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Buses Meet Their Final Resting Place
B68 turning around in the Mermaid Bus Loop in Brooklyn. Resized photo courtesy of Eye On Transit.
For those who ever take the time to wonder where do buses go that have logged hundreds of thousands of miles & provided rides to millions, your answer is here well at least for NYC Transit buses. Buses which have logged on average, more than 400,000 miles are sent to the Eastchester Depot. When they arrive they are taken apart with reusable parts saved. New York Daily News transit writer Pete Donohue has more in his report:
You might enjoy reading these related entries:Some day, that bus you’re riding will end up in a windy, sprawling asphalt lot along a marsh in the Bronx, the place where NYC Transit buses come to die.
Under a new program, buses that have traveled, on average, more than 400,000 bumpy miles on city streets are sent to the MTA’s Eastchester Bus Depot, a 27-acre site in an industrial pocket near the New England Thruway.
The rigs’ final hours are far from peaceful.
“Basically, they bring them here and we tear them apart,” mechanic Sham Seonarain, 34, said with a bit of glee in his voice Thursday.
The buses either limp into the depot or are towed in, where teams of mechanics ravage each one in power-tool blitzes lasting 30 hours apiece.
The deconstruction experts salvage up to 80 different parts to be reused – everything from rear-view mirrors to windows to 1,500-pound transmissions.
Before the program was launched in August, a bus completing its last passenger run would be parked at one of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s 29 depots.
There, some parts might be removed by the depot’s mechanics before the bus was sold as scrap.
Click here for the complete report.
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Hudson Rail Yards Deal Faces A Delay
You know the old saying, “when it rains it pours”. The saying definitely applies to MTA CFO Gary Dellaverson who has made press but for the wrong reasons. The initial story from the New York Times focused on the risky investments into C.D.O. bonds (Collateralized Debt Obligations) by many agencies including the MTA. Now the New York Observer talks about how the MTA failed to meet the deadline it outlined in the contract to sell the rights to develop the Hudson Rail Yards site as part of a $1 billion dollar deal with Related Companies. Eliot Brown has the details in this report:
The deal to put $15 billion in residential and commercial development atop the M.T.A.’s West Side rail yards has hit a delay, as the agency will not sign a contract with developer Related Companies this week, as was originally scheduled. The state authority says it has reached an agreement with Related (which is in a joint venture with Goldman Sachs) to push back the deadline for signing a contract for the property by another 90 days, as the M.T.A. has been slower than expected in producing the needed paperwork.
“We have together agreed on an extension of the designation period,” said Gary Dellaverson, the CFO of the M.T.A. (who has to have one of the least enviable jobs in government these days). “Our expectation was that the documents would have been turned a month and a half ago.
“This is my fault—the fault of the M.T.A.,” he said. “This is not a product of either Related or Goldman or their lawyers.”
The M.T.A. named Related the conditionally designated developer back in May, when Related beat out other developers, offering to pay over $1 billion for the rights to develop the 26-acre West Side site. At the time, the agency gave itself and Related 165 days to sign a contract, according to details of the agreement provided to the M.T.A. board at the time, a window that would have expired today. But the agency has been slow to create the contract, a fact it says is due in part to the collapse of the credit markets.
The M.T.A.’s attorneys for the deal, Paul, Weiss, have had much work related to the financial crisis and have been slower than expected in finishing their work, Mr. Dellaverson said. As a result, the first draft of the contract and other documents have not yet been provided to Related.
Click here for the complete report.
How on earth can the MTA justify causing a delay in a deal that would bring them $1 billion dollars. The official closing of this deal should have been one of the top priorities handled by the agency. This deal was in place way before the economic crisis hit so that can’t be an excuse for such poor execution. Lets just hope for their sake that they are right & that the downturn in the economy does not curb the overall value of this deal. With the financial hole the agency is in, what more motivation do they need to close this deal? I mean they didn’t need an economic crisis to occur to know that this deal needed to be finalized. Get with the program Dellaverson!
xoxo Transit Blogger
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Election Day = Go Out & Vote!
Well the historic day is finally here. By the end of the night (more likely tomorrow morning), history will be made when we elect either the first African American President or Female Vice-President.
I am not going to try & influence anyone to vote for one candidate over the other. The one thing I will try my best to do is to urge everyone to go out & vote regardless of who you support. It does not matter whether you are a Democrat, Republican, or Independent. If you have a candidate that you support, go out & prove it by engaging in one of the best freedoms afforded to us.
One last thing, although most of the attention is on the Presidential election & rightfully so, I urge you to do your homework on your local elected officials. These individuals are the ones who will most shape the area in which you reside. I’ve done my homework & regardless if my choices win or lose, I will come home knowing I did my homework & voted with knowledge & not blind party affiliation.
So I now must bid you adieu as I go walk to my polling place. So go out & vote or I will beat you up!
P.S. Check to see how transit friendly your local elected officials up for election have been.
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Straphangers Asked To Grade The D Line
205th St. bound D train approaching Bay 50th St. station. Resized photo courtesy of Eye On Transit.
Continuing with the catchup theme, NYC Transit issued a press release on Halloween. The press release was to announce that the 
would be the next line up for grading in the 2008 Rider Report Cards. Here are the complete details:
In our continuing effort to solicit feedback from our customers, MTA New York City Transit is again distributing Rider Report Cards throughout the system. Riders on the D are next in line of NYC Transit’s over five million daily subway customers asked to rate the progress of their line since the initial round of report cards was distributed in July 2007.
The report cards are being distributed to riders during the morning rush hours from Monday, November 3rd through Thursday, November 6th. The cards will be handed out at several different stations along the line each day over the four days. Grades will be used to identify rider preferences and to gauge how much improvement customers along the D line have noticed since last year’s report card.
Again, the Rider Report Card will ask subway riders to grade 21 specific areas of service from an A (Excellent) to an F (Unsatisfactory). Among the areas riders will grade include: car and station cleanliness, safety, security, quality of announcements, and the courtesy and helpfulness of front line customer service staff. Riders will also assign an overall grade for D line service. From this list of 21 service attributes, riders are also going to be asked to rank the top three improvements they would like to see made to this line.
The Rider Report Card is once again being distributed in a mailer format, designed to be returned at no cost to the rider. Customers will also have the option of completing the survey on-line, on the MTA website at www.mta.info, where it will be available in 3 languages: English, Spanish and Chinese. From the time the survey begins, riders will have two weeks to mail in their response or to complete the survey online.
Rider Report Card results are posted on line for riders to review once they have been tabulated.
Report cards are being distributed between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. at each station. The schedule for distribution of Rider Report Cards along the D line is as follows:
• Monday, November 3rd – Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue, Bay 50th Street, 25th Avenue, Grand Street, Broadway-Lafayette Street, West 4th Street-Washington Square, and 34th Street-Herald Square.
• Tuesday, November 4th – 47th-50th Streets/Rockefeller Center, 7th Avenue, and 59th Street-Columbus Circle.
• Wednesday, November 5th – 125th Street, 135th Street, 145th Street, 155th Street, 161st Street-Yankee Stadium, 167th Street, 170th Street, 174th-175th Streets, Tremont Avenue, and 182nd-183rd Streets.
• Thursday, November 6th – Fordham Road, Kingsbridge Road, Bedford Park Boulevard, and Norwood-205th Street.
I wonder if the ridership is that low at many of the stations that they are not included in the list of locations for report card handouts. I feel they should hand them out at every station or at least have a display where a straphanger can pick one up when entering or leaving the station.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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