After weeks of waiting, the Metro Transit Authority has finally addressed the late express buses running in Pelham Bay and Throggs Neck.
Councilman Jimmy Vacca met with 10 MTA officials on Friday, June 15 following an investigation he requested be done on the BxM9 and BxM8 express buses.
Vacca requested the study be done after he received multiple e-mails and phone calls complaining about the bus service into Manhattan.
According to the MTA, the late buses were caused by heavy traffic in the two areas for the past few weeks.
Vacca said the MTA will be making updates to their schedule in July and September to correct the problem and become more flexible.
Another issue the councilman said he addressed, was that not only were people waiting for over an hour for service, but when a bus finally did come it was full leaving people to wait for the next one.
“To fix these problems, the MTA said they will be adding standby buses that will be dispatched whenever a bus is stuck in heavy delays and they will also start using a program that will let people know in real time when they can expect the bus to arrive,” Vacca said.
The new program called Transcomm technology and should be up and running by fall 2012, according to Vacca.
“This is the beginning of what I hope will be a correction of this problem,” Vacca said. “I am taking a wait and see attitude, but I do want the people in Pelham Bay and Throggs Neck to know, that their voices were heard, and I encourage them to continue to contact me after July to let me know how the new schedule is working.”
Kirsten Sanchez can be reach via e-mail at ksanchez@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 742-3394
