Urbanite

MTA Bus Company lines lack schedules, fueling rider complaints

Tuesday September 1, 2009 5:51 PM By Heather Haddon

City buses are notoriously late, but many New Yorkers can’t even find out when they’re supposed to arrive.

None of the MTA Bus Company local lines have timetables posted on polls at stops and the Guide-A-Ride listings won't be coming soon. The MTA just doesn’t have the money to put up schedules along the 46 routes serving the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, NYC Transit spokesman Charles Seaton said.

“You never known when they're coming, and you just end up standing here forever,” said Eleanor Dezam, a rider waiting for the Q65 to College Point recently.

Moreover, the new glass shelters added along some of the MTA Bus Company routes haven’t solved the problem as none of them have paper timetables.

The MTA has two separate bus lines: NYC Transit and MTA Bus Company. The buses on the latter were privately run before the MTA took them over in 2005.

Most of the shelters are located next to polls serving NYC Transit lines, which usually have paper schedules (and some have digital ones), city Department of Transportation spokesman Montgomery Dean said. A DOT contractor maintains the shelters while the MTA is in charge of the timetables.

Riders who use express buses, though, have it easier. Transit put up timetables for the MTA Bus Company express routes running from Brooklyn and the Bronx in the last two years, Seaton said. Timetables will go up along the 17 Queens routes in the next few weeks, he said.

But most of the MTA Bus Company's 376,000 riders use the local buses, not the express lines. Local community board members say they repeatedly receive complaints about the missing information.

“It's ludicrous,” said Andrea Crawford, chair of Community Board 9 in Richmond Hill. “You know the bus schedules aren't always that correct, but it gives you some knowledge of when the bus may come.”