[Update on 2/16: the NICE bus system has posted information about the meetings on their website.]
Bus riders on Nassau County’s new Nassau Inter-County Express (NICE) bus system gave advocates a heads up that the new operator is planning on holding public meetings to discuss “NICE Bus Service and Proposed Service Changes.”
Despite a bus announcement urging riders to find more information at NICE’s website, as of this writing, no information about the meeting is posted there.
According to sources, however, the meetings will take place on February 22nd at the Marriott Hotel and Conference Center in Uniondale and February 23rd at the Great Neck Library. Both meetings will run from 5pm-8pm.
In related news, TSTC sent a letter to NICE CEO Michael Setzer over a week ago that raised several questions about service levels on the newly privatized bus system. It also highlighted concerns about missed transparency deadlines and communication issues, such as the one that has arisen around this meeting.
The letter encouraged Setzer to continue to find innovative ways to improve service, such as pre-board fare collection and working with local municipalities and the New York State Department of Transportation to explore installation of dedicated bus lanes on certain routes.
However, the letter also called attention to the fact that the Customer Advisory Committee (CAC) has not yet convened, despite a promise that it would begin meeting in January. This failure to form the CAC in the expected time frame appears to have affected the quality of public outreach for the upcoming meetings. In addition, concerns about communication—questions about the lack of Spanish language information about service changes and the need for clarity about whether recent “minor adjustments” to routes actually constituted service reductions—are raised in the letter.
It remains to be seen if NICE will deliver on its promises of better service, efficiency, and greater transparency. Finding solutions to the questions identified here, and more broadly advertising opportunities for riders and stakeholders to participate in shaping their bus system, would be good first steps.
Word in Mineola is, somehow Mangano found some more County subsidy money to keep the service levels status quo otherwise Veolia was going to start slashing service. Transparent? You decide.
Fact of the matter is the system operates a lot of routes few people use. The situation was made worse by the MTA several years ago when after the payroll tax was implemented they reversed a lot of the service cuts made in previous years by restoring a lot of runs to low ridership routes. Adding more empty buses to under utilized route is not serving anyone and is a waste of resources. If reversing those service increases is what they are planning there is no problem with that and if some of those runs can be shifted to heavy ridership routes to better serve those riders that’s even better.
In general the system needs a complete overhaul of its route structure to better reflect the ridership patterns and service demand. The MTA did it back in the early 1980s and ridership went above 130,000 a day now its down to about 105,000 a sure sign that the systems in its current for is not working and changes are needed.