BRONX (WABC) -- Six people were hurt when a bus scraped an overpass on a Bronx highway Friday night.

None of the injuries are considered life-threatening, but the roof of the Greyhound bus was ripped off in the crash.

The incident happened on the Henry Hudson Parkway near 252nd Street. The bus was coming from Massachusetts.

City Limits WEEKLY #591
June 11, 2007

Best known for their bargain prices, interstate buses run by Chinese companies have attracted travelers in droves, and helped many Chinese immigrants who can't communicate in English to travel to far-flung parts of the country. But a recent fatal accident involving a New York-bound bus has prompted new calls for the bus industry to step up safety measures.

New York City is the largest hub for these Chinese-run charter buses. The immigrant transportation industry started as an alternative and more affordable means to shuttle Chinese workers to Chinese restaurants in different locations. As the Chinese bus routes expanded rapidly along the East coast and Midwest over the years, commuters including students, artists, budget travelers and immigrants nationwide also caught the cheap fare trend. Currently the Chinese buses travel from New York City to Albany, Boston, Chicago, Providence, Michigan, Washington, D.C. and even as far as Florida for as little as $12 to $20 one way.

...

Low costs don’t necessarily mean low conscience, some say. City Councilmember John Liu, chairperson of Council’s transportation committee, said there is no pattern showing charter buses run by the Chinese companies are more accident-prone than those run by big national bus companies. He warned that the public should not stereotype these vehicles. “If an accident happened to a Greyhound or Trailway bus, you won’t say the 'Port Authority Bus' crashed. Likewise, Chinatown is not a company and it’s absurd to say the 'Chinatown buses' are not safe,” Liu said.

Schumer Reveals: Safety Gap On Inter-City ‘Chinatown’ Buses; Rated Dangerously Low On Safety By Feds

Two Buses Recently Caught on Fire Mid-Ride; Passengers Were Lucky to Escape Lawmaker Urges Feds to Hold More Surprise Inspections, Devote More Staff to Low Fare Carriers, and Disclose Safety Ratings for Shadow Bus Companies

U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today revealed that cheap “Chinatown” bus services and a number of other bus tour providers are sorely lacking in passenger safety. According to Federal criteria, Chinatown buses do much worse than other companies in several Safety Evaluation Areas (SEA), which rate a bus services’ drivers, vehicles, and overall safety management. Recent accidents on a few of these ‘Chinatown’ buses have raised serious questions about the safety of passengers riding to and from New York City to a variety of other cities on the East Coast. An examination of publicly available ratings and statistics show that low-cost, ‘Chinatown’ buses score dramatically lower than other bus services.

Schumer is urging the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), the federal government agency which is charged with the responsibility for buses nationwide, to fully investigate past incidents, increase the number of surprise inspections, make sure that safety ratings are clearly disclosed on buses for riders to see, and ensure that no bus that does not meet a minimum passing rating can drive out of the station loaded with passengers.

NEW YORK, NY September 15, 2005 -New Yorkers who like to travel on the cheap know about all about the "Chinatown bus." Fifteen dollars to Boston. Twenty to Washington. Twelve to Philadelphia.

The companies that run these somewhat chaotic cash businesses started out several years ago, ferrying Chinese restaurant workers up and down the East Coast. But thrifty travelers caught on, and now a series of companies carry college students, professionals, and anyone else looking for a low-priced convenient trip. It's estimated that about 350 buses leave New York's Chinatown a week.

But a pair of fires in recent months has prompted some federal and state officials to take a closer look at the safety of the buses, and the companies that run them. Reporter Lizzie O'Leary has more.

10. Xincheng Bus Company

Bus ticket New York <=> Pittsburgh: original prize: $60, Card Holder: $45
New York Hot Line: 212-393-1238  Pittsburgh
Hot Line: 917-709-4220

Chinanews

10/23/2007 

archives 2005 » jan. 5th
IMMIGRATION
Borderline Realities

When Mexican men and women living in South Philadelphia become crime victims, they're often too afraid to tell the police.

by Kate Kilpatrick

One day in his first year in the U.S., Rubén, now 26, left his apartment at 15th and Bainbridge, where he lived with seven other men, to go to work. With the other men at work too, the house was empty all day.

When Rubén returned that evening everything was missing--the TV, VCR, PlayStation, telephone, stereo, CDs (most of them Mexican), air conditioner, bed covers and clothes. Their collective hidden savings--totaling $11,000--were gone. None of the men spoke much English, or knew where to turn for help. One of the men told his boss, a restaurant owner, who said that because they were illegal, there was nothing he could do. No one contacted the police.

This story's far from unusual. Those in South Philadelphia's Mexican community say they're the victims of countless crimes--muggings, bike thefts, robberies, armed assaults, rapes--that never get reported.

Rubén's friend Jaime, 26, sums up a common experience: "You can drive, but you can't [legally]," he says. "So most Mexicanos go for a bike. In the restaurant business you get off at 12 or 1. If you're a dishwasher, you probably get off at 2. If you live at Seventh and Tasker, or Fifth or Fourth and Morris or Dickinson, mostly that part is bad. We can't afford to pay expensive rent to live on Fitzwater or Bainbridge. So most of the Mexicanos in South Philly live in dangerous places. I know a lot of my friends were assaulted by guys trying to get their bikes. We can't get a bank account, so we keep the money in our pocket. I don't know how they know that. We keep all our money until we send it home. So a lot of people get robbed."

city beat
Live Stop, Dead Cars

City lots are filling up with seized vehicles.

by Daryl Gale

If you're one of the nearly 31,000 Philadelphians whose car was confiscated under the city's Live Stop program, you're probably already familiar with the contents of this story and have started cursing under your breath while reading it on public transportation. For many others, some questions remain: Whose car gets taken? How do you get it back? And what ever happened to the promise that auto-insurance premiums would drop, since not even a penny has been deducted so far?

Here are the hard numbers. Between last July, when the administration started enforcing Live Stop, and the end of May, 30, 909 cars had been confiscated from drivers without a valid license and/or an up-to-date registration. The program is administered by the Philadelphia Parking Authority, which hauls away the cars and stores them in five lots across the city.

There they wait for owners to reclaim them after paying the necessary fees and acquiring the proper paperwork. That means you have to pay up any tickets and fines, the state's $36 vehicle registration fee, and of course, get some insurance. If no one stakes their claim, the car is auctioned off to the highest bidder. Parking Authority spokesperson Richard Dickson says confiscated cars go to the highest bidder in about a month, which officials consider enough time for owners to get their paperwork in order.

IN 2002, when the car-sharing company known as Zipcar brought its first 10 small Volkswagens to the city, an article in the Automobiles section of The New York Times offered the speculation that the venture's cars might one day "become as familiar to New Yorkers as the pushcart hot dog vendor."

More than five years on, that prediction is closer to being true. The company has 1,100 vehicles in the city, which can be picked up at more than 100 different sites.

But as the company grows, it has bumped into a problem facing so many New Yorkers: scarce and expensive parking. Zipcar says it raised rental rates last month in part because of this cost, and as the company expands further outside Manhattan, it finds itself struggling to stay a step ahead of the developers who are buying up the city's empty lots.

EVEN on a quiet evening last week, without a construction worker in sight, there were signs of the neighborhood strife that has taken over a stretch of 70th Street in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn. A blue tarpaulin was draped over an unfinished porch renovation, and in front of that house, behind barriers and yellow tape, was a smooth, pale new stretch of sidewalk, sloping gently down toward the street.

This, in regulatory parlance, was a curb cut, and it was the focus of a dispute that has pitted neighbor against neighbor on a quiet stretch of narrow attached brick houses for the past year.

Gus Englezos, the owner of the house and the author of the curb cut, says he spent $60,000 fighting for permission to build a driveway and free himself from searching for parking spaces on the street.

But in the opinion of the block association president, Josephine Beckmann, who is also the district manager of the local community board, the streetscape has been marred, not to mention the fact that there is now one fewer public parking spot. And the Dyker Heights Civic Association says the city's decision in Mr. Englezos' favor, which it is appealing, could set a pernicious precedent and lead to similar turmoil on dozens of other blocks.

Drexel Bike Share Policy

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

A Land Use Transport Model for London

Mike Batty at CASA has been working on a Land use transport model for London. The model simulates the location of the residential population as a function of this employment, floorspace and generalised travel cost. The model is currently, a partially constrained spatial interaction/residential location model disaggregated by four modes of transport – road, heavy rail, light rail (tube and DLR) and bus, with walk-cycle-other the fifth residual mode.

Welcome to MVP Bus Line

Express Bus Service*
$20 Oneway/$35 Roundtrip

New Baltimore Address:
1910 N Charles Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218

Starting 04/15/2008, we will run Summer schedule. Please click here=> to find out more.
Holiday Schedules(2/18/2008) Click here

New York(Mid Town,Penn Station) ==> Washington DC/Baltimore
Washington DC/Baltimore ==> New York(Mid Town,Penn Station)

*Note:We do not stop in New York Chinatown
*NYC<=>DC takes about 4.5 hours subject to traffic
*NYC<=>Baltimore takes about 3 hours subject to traffic

Featuring:

By Lorne Bell - Friday November 30 2007
Vamoose may never service the Boston area.
Hasidic-owned company told to desist picking up passengers from Boston area

Vamoose, the latest express bus line to offer service between the Boston area and New York City, suffered a significant setback this week when Cambridge officials denied the company permission to pick up passengers on city streets. Although Vamoose had successfully launched an express route from Bennett Street in Cambridge on Nov. 8, the company was ordered to cease all operations on Monday.
"I suspect that we may not ever be able to go into Boston, or at least for the time being," said company spokeswoman Florence Bluzenstein. "We're basically stuck between a rock and a hard place."
Vamoose was founded by Bluzenstein's husband, Sam Bluzenstein, a Hasidic Jew from New York City. The former transportation head of a large yeshiva, Mr. Bluzenstein started Vamoose four years ago to provide travelers between New York City and Washington, D.C., with a more customer service-oriented alternative to traditional bus lines.

Editorial

Chinatown bus chaos

Chinatown's private bus business is booming. That this industry has grown to its current level in a little under 10 years is amazing. The rates are cheap and if one is not too fussy these rides are just the ticket.

Yet, while the busy bus business is good news for Chinatown's economy over all, it also has brought a host of problems that are affecting Chinatown as well as the Lower East Side.

The buses increase traffic, pollution, noise, garbage and even violence, due to the fights that sometimes flare between rival operators in their competition for passengers. Police say it's hard to oversee these problems because the buses are so spread out. And the buses' picking up at the curb at scattered locations means traffic is being impacted in a haphazard, irrational way. Residents, in particular, are feeling the bus invasion's effects.

As The Villager reported last week, the city recently proposed a 30-day pilot program under which all the Chinatown interstate buses would be shunted toward the end of Pike St., with no more than seven dropping off or picking up at any one time. However, neighbors at Knickerbocker Village and the Rutgers Houses opposed the idea and so did Community Board 3.

By Loretta Chao
...
As convenient as the service is for riders however, drivers say the work is extremely difficult and unrewarding. Each driver has to buy, insure, and sign their buses up with a company, which then gets a cut of their daily earnings. Zhou, for example, makes seven round trips everyday during the winter and gets to save less than $100.

"I have worked 365 days for four years now," said Zhou, who lives in Flushing with his wife and 3-year-old daughter. "Just think - I've never taken a vacation, not even for one day. I haven't even had time to get sick.

"It's just unbearably hard. I don't know English. When I go out I feel like I'm mute. Everything I learned in school is useless," he said.

And while customers are plentiful, the increasing number of vans has led to bitter and sometimes violent rivalry over the past six years. Police arrested the drivers involved in a string of murders as part of what they called a "bus war" in January 2003, but investigators said minor offenses like tire slashing and window breaking often went unreported. With some drivers working until 11 o'clock at night, they face other dangers as well.

GERARDOS TRANSPORTATION "LA PIONERA"!!!

VENTURES; Chinatown to Boston On a $15 Van Ride

It started with van service between Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and Chinatown. Now it has branched out to Boston: a van ride from Chinatown can cost as little as $15.

The entrepreneur behind it is Pei Lin Liang, an immigrant from China, who worked as a delivery man for a noodle shop before he opened Fung Wah Transport Vans in 1996.

To get to work in Chinatown from his home in Brooklyn, he used to be a passenger on an unlicensed transportation service. The experience helped Mr. Liang realize that there was a market for van service from Sunset Park to Chinatown.

Mr. Liang set up Fung Wah, at first with a trial period, for the many people who made that daily trip. He thought he could do a better job handling the business. Mr. Liang, who was a professional musician before he immigrated in 1988, also needed a way to support his family.

Mr. Liang says the people who use the van service -- between 139 Canal Street, near the Bowery, and 4207 Eighth Avenue, near 42nd Street in Brooklyn -- are almost all Chinese. They use the service, which costs $1.75 and runs consistently throughout the day, starting as early as 7 a.m. and running as late as 11:30 p.m.

In 1998, Mr. Liang expanded the van service to include trips from 139 Canal to 68 Beach Street in Boston's Chinatown, right in front of the Crown Royal Bakery, which Mr. Liang's brother-in-law owns.

Originally, Mr. Liang created the second route because many Chinese families had children studying in Boston. That service now has six departures from New York and six from Boston, every day. One-way trips are $25 and round trips $45. (The 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. trips from New York, and the 8 a.m. trip from Boston, though, are $15.) For comparison, a search on the Greyhound Web site found that a one-way adult fare from New York to Boston was $40, not including sales tax.

Mr. Liang estimates that the clientele on the New York-Boston route is 80 percent Chinese-Americans and includes many foreigners and students. They usually find out about Fung Wah through friends, but Fung Wah also advertises in two Chinese-language newspapers.

Mike Clarfeld, 23, a New York resident who recently rode a Fung Wah van round trip between New York and Boston with his friend Ed Domingo, recommends the Chinatown-Chinatown service and said he would use it again.

''You want to know my favorite part?'' Mr. Clarfeld asked. At 4 p.m., he said, the departure time the two men had opted for on a recent Friday, Mr. Domingo called Mr. Clarfeld's cell phone to say that he was stuck in traffic five blocks north of the Fung Wah Chinatown location.

''So,'' Mr. Clarfeld said, ''the woman who ran Fung Wah said: 'Where's your friend? We'll pick him up along the way.' ''

By Rosemary McClure, Times Staff Writer
May 17, 2007

They were an underground hit almost from the start.

The cut-rate transportation services called "Chinatown buses" originated about a decade ago in the Northeast. At first, they were an inexpensive way for Chinese restaurant workers to commute to jobs in nearby cities. Fares as low as $10 between New York and Boston were common.

Soon Chinese students began to hop aboard, and other students followed suit. Then savvy budget travelers noticed, and suddenly Greyhound was facing a new form of competition: low-overhead bus companies that thrived on a no-frills, shoestring approach to service.

Instead of picking up passengers at terminals, Chinatown buses picked them up - and deposited them - along curbsides; instead of maintaining ticket offices, they sold space online; instead of offering numerous routes, they offered only the most popular.

The bus lines, most of which are owned by Chinese immigrants, are common in the Northeast, but similar low-cost services also can be found in the West.

The online booking service GotoBus.com launched five years ago by Cambridge, Mass., businessman Jimmy Chen, handles reservations and helped put the low-cost bus trend on the road.

GotoBus.com now accounts for 1,000 scheduled departures a day throughout the country. Besides the low-cost players it now takes reservations for major sightseeing companies, such as Gray Line.

...

Riders can choose transportation alone, paying fares as low as $25 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas or $45 between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Or they can choose vacations that include accommodations, such as a two-day trip from Los Angeles to Ensenada, Mexico, for $95; or a three-day trip from L.A. to San Francisco and Yosemite for $120.

Prices and tour components fluctuate - the $99 Las Vegas-Grand Canyon itinerary described in the accompanying story, for instance, is now available from various companies for prices ranging from $114 to $127, but a different Vegas tour is available for $99 that includes two nights in Sin City.

D.C. to New York for $10. Seriously. - Thrifty Travelers Discover a Gem in Chinatown Bus Lines
Washington Post - December 1, 2002
Author: Michael Barbaro, Washington Post Staff Writer

At 2:23 a.m., American University freshman Gene Fielden settles into a chair in the dank basement bus depot at 513 H St NW. He thinks he has found a way to kill time when the pow-pow-pow of a television movie erupts from a small set in the corner. Then the dialogue starts -- in Chinese.

"Easy listening, huh?" he yells, pointing to the speaker above his head.

Greyhound this is not.

But for Fielden, and for many others who have found their way to Washington-New York Express Tours' bus stop in Chinatown, or to its competitor Dragon Expressway & Travel Inc. a block away, this late-night trip isn't about tidy terminals, frequent departures or reclining seats. It's about price. To be exact, $10 for a one-way ticket from Washington to New York. Round trip? $15.

Largely under the radar, a new transportation link has taken hold between cities up and down the East Coast: Chinatown-to-Chinatown buses, which originally targeted immigrant Chinese restaurant workers. Dragon and Washington-New York Express Tours, joined by a handful of other tiny lines, are now waging an elbows-out battle for dominance in the niche market. At least four motor-coach companies run routes to New York's Chinatown -- from the District as well as from Boston, Philadelphia, Richmond and Baltimore -- in a competition that, in Manhattan at least, has even broken into violence over parking spaces and potential passengers.

By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: May 11, 2003

The operator of a Chinatown bus company competing with others in a bitter battle for riders was shot and killed on Friday night on a street near his home, and detectives yesterday were investigating whether the slaying was related to the unusual feud, police officials said.

The gunman, whom the police described as an Asian man in his 20's wearing a waist-length black jacket and a white baseball cap, was apparently waiting for the victim, De Jian Chen, 27, outside Mr. Chen's home on Henry Street, the police said. About 9:15 p.m., as Mr. Chen climbed out of a friend's white Lexus at Forsythe and Henry Streets, the gunman opened fire with a .45-caliber pistol, the police said.

But he missed his mark, and Mr. Chen ran down Henry Street and around the corner onto Market Street, the police said. The gunman followed, catching up with Mr. Chen in front of 32 Market Street and firing again, this time hitting him three times in the back and once in the arm. Mr. Chen collapsed and was pronounced dead about 30 minutes later at New York University Downtown Hospital, the police said.

The police and a business associate of the victim, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, provided different accounts of his relationship to the bus company. The police said Mr. Chen worked for the company, Dragon Coach U.S.A., at 87 East Broadway, and had an ownership interest in another bus company. The associate said Mr. Chen was an owner of Dragon Coach U.S.A. and ran buses from New York City to Philadelphia, Washington and Richmond, Va., and played a lesser role in a company that ran buses to Atlanta.

Over the last year, several Chinatown bus lines that offer low fares to Philadelphia, Washington, Boston and other destinations have competed so fiercely for riders that fistfights have broken out between rival employees, and neighbors have complained of ganglike violence.

Last year, the police and prosecutors investigated certain companies and people associated with them, according to a law enforcement official, but no charges were filed. Last May, Mr. Chen was arrested and charged with first-degree assault; he was accused by the police of deliberately driving his bus into a man affiliated with a rival company. That case is pending.

The number of competitors to Greyhound Lines with inexpensive fares has soared in recent years, expanding well beyond the no-frills buses based in Chinatown in Manhattan and setting off fierce battles for riders. In fact, in the booming world of discount travel, there is apparently no room for two Hasidic-owned companies on the same route.

A dispute between the two bus companies that are vying for riders from New York to Washington, Vamoose and Washington Deluxe, has landed in court. As a result, some customers have been confused in recent days by Vamoose's Web site, which first said the company was temporarily out of business, then said it was running again, but with fewer stops.

The Vamoose-Washington Deluxe dispute, in which Washington Deluxe says that Vamoose trespassed on its route, is a small scuffle in a more tumultuous struggle that has transformed travel in the Northeast. Involved are more than 30 discount lines that pick up people curbside.

The lines, whose fares are much lower than the cost of air or train tickets and have led to discounts by Greyhound, the nation's largest carrier, have won over thousands of devoted customers. But the industry's short history also includes accidents, regular breakdowns, lawsuits and even violence.

The discount bus lines began springing up in Chinatown in the late 1990's with a handful of operators picking up passengers on haphazard schedules. The new lines had an advantage over more established bus companies because they did not pay for space or employees at the Port Authority Bus Terminal or other bus stations.

BEIT SIRA, West Bank — Ali Abu Safia, mayor of this Palestinian village, steers his car up one potholed road, then another, finding each exit blocked by huge concrete chunks placed there by the Israeli Army. On a sleek highway 100 yards away, Israeli cars whiz by.

“They took our land to build this road, and now we can’t even use it,” Mr. Abu Safia says bitterly, pointing to the highway with one hand as he drives with the other. “Israel says it is because of security. But it’s politics.”

The object of Mr. Abu Safia’s contempt — Highway 443, a major access road to Jerusalem — has taken on special significance in the grinding Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For the first time, the Supreme Court, albeit in an interim decision, has accepted the idea of separate roads for Palestinians in the occupied areas.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel told the Supreme Court that what was happening on the highway could be the onset of legal apartheid in the West Bank — a charge that makes many Israelis recoil.

Built largely on private Palestinian land, the road was first challenged in the Supreme Court in the early 1980s when the justices, in a landmark ruling, permitted it to be built because the army said its primary function was to serve the local Palestinians, not Israeli commuters. In recent years, in the wake of stone-throwing and several drive-by shootings, Israel has blocked Palestinians’ access to the road.

This month, as some 40,000 Israeli cars — and almost no Palestinians — use it daily, the court handed down its decision, one that has engendered much legal and political hand-wringing.

VAMOOSE EXPRESS BUS SERVICE
From New York NYC to Bethesda MD/Arlington VA (Rosslyn)
& from Arlington VA/Bethesda MD to New York NY
FARE: $25 each way
Cash or personal checks accepted on the bus 

Transportation provided by:
            DC Trails Inc., Lorton VA. MC #402959. Rated: Satisfactory
            World Wide Travel, Brooklyn NY. MC# 349766. Rated: Satisfactory

Contact Us:

TEL: 1-212-244-6132
EMAIL: support@easternshuttle.com

Why Choose Washington Deluxe Bus Commuter
Washington Deluxe knows you have a choice when it comes to selecting a transportation service provider for in Washington and NY. Our dedication to customer satisfaction and safety is what sets our company apart. With experience comes a greater ability to provide our clients with the flawless service they have come to rely on Washington Deluxe for their travel needs

Best Buses. Best Rates.
Offering an award winning combination of commuter buses at rates that can fit most budgets is how Washington Deluxe has become one of the most recognized names in the bus business in Washington and NY. Call us today

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We take Extra Effort to Provide you a Comfortable and Pleasent Experience, when you Travel with us

Welcome to Dragon Deluxe

Dragon Coach provides affordable and reliable transportation between New York, Baltimore, Washington DC, Albany, Woodbury Common Premium Outlets, Pittsburgh, PA and State College, PA. 

Dragon Expressway & Travel Inc.
Tel: 212-966-5310 or 1-800-475-1160
Fax: (212) 619-0752
217 Park Row
New York, NY 10038 

The planned improvements come as SEPTA is enjoying its first dedicated funding stream in a decade and ridership is increasing across the transit system, the country's sixth-largest.

SEPTA officials announced the plans for increasing service at a press conference yesterday, where they unveiled the agency's proposed operational budget for fiscal year 2009. The budget still needs to go through public hearings over the next couple weeks.

"All of these service initiatives are part of SEPTA's commitment to improve service and convenience for our customers around the five counties of Southeastern Pennsylvania," SEPTA's chief service planner Charles Webb said.

The proposed budget of $1.08 billion represents a spending increase of about 5.6 percent over the previous year. But SEPTA remains cautious about increasing spending, and is spending significantly less than it could. Even though a landmark transportation funding law enacted last summer is proving the transit agency significantly more in state subsidy than it has budgeted for, SEPTA is not using that money to improve service.

Welcome to Tony Coach Travel Bus Tony Coach provides affordable and reliable transportation between New York and Washington DC. eTickets are emailed to you in real-time when your payment is collected. Please present a valid ID of the customer name and a printout of order confirmation (eTickets) at boarding.

• New York - 87 Chrystie Street, New York, NY 10002
                   1250 Broadway At W 32nd St, New York, NY 10001
• Washington DC - 2300 I Street NW, Washington, DC 20037
                           624 Street NW, Washington, DC 20001
• Baltimore - 5501 O'Donnell St Cutoff, Baltimore, MD 21224-4630