As to the subways, I see garbage cans brimming over with trash. Rats running freely on the tracks. Since I signed up for 'alerts' I get at least 5 a day about various problems causing delays - police investigations, sick passengers, track problems, and for over two years the 'e' train hardly ever goes on the 'e' track over the weekends when I need to get either to Port Authority of to the theater district. Can't get to 53rd and Lexington.  There is no countdown clock in my station.  As to the buses, I often take the Queens Boulevard bus the Q60. Over the past two weeks I've waited anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes only to see up to 5 buses come at once.    Who actually was surveyed?  It certainly wasn't me.

Try getting from South Brooklyn to Manhattan on a weekend.  You need to plan two hours for the trip.

It took me 45 minutes on Sunday.  What do you recommend I do for the remaining 75 minutes?

BFD.  You had a lucky day.  You don't want my recommendations for what to do for 75 minutes.

No, I had a typical day.  I just made sure to start it out by looking up the service outages before leaving.  It only takes two hours if you don't plan ahead and end up on an unexpected shuttle bus or something like that.

Are you social media correspondant for the MTA or something?

I know, it's hard to believe that anybody has actually figured out how to use the transit system.

I'd like very much to know exactly when, where, and to whom these alleged surveys were distributed.  The real percentage of satisfied customers can't possibly be that high. 

Service, especially bus service, is worse than it has been in decades.  But at least we're paying fares that have far outpaced inflation over the years.

The fare in 1995 was $1.50.  No transfers from bus to subway, no unlimited options, no bulk discounts.  The average fare paid is less now than it was then.

Service is much more reliable now than it's been in the past.  Yes, it's also more crowded, but that's because there are a lot more riders.

Only when you adjust for inflation is the average fare now less then in 1996.

In 1991, a period I remember very well, the fare was $1.15. Adjusted for inflation, that's the equivalent of $1.82 in 2010 dollars (the latest year with data available), so the only way to get anything approaching a comparable per-ride (only!) value is to use an unlimited MetroCard a LOT.

At that time, I remember quite clearly that the M104 bus schedule listed 5 or 6 hours per day as having "frequent service" (no times listed), which meant a bus was scheduled every 5 minutes or less. This was also the case with several other routes in Manhattan, but as an UWS resident, the M104 is the one I remember best. ALL bus routes I ever used ran significantly more frequently then than they do now, so in concrete, objective terms, service is demonstrably worse. (The new M60 line also made "express" stops only on 125th St., something the MTA really should re-institute.)

And since I lived on the 1 train, I remember quite clearly NEVER having the kind of service glitches/holes that are now the norm, and the reason I can now never take the 1 train if I want to get where I'm going on time. 20 years ago it WAS reliable. Today it is not. This may be less true for other lines--the 1 train is the one I remember most clearly.

The fare in 1991 was $1.15, but there were no free transfers between bus and subway, and there were no bonuses.  So if you rode the bus and subway to work, you paid $2.30 each way.  Now, if you ride the bus and subway to work, you pay $2.10 each way (after the bonus), or, if you ride often enough, you pay $104 for the whole month.

Bus ridership has been dropping for decades.  Frequency is increased or reduced in accordance with ridership.  So if M104 ridership has been dropping, then it makes sense that service has been reduced.

The M60 always made every stop on 125th.  I used to ride it when it was brand new.

I also used to ride the 1 often in the 90's, and I found it horribly unreliable.  I don't ride it as often now, but it seems to be much more reliable.

I rode the M60 when it was brand new, too, which is how I know that it did not always make every stop on 125th St.

The statement "frequency is increased or reduced in accordance with ridership" is disingenuous at best. If bus ridership has dropped (a rhetorical "if"--I'm sure it has), it's the because the MTA his driven riders away (if you'll pardon the pun). Yes, I understand they want people to ride the subway instead because it's cheaper for the MTA. Last year we got fare hikes AND drastic reduction in a bus service, not because ridership was down, but because the MTA didn't feel like spending money on it.

It's possible that the 1 train was "horribly unreliable" in the '90's, but I would have to ask "relative to what?" I can assure you it's worse now. Oh, for such horrible unreliability today!

The M60 originally only ran as far west as Lenox, but, as I recall, it made every stop until that point.

Bus ridership has been on a steady decline for decades, with a temporary growth spurt when MetroCard came along with its free transfers (which probably didn't affect ridership on the M104, or it might have even hurt M104 ridership, as everybody who used to ride the M104 to transfer to the crosstown bus could now use the 1 train instead).I assume this is because bus service has been getting slower and slower and because people aren't afraid of the subway as they were in the 80's and early 90's.

Last year's service cuts were a consequence of the state's repeated funding cuts on top of a highly unstable base funding mechanism.

I have not encountered nearly the degree of problems with the 1 recently as I did in the 90's.  (And it doesn't hurt that, when there is a problem with service, it usually shows up on the displays in the stations.)

MTA soon extended the M60 to hook up with the 1 train, at which point it made only the stops on 125th St. that corresponded with subway lines, at least west of Lenox (which currently takes forever, at least during the day). What the MTA really SHOULD do, of course, is turn the M60 into a Select Bus Service route, and every driver I talk to about this heartily agrees with me (I ride that route a LOT).

I was never as frightened by the subway in the late '80's and '90's as I am disgusted now by the poor service and overcrowding (which is why, if I have the time, I'll take the bus every time). Obviously our experiences with the 1 train are VERY different. And you're lucky to use a 1 train station with a display that actually works... the one in the station I use most often hasn't worked in months.

I say most of us don't really know all the details behind last year's fare hike/service cuts. My memory is not too short to remember 2003, when, after a sizable fare increase, the revelation of a second set of books surfaced (showing a nice, big surplus--the MTA then claimed it would be "too expensive" to reprogram all those MetroCard readers...give me a break). There was talk for a while about getting the MTA to open its books for an audit. Excellent idea, although I won't hold my breath waiting for it. Then all we need to do is get Albany to give back to NYC its fair share of the state taxes that we NYC residents pay.

You may be right about the M60 - I don't recall it ever skipping stops on 125th, but it's possible I never rode it during that time frame.

I agree that the M60 would be a good candidate for SBS.  Fortunately, we're not alone:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/brt/ht...

You may not personally have been scared off, but many others were.  The subway has gotten a lot safer, cleaner, more reliable, and - yes - more crowded since its nadir in the 80's.

There was no "revelation" of a second set of books - there was merely an accusation made by Alan Hevesi (currently serving a 1-4 year prison sentence), which was dismissed in court.  (What the books showed was that the MTA could get by without a fare hike until the next year, but then that fare hike would have been a lot larger.)  Given that the fare hadn't gone up since 1995, and that the various MetroCard-based discounts (free transfers, bonuses, unlimiteds) were introduced in 1997, I don't think a fare hike in 2003 was unreasonable in any case.

Of course, the politicians all latched onto the two-sets-of-books claim - it's a convenient way for them to deflect their own responsibility.  The mainstream press generally followed along, although some in the blogosphere seemed to have been paying attention:
http://ontransport.wordpress.c...

Those highly secretive books happen to be on the MTA's web site:
http://www.mta.info/mta/budget...

(Every politician likes to threaten forensic audits, but none ever follow through on the threat, because they all know it's not going to show what they want it to show.)

I quite frankly don't remember all the details from 2003, but a little Googling brings up a NY Daily News article from 2009 that says then-chairman of the City Council Transportation Committee John Liu brought up the two sets of books months before Hevesi did. And all seem to agree that the state appeals court ruled the claim invalid after not one, but two lower courts upheld the claim. That's just a bit too much smoke for me to believe there was no fire at all. http://articles.nydailynews.co...

You'll pardon me if I don't trust the MTA's published budget numbers any more than I trust their published bus schedules.

And you've never heard of a politician who lies for his own political gain?

There's going to be plenty more smoke.  Our elected officials have been making cut after cut after cut to transportation funding and make up scandals to save face.

I look forward to that forensic audit - you know, the ones that the politicians repeatedly threaten but never actually follow through on.

Gosh, I've NEVER heard of a politician lying for his own political gain... never ever.

Like I think I said (can't remember any more, and I'm sure not going to go read the whole exchange again), we don't know for sure. So one court finally decided the allegation of two sets of books had no merit after two courts before it decided that it did? Sounds like someone waited to pay off the right judge to me. But of course, that never happens, does it?

I have a theory or two why that forensic audit will almost certainly never happen (as much as I'd love to see it), but I won't be posting about it here.

Ok, here's the "public" who MTA interviewed. His name is Andrew.

Oh?  You'd prefer to pay $1.50 every time you get on the train, and then another $1.50 when you get on the bus?  I'll take my $104 unlimited, thank you very much.