Fare Hike Brings Improved Service. Or Not.
“Bus Bunching” is a phoenomenon in which buses running on seemingly different schedules end up running on the same schedule. The result is a scene like this:
Except at 8:30 this morning, this scene was only a small part of what was going on with the M15 bus on 1st Avenue. When I stepped out my door, I saw a line of buses stopped in the middle of intersections (hey, MTA, don’t block the box!) and wondered if there was police activity or an accident further up the street.
After looking up the street, it became clear that this traffic jam was the result of the MTA’s incompentence. I gasped when I saw - in just a span of four blocks - eight articulated buses lined up to stop at 14th Street, creating a traffic jam that clogged 1st Avenue for several more blocks. Three additional buses were loading passengers at the 14th Street stop, but all of the trailing buses were almost completely empty.
A school crossing guard at 14th Street who witnessed this sight was quick to point the blame for the traffic. “Must be the fare hike,” she said. It’s a strange coincidence that the MTA finds new and exciting ways to screw things up on the first workday that they ask you to dig deeper into your pocket.
It’s nice to see that the extra revenue is going into crowding our streets with empty buses.
This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 11:40 am and is filed under Subway Stupidity. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Ben K. says:To be fair, no new service upgrades have been put in place yet. This is simply the old bus-bunching problems brought on by people too stupid to figure out how to use the MetroCard readers and an MTA too stubborn to institute pre-board fare payment options.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Gwin says:Ah, the M15. I used to take it to work, since it runs right in front of my apartment… but with the bunching problem, the massive delays and the long waits at each stop for seemingly every person to find his/her Metrocard and then figure out how to use the machine (especially at 14th Street), I quickly determined the subway was faster — even if I did have to take two lines to get to my destination.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:06 pm
StuyGirl says:Ahhhhhh, stop spelling “buses” with two esses! (Although your first instance only had one…) Yes, it’s a second spelling in the dictionary, but that doesn’t make it any less ugly!
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:04 pm
StuyGuy says:Take the M15 everyday, this morning was the absolute worst instance yet, almost as bad as the time subway flooding shut the “L” down a couple of months ago. The MTA used to have a supervisor at 14th and 1st to regulate. In January, he left, now its a free for-all every morning. Exciting at times, but mostly just a pain in the a**.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:31 pm
StuyGirl says:Oh, how sweet, I have a StuyGuy to my StuyGirl now!
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Gwin says:StuyGuy: I’ve been wondering where that supervisor went… I used to say hi to him every morning on the days when I rode my bike to work.