NICE Bus unveils money-saving changes

Some bus riders in Nassau will wait longer at stops, and midday and Saturday service on a few lines will be cut in money-saving moves being unveiled Wednesday, the NICE system's operator said Tuesday.

The "service redesign," as Veolia Transportation has called it, will be detailed at a community meeting in Uniondale Wednesday night, and will be published on NICE Bus' website Wednesday. The changes include some improvements for riders, including better coordination with the Long Island Rail Road and faster trips between Nassau and Queens.

The service changes, which will take effect April 8, look to fill a projected $7.3 million budget gap for the Nassau Inter-County Express Bus system, which carries 100,000 weekday riders. In January, Veolia took over the system, which was operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for 37 years.

The planned changes will affect most NICE Bus routes and generally will involve extending the intervals between scheduled buses by as little as two minutes on some lines to as long as a half-hour on routes with low ridership.

For example, the N73/74, which runs between Wantagh and Hicksville, will go from offering buses every 30 minutes throughout the day to running them every 40 minutes during peak hours and every 60 minutes during off-peak hours.

NICE Bus officials said the N73/74 carries a little more than 13 passengers an hour, making it inefficient to operate. The NICE Bus system average is about 35 passengers per bus.

Midday routes that will be eliminated include the N48 (N49 is an alternative), N78 (N79 is the alternative), N45 extension of N43, N21 (N20 and then N27 are alternatives) and N62, which has several routes in walking distance.

Two lines -- the N51 and the N45 -- will lose Saturday service altogether. But the few riders on those lines will be served by other nearby routes, officials said. Some routes will also be extended to pick up riders impacted by cuts, Veolia officials said.

The service changes came after months of analysis of ridership patterns by Veolia, and seek to "minimize the impact" on customers, NICE Bus chief executive Michael Setzer said. But a few riders will be left out in the cold.

"There probably are situations where there are a very small number of riders left where we just can't meet their needs at a reasonable cost," Setzer said.

NICE Bus' operating budget for this year is $106 million. Nassau is contributing $2.5 million to the system. The rest comes from a combination of state and federal aid and fares.

NICE Bus officials said that they hope more people will benefit from the service changes than will be hurt by them. The biggest enhancement is the addition of express buses on some busier routes, including the N6 -- the most heavily utilized route in the system.

Although buses on the regular N6 line will be slightly less frequent, most riders will benefit from the creation of the N6 Express, which will run between Jamaica and Hempstead without any stops. The change is expected to save riders as much as 20 minutes per trip -- and will also reduce crowding on N6 local buses.

Even while reducing the number of buses on some lines that service LIRR stations, NICE Bus officials said they expect to grow ridership by "syncing" them with scheduled trains.

Rahul Kumar, NICE Bus' vice president of business development, said that while the service changes may be inconvenient for some, they are still better than the MTA's proposal to eliminate low-ridership routes altogether.

The Long Island Bus Riders' Union -- a newly formed watchdog group -- said Tuesday that it welcomed any improvements to service, but also called on Veolia to be mindful of all its customers, and not just those on its busiest routes.

"Bus riders don't just rely on the bus to go to work," said Charlene Obernauer, executive director of Long Island Jobs for Justice, which organized the riders' union. "They rely on the bus to go everywhere."

The group also called on Veolia to better communicate with non-English speaking and blind passengers. Setzer said he agreed with the group's recommendations and was working to address them.