You might not remember it, but back in April the MTA voted to terminate their bus service contract with Nassau County, eliminating the Long Island Bus service come January 1. Well, the new year has arrived and ding dong, Long Island Bus is dead. Of course, county executive Ed Mangano knows he can’t leave 100,000 daily bus riders stranded and hope to continue his political career, so Nassau has teamed up with Veolia Transportation to create a replacement: NICE. (Nassau Inter-County Express. Yes, we choked when we heard the acronym as well.)
Nice service began on January 1, serves all of the old LI Bus routes (meaning it’s still possible to get to Roosevelt Field Mall) and even accepts Metrocard. They’ve even reinstated old service to Valley Stream. Sounds great, right? Well, for now it is. Of course, the true test will be seeing how Nassau keeps those buses up when costs start rising.
Source: Nice
Pingback: That Long Island Bus experiment isn’t going very well — The Funky Apple