Defunct 2011 (MSBA) Operator Transdev Founded 1973 | Service type Local bus Headquarters New York | |
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Parent Nassau County, New York (fleet ownership) Locale Nassau County, New York Service area Most of Nassau County, except for northern Town of Oyster Bay, Parts of Queens County and Suffolk County Routes 41 (plus five shuttle routes) Profiles | ||
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The Nassau Inter-County Express (NICE or NICE Bus) is the local bus system serving Nassau County, New York. It also serves parts of western Suffolk County, New York as well as eastern portions of the New York City borough of Queens. It was formerly operated under the name of MTA Long Island Bus, the trading name of the Metropolitan Suburban Bus Authority, a division of MTA Regional Bus Operations. In 2011, the owner, Nassau County, decided to outsource the system to a private operator, the French multinational corporation, Veolia Transportation (now called Transdev), due to a funding dispute with the MTA.
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Private companies (pre-1973)
The MTA began operating Nassau County bus service in 1973 under the name Metropolitan Suburban Bus Authority, through the merging of 11 private operators (routes in italics have been discontinued):
(*) denotes original bus routes that are now active shuttles as of September 6, 2016
MTA Long Island Bus
In the 1980s, the N28 (now discontinued), N46 (also discontinued), N50 (also discontinued), and N70 (as an N72 branch) were instituted as new routes, with the N20 extended to Hicksville. The 1990s saw the creation of a shuttle around Roosevelt Field (N93, now discontinued), two shuttles designed to take customers from train stations to work sites (the N94 and N95, both discontinued), and a service connecting Nassau County to JFK Airport (the N91, now discontinued), with the 2000s seeing a Merrick shuttle (now discontinued) and the N8 (now discontinued) and N43 routes being created.
In 2007, Long Island Bus averaged over 109,000 weekday riders, many of which include customers connecting to other MTA services in the region. By 2011, the MTA had averaged 101,981 weekday riders by the time of the agency's exit from operating the service.
Privatization and NICE
In 2010, the future of MTA Long Island Bus became uncertain, as the MTA threatened drastic cuts due to Nassau County's disproportionately small contributions to the operation. For the past decade, the MTA has provided a unique subsidy (of $24 million in 2011 and over $140 million since 2000) to the Nassau County bus system that the other New York City suburban county bus systems have not received. The county's contribution was $9.1 million per year out of a total budget of $133.1 million, and the MTA desired that this contribution increase to $26 million. Critics have noted that Westchester County subsidized its similarly-sized Bee-Line Bus System service by $33 million/year, and that Suffolk subsidizes its substantially smaller Suffolk County Transit system by $24 million/year. The county hoped to reduce its contribution from $9.1 million to $4.1 million by using a private contractor; the planned county contribution was later decreased to $2.5 million/year.
By March 2011, the MTA—citing Nassau's refusal to pay its contracted amount—proposed a set of major service reductions which would have eliminated over half of the routes, with the greatest impact on southeastern Nassau County, eliminating all routes operating south of Hempstead Turnpike and east of the Meadowbrook State Parkway (except for the N71). After reviewing the service cut plans, County Executive Ed Mangano considered severing ties with the MTA and privatizing the Long Island Bus system. A temporary reprieve, via additional state funding, would have sustained service through the end of 2011. However, on April 27, 2011, the MTA voted to cease all bus service in Nassau County after the end of 2011. Mangano then announced that he had retained Veolia Transportation to operate the system beginning in 2012 through a public-private partnership pending legislative approval. On November 10, 2011, Veolia and Mangano announced that the service was going to be renamed Nassau Inter-County Express (or NICE), upon Veolia's takeover of the system. All buses, including Able-Ride vehicles, would be painted into a new paint scheme to reflect the change. On December 12, 2011, the legislature unanimously approved the Veolia contract, which was subsequently approved by the state-controlled Nassau County Interim Finance Authority (NIFA) on December 22, 2011. Veolia began operations January 1, 2012. This Veolia plan was the subject of heated county public hearings in which Long Island Bus riders and employees criticized the plan.
In February 2012, Veolia announced service cuts and adjustments to take effect in April 2012. While there were no route cancellations planned, just over $7 million in cuts to existing routes were planned, with service reductions and route concentrations planned for routes primarily serving northern and eastern Nassau County, beginning in spring 2012, with resources redirected towards busier routes. These cuts ultimately included decreased service on 30 routes, including elimination of weekend service and decreased midday service on seven routes. These cuts were criticized as occurring too soon, only six weeks after starting service. The Long Island Bus Rider's Union, a transit advocacy group, sharply criticized the cuts, claiming that "the announcements of service adjustments on the [NICE bus] website were very unclear", that service to many health care and social service centers was cut, and that "many of the NICE bus service cuts appear to be in low income communities where more people rely on buses to get to work and to access the few available health care centers that serve their needs."
In 2013, the NICE bus system obtained "a windfall" from increased New York State (but not Nassau County) aid of $5 million and $3 million from a fare increase for MetroCard bus riders.
In March 2014, the NICE bus system faced another $3.3 million budget deficit. At that time, the bus system expected "an increase of state aid — its largest revenue stream — of $1.2 million."
On October 31, 2014, the Nassau County legislature adopted a 2015 budget that will increase Nassau County's contribution to NICE bus from $2.6 million to $4.6 million in 2015 and promised not to raise fares outside of MetroCard fare increases (MetroCard is controlled by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority). This new $4.6 million contribution was hailed as a victory for Nassau County bus riders, although it will still leave NICE bus with a $6 million operating deficit. However, on December 11, 2014, Nassau County executive Ed Mangano proposed cutting $4 million from Nassau County's NICE bus contribution (in addition to cuts to numerous other Nassau County services) to replace the $30 million that will be lost after the shutdown of Nassau County's controversial school speed zone cameras.
On January 17, 2016, NICE eliminated fifteen routes due to a budget deficit and low ridership and restructured three routes.
On June 27, 2016, NICE restored service on two routes (n80/81) and restored two others (n14, n17) as shuttles.
On September 6, 2016, NICE restored service on one route (n51) and restored three others (original n2, n62, n73) as shuttles.
In December 2016 NICE announced a 12 million dollar budget shortfall for FY2017 and warned that deep service cuts could be down the road if no additional funding could be secured.
Fare
The current fare is $2.75 ($1.35 for seniors and disabled customers) with a MetroCard (including unlimited cards) or coins. Students with ID receive a discount of $0.25 from the base fare. Dollar bills are not accepted on any NICE fixed-route buses. Transfers are available upon request with coins, and are included automatically with MetroCard. The transfers are valid for two hours and can be used on two connecting NICE bus routes. They are also valid on Suffolk County Transit, Long Beach Bus, Huntington Area Rapid Transit (HART) or MTA New York City Transit, with the following restrictions:
The Able-Ride paratransit fare is $3.75, payable in Able-Ride tickets or exact fare.
Bus depots
Nassau Inter-County Express operates from three garages in Nassau County, as listed below.
Rockville Centre Depot
The Rockville Centre Bus Depot is located on 50 Banks Avenue in Rockville Centre. This garage, originally the home of Bee Line, Inc., houses the n1, n4, n15, n19, n25, n31, n32, n33, n35 (some service), n36, n40 (some service), n41 (some service), and n88 Jones Beach (summer service only) routes. This depot could cease operations in the near future due to budgetary issues at NICE bus.
Mitchel Field Depot
The Mitchel Field Depot (marked Senator Norman J. Levy Transit Facility on older buses and on the building itself) is located on 700 Commercial Avenue in Uniondale, and is the headquarters and central garage for Nassau Inter-County Express. The garage is named after the Mitchel Air Force Base that operated there from 1918 until 1961. All routes not operated from the Rockville Centre garage are dispatched from this garage.
Stewart Avenue Depot (Able-Ride)
The Stewart Avenue Depot is located on 947 Stewart Avenue in East Garden City. All Able-Ride Nassau County shared-ride ADA paratransit service is dispatched from this garage.
Fleet
Nassau Inter-County Express runs a 100% compressed natural gas-fueled bus fleet for fixed route service. All of the buses below are 102 inches (2.59 meters) wide and are fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Pictures shown are of buses in NICE livery or in Nassau County's stripe colors of blue-and-orange; some of the Orion VII Next Generation buses still are in the MTA's blue stripe paint scheme and have not been re-decaled at this time.
All ex-MTA and non-secondhand buses are equipped with "smart bus" technology from Woodbury-based Clever Devices Ltd., which includes automated onboard route and stop announcements. However, Nassau Inter-County Express has recently hired Clever Devices again to replace its original "smart bus" system in most of the fleet with brand-new on board units and software that use GPS data to calculate the next stop announcements instead of odometer-based data with the older system. The new system will also provide maintenance with vehicle diagnostics data and provide customers and dispatchers alike with real-time bus location data accessible online (akin to MTA Bus Time).
In addition, all buses with the "smart bus" system are equipped with exterior turn warning announcements that alert pedestrians of turning buses in English and Spanish. Moreover, NICE bus also operates a fleet of 8 2016 Spirit of Mobility buses #2290-2297. These buses feature the new NICE scheme that will also be featured on the upcoming 2016-2017 New Flyer XN60s.
Future Fleet
40 foot (12.19 meter) buses, replacing all the remaining Orion V CNG buses. This order could be cancelled due to the possible closure of the RVC depot.
Routes
NICE runs fixed-route service on 42 routes, plus five shuttles, servicing the towns of Hempstead, North Hempstead, and the southern part of Oyster Bay, along with parts of the cities of Long Beach and Glen Cove. Non-shuttle routes are designated "n" for Nassau County, with service provided daily (although not all routes operate 7 days a week), and 24-hour service provided on the n4 Merrick Road and n6 Hempstead Turnpike routes.
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NICE routes operating to Jamaica and Flushing, Queens operate closed-door service in Queens (that is, local service is not provided solely for travel within Queens; appropriate NYC Transit or MTA Bus services must be used instead). There are two exceptions to this: the n24, where one side of Jericho Turnpike/Jamaica Avenue is in New York City, but the other side of the street is in the Town of Hempstead (eastbound drop-off begins at 225th Street, where state maintenance of Jamaica Avenue begins, and westbound pickups occur as far west as 239th Street); and the n31/n32 and n33, which operate open-door in a portion of Far Rockaway where no other bus service is available. In addition, the n33 operates closed-door within the City of Long Beach, where local service is provided by Long Beach Bus.