Friday, Oct 14, 2011 8:29am | COMMENTS (14)
Midtown direct service into New York is suspended this morning, with trains being redirected to Hoboken — and we’re hearing that trains are running 60 minutes late. Clever Commuters report that DeCamp is not cross-honoring. Good luck getting in, tell us your war stories and send pictures.
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In my jammies working from home. Those Penn trains are stinkers. It should be called “Midtown Indirect”. I wish they’d stop cutting Hoboken service.
….a war story about commuting home last night on Route 3…
at about 1:30AM, driving west into what seemed to be a fierce lightning storm with torrential rain, the few cars began to slow down and some with hazard lights…absolute zero visability…then pitch black smoke with an electrical fire odor and massive blackout…the lightning had struck the highway!!!!….OMG!!!
Shame on DeCamp for not cross-honoring. We’ll remember this next time you want to go on strike.
How dare a bus company not provide free service to make up for a screw-up buy their competition! Greedy bastards.
“We’ll remember this next time you want to go on strike.” Huh? How? Have you been walking to the city in support of their strikes previously?
I don’t think it’s free service. I think they collect something and then have NJ Transit re-imburse them. But anyway, I don’t think they should cross-honor on a more practical basis. If you only have buses to serve 500 customers and suddenly 200 customers want to board, 200 regular DeCamp customers are going to get screwed with delayed buses or no seats. I’m fine with cross-honoring if they put additional buses on the route, but otherwise it’s only helping people who would otherwise not take DeCamp.
Either way it’s their call. Especially since it’s the competition. If I were in that business I wouldn’t bail-out my competitor.
I believe DeCamp gets state subsidies. Additionally, no other bus carrier can be given certificates to operate on the same routes. The only NYC commute options are NJ Transit trains and DeCamp buses so it’s not really a competitive marketplace here – it’s controlled by the state. Meaning, they are subsidized by our tax dollars, and they have a pretty good deal by “owning” the routes from commuter towns. They should cross honor.
From a totally selfish persepctive, they should honor: It will make them look like the good guys. I don’t see how it’s bailing out their competitor (the train is not truly a competitor sicne many people can’t take the train on a regular basis). Why not have people remember you for your good deeds rather than for being inflexible?
Bingo Ms. Martta. I used to live a block away from both the train and a DeCamp route. The few times I took the bus, the experience was so poor, that I would only use DeCamp as an absolute last resort.
I particularly remember one crazy night when all train service went down from Philadelphia to Long Island due to power problems. Storms had also knocked out power in Montclair. NJT Alerts were sent out stating that DeCamp was cross-honoring. I was going to take a 9:30PM train home and had to race to the PA to catch the last Grove Street bus of the night. I didn’t have a ticket and it turned out yhat the drivers were not cross honoring at the PA despite the alerts. After about 10 minutes the driver and the supervisor finally agreed to let me buy a ticket. I didn’t have exact change and they were going to leave me behind at the PA even though I stated that I would be happy to pay $10 for the ride home instead of the $5 and change that the ticket cost. Luckily a kind passenger gave me one of her tickets so that I could make it home that night and not have to walk across town in the dark in a hail storm. I am still thankful many years later for the kindness of that stranger. And still think of DeCamp in a much less favorable light.
It’s so easy to do the right/kind thing in a crisis but DeCamp has proven it’s too much trouble for them.
Being a significantly larger company, NJTransit would be in much better position to round up extra drivers and extra buses in order to send additional buses out of Port Authority directly to the train stations in the event that the trains are not running properly. I have as many problems with DeCamp as the next person, but some of this blame on covering the train’s shortfall should be sent Transit’s way.
Having finally made it back from dealing with this miasma of a commute, a couple of thoughts:
1. My unscientific observation is that cross-honoring with DeCamp occurs during weather disasters or total system wide failures—not one tunnel getting knocked out yet again by Amtrak’s failing infrastructure.
2. ROC is on the mark here—these companies do not like each other. Let’s not forget that DeCamp sued NJ Transit a few years back for constructing the Montclair Connection (and lost).
3. Remember that phrase–failing infrastructure. It’s going to become a dominant issue in the coming years.
budmanzz – no other buses are allowed to cover DeCamp’s routes.
In other words, NJT cannot run buses out of PA to Montclair, Glen Ridge and Bloomfield. Not allowed. It’s DeCamp’s route.