* USA - PUBLIC TRANSPORT SERVICES: Chinatown buses
* DC - Regulators nobble cheap travel
Washington,DC,USA -The Economist -Aug 17, 2013: ... Potential passengers still gather near the Chinese gate in Washington, DC, to catch a cheap ride to New York. A one-way ticket costs around $20, against a whopping $150 on the train. It is far from luxurious, but you can watch films on your iPad or flirt with the other young travellers... For some 15 years “Chinatown bus” lines have shuttled thrifty folk between east-coast cities for a fraction of the price of name-brand carriers... Fierce competition for passengers in New York led to the “bus wars” of 2004... In March this year they withdrew the licence of Fung Wah, the longest-running Chinatown bus service. Two other lines, Ming An and Lucky Star, soon followed it off the road... But out on the road companies like Fung Wah and Lucky Star were surprisingly safe. Each had been involved in only one crash (with no injuries) in the past two years. That compares favourably with the coaches of Greyhound and Peter Pan, which log more miles and crash more often. The traditional carriers seem to burst into flames more often, too...
* Pennsylvania - Buses are too much, Scott residents say
Scott,PENN,USA -Post-Gazette, by Carole Gilbert Brown -August 15, 2013: -- Some residents of Orchard Spring Road in Scott want to know why Port Authority buses travel their street from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day, even on the weekends... Many of the buses are empty, Lori Lang told the township commissioners at their meeting Tuesday... The residents said more than 60 Port Authority buses use their street... Illnesses or hardships can make public transportation a necessity for many people, Commissioner Bill Wells suggested... But Barbara Hopkins, who catches a bus every day on Orchard Spring, called the number of buses that daily traverse the road "ridiculous" ...
* New York - NYC bus drivers plead for protection from assaults
NY,USA-The Associated Press/The Yeshiva WN -August 15, 2013: -- New York City bus drivers are facing a spate of assaults from passengers while on the job. And they are calling for more to be done to protect them... According to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, about 88 drivers are assaulted each year and about a thousand more are harassed... The Transport Workers Union Local 100 has rallied at MTA board meetings. The union is calling for the installation of more security cameras and protective partitions on buses, along with an overall increase in services... The MTA says it plans to have about 2,500 buses with partitions and almost 2,900 buses with cameras by the end of 2015. But drivers complain that it is too little too late... The current fleet of buses stands at 5,700...
Labels: public transport services
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