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Despite their uber cheap ticket prices, Chinatown bus companies are often shredded by complaints from riders for their recklessness and neighborhood residents for their blatant clogging of the area's already congested streets. According to amNewYork, the NYPD has finally stepped in: towing 11 buses and handing out 63 summonses on August 14, 20 and 21. This comes after it was revealed that most bus companies owe an average of $5,600 in fines. One company in particular, New Century Travel, takes the cake owing a whopping $136,387.35. Most of their tickets even date back to July 2007! "It's way overdue...This cannot be a one-time thing," Susan Stetzer, district manager for Manhattan's Community Board 3, said of the towing effort. "They're using public streets as their locations to make money as a private business and on top of it, they're not even paying fines. It's a loss of revenue for the city." The buses have been called "purgatory on wheels," and solutions for their vehicular messes have been thrown around for years now— one of which was creating a terminal to house them— but to no avail.
Some Chinatown Buses Get the Boot
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It's the same media that NEVER mentioned Muslims' hatred of Israel as a possible motive for 9/11.
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Sure, let these private companies collaborate and build their own privately-funded bus terminal.
In Queens.
Or 8th Ave in Brooklyn
hey, despite its reputation of wild driving and random crackheads on board, I still like it.
it was cheap and got me from nyc to boston in one piece!
sounds good to me, this is what them capitalists wants, no?
Go Greyhound. hahahahahahaha.
or pay Amtrak.
www.boltbus.com
Or Megabus www.megabus.
(actually I've taken both Bolt Bus and Megabus to Boston and think Megabus is the better of the two)
Bolt Bus is owned jointly by Greyhound/Peter Pan Bus while Mega Bus is owned by a Canadian company.
I definitely prefer Megabus because they are a lot more organized and punctual AND frequently cost less. With Bolt Bus you never know--the drivers don't seem to care as much about the passengers (guess they use the same drivers as Greyhound.) In fact, I was once on a Bolt Bus that reeked of cigarette smoke from the lazy driver who incidently also showed up 15 minutes late for the first pickup. Now I will only use Megabus.
And the Chinatown buses? You have to be kidding. How much is your life worth to you?
This is one of those YMMV situations, because I've had better experiences with Bolt Bus than Megabus. More courteous drivers, more punctual, and cleaner buses. But they're both infinitely better than the Fung Wah buses, and well worth the extra $10 or so.
Well, Megabus has seats available that are even cheaper than the Chinatown buses.
I just checked both www.boltbus.com and www.megabus.com for September trips to Boston. Megabus still has quite a few seats still available beginning at $1 while seats on Bolt Bus begin at $10. Check it out for yourself.
The moment the chinatown busses are gone, Mega and Bolt will be gone. Wall Street isn't stupid.
The last time I took a New Century Bus to DC, the bus left me in Baltimore, with all my bags on the bus. I had gotten off to use the rest room at the layover station and when I came back, all the buses were gone. I tried calling the company in NY to tell them they left a passenger and, at the very least, ask the bus to hold my bags until I catch up to it. They simply hung up on me a dozen times. It was one very expensive cab ride to make it to DC in time to grab my bags. I'll never take a chinatown bus again. Amtrak, it's sooo nice.
those chinese never play by the rules.
Now, please get rid of those HORRIBLE busses with the LED advertisements on the sides of them. They're bright to the point of being a hazard to anybody else driving near them ... particularly at night. Whoever thought this was a safe technology for the city streets aught to have their head examined.
What about the "Bus Only" parking on South St. in the LES? Are they going to look into that? Parking for residents is at a premium, and they went and made Bus-specific parking for these buses, and even modified the streets so there's LESS resident parking (That stupid island in the middle of Rutgers anyone?)
All non commuter / mta purpose buses should be banned. Get rid of those sightseeing buses and make the tourists walk or take public transit and then put a few more mta buses and trains out there. Wouldn't NYC be even more of a tourist destination as the only big city NOT blighted by fume spewing traffic clogging behemoths?
As for the chinatown busses if they can't abide by safety regs then they should be vigorously pursued so that no one dies due to negligence but the issue of them using city streets as a depot is interesting, surely Greyhound is paying rent for the PA depot, so it is a subsidy to those buses. Wonder what their profit margins are?
I have a feeling the Chinatown buses was the reason the Mega and Bolt were started. Competition and need (Chinese workers moving between cities) created these buses and then everyone started using them forcing Greyhound and the others to keep prices low. If you force the Chinatown buses to shut down then you effectively kill a lot of competition and perhaps increase fares for everyone.
I agree. People here are failing to see the bigger picture, as usual. Personally, I've taken the Chinatown bus to Philly maybe a few dozen times and have never had a problem, and for $20 dollars roundtrip. If people have a problem with these buses, there are certainly other (and more expensive) options out there, like good old competition-less Amtrak which will cost you about $100 round trip. But for me, I like the convenience of being able to stroll over to Chinatown whenever I'm ready to go and hopping on a bus for cheap. The other buses, like Bolt, usually sell out weeks in advance, and therefore require more than a last minute commitment. These people who think that having less options is somehow a good thing are complete idiots.
Those Chinese buses to Boston have been the best thing about NY for me in the last few years.
A damn shame.........................
Let's see if bolt & mega mysteriously dry up or raise prices once the chinatown busses are gone. I love riding trains long-haul, but the prices are absurdly high for a rapidly degrading service.