BusTalk

[Dieseljim]

I cannot help but wonder if Buffalo had not gone crazy over urban renewal if the Niagara Frontier Transit System, Inc. could have survived much longer as a private company than it did, given that urban renewal ripped out a large number of its traffic points and the Kensington Expressway cut entire neighborhoods in two? By 1969, when the last of the fishbowls arrived, much of the postwar bus fleet had largely been replaced, with only 63 Macks remaining out of the more than 1100 buses the IRC and NFT had purchased over the years. Could the New Looks have continued into the 7800 or even 7900 number series?

[RailBus63]

Doubtful. I haven't looked at any Buffalo ridership numbers, but I'm going to guess that the decline in passenger counts over the years will be very similar to those experienced by other Rust Belt and Upstate cities. This was the era when discretionary riders abandoned public transit, although NFTA has done well over the years in retaining express bus riders during the peak hours from the suburbs and park n' ride lots.

[HwyHaulier]

Dieseljim - RailBus63 -

I have to agree that NFT was a gone goose. Not that it did anything wrong. It is simply it could not adapt to radically changed circumstances.

As is much the same circumstance in so many other cities and towns, route structure locked into serving an area thought to be the "Central
Business District". The same old, same old ignored the fact the various Medical Examiners have, long ago, published Death Certificates on so
many "CBD" deceased...

Buffalo wasn't helped at all by destruction of the "Good, Old Days" manufacturing sector, and the loss of the vital grain trades arriving thru the
Lakes. Buffalo, much the same as so many other cities and towns, evolved into an overwhelmingly suburb to suburb trips demand for personal
transport. Regular route, scheduled, "hub and spoke" serving an imagined "CBD" simply will not work.

Old Time Buffalo, if one could make peace with occasionally rough winter weather, on balance was a nice place. There was little, if any reason,
for anyone to experience a home to work trip of more than fifteen minutes by auto (half hour, possibly, via NFT where the service available).
From this distant point in our time travels, Buffalo was very much a "user friendly" place for residents.

Present day planners don't get any of this. They still hold fantasies of viable "CBD" areas. To them, I should ask: Did the lavish and expensive
Light Rail (which disrupted convenient NFT routes) result in reincarnation of the AM&A Store in Downtown? Subject emporium is still dead, right?
IMHO, Light Rail remains just so much foolishness, fueled by Federal Free Lunch money. (Remember to send in your voluntary tax payments to
the Feds. Leavenworth and Allenwood can't be fun!)...

"...although NFTA has done well over the years in retaining express bus riders during the peak hours from the suburbs and park n' ride lots..." This
says so much! Yet, many present day TAs don't like it, because of higher operating costs. Can't these geniuses figure it out? Use increased
fares for premium services! The practitioners are locked in the pat, "CBD" mentality. They have discovered by now that dominating suburb to
suburb travel is intractable, not amenable to convenient same old, same old...

....................Vern...............

[Dieseljim]

In addition to the traditional fixed routes with full size buses, NFTA has a number of circulator routes operating in some suburbs, such as Amherst, and the Tonawandas to name a couple, using mini buses, usually Ford cutaways for those routes where a full size bus is not appropriate. Before merger with the NFT, the suburban Buffalo Transit Company tried to match its fleet according to the demand on its several routes by using 27,31,36 and 45 seat buses before aquisition of the 51 and 53 seaters, which were the last buses that company ever received. These smaller buses were deployed on routes according to demand, while the 45 seaters were usually the standard size for most BTC services. As for the St. Lawrence Seaway, that was Eisenhower's doing and it did great harm to Buffalo and the railroads that served it, not to mention the NFT, Buffalo Transit Company and other bus lines serving the area. While Ike was a great general, what this and the interstates did to the Northeast makes it amazing, to me, why the Northeastern states did not threaten secession from the union, thus opening the way to another war between the states. With the destruction of the ecomy, the NE and Midwest certainly had cause for secession in view of the way the Sunbelt was booming.

[HwyHaulier]

Dieseljim -

You may be overstating the case of grievances of the East and Midwest?

Recall, we didn't all wake up one morning, only to learn much of the manufacturing of most anything had removed to China or Korea.
It was incremental, as is most anything...

1. Practical and widespread application of air conditioning throughout the South and Southwest...
2. Siren songs of lower costs of labor within the South...
3. "Right To Work" laws in much of the South and Southwest, stopping Union influences...
4. Reasoned, and much lower taxation rates on businesses in the South, and...
5. Actual, cash in hand, local government inducements for relocating businesses...

Once this enormous scam had been worked for all it was worth, we then saw this "one world" nonsense, where the businesses went
on to settle at off shore points. Surely left enormous damage in its wake...

In my opening remarks, and as I stated, NFT did nothing wrong. How does one hold back a flood? The film, Network (1976) explains
near all of it.

..................Vern.................

[RailBus63]

[Dieseljim]

We need RIGHT TO WORK legislation here in NY State,too, but Albany is too mobbed up for any real reform. The merger of NFT, Buffalo Transit, Lockport Bus Lines, portions of D&F Transit, and Grand Island Transit and T-NT transit together with Niagara Falls Municipal Transit Commission could well have been the difference between continued bus service and bankruptcy related shutdowns and liquidation. Of these Lockport Bus Lines was in the worst shape since virtually all the buses they were then operating up to 1975 dated back to the 1950s. They were even running a PD4103 as late as the early 1970s. It is said that Lockport Bus was cannabalizing some of their buses to keep the others running and the 4103 may have been taken out of service for that reason. NFT had just about replaced two thirds to three fifths of their bus fleet by 1969 when the last of the fishbowls arrived. The four buses Grand Island Transit conveyed to NFT were in better shape. 2 of them were 1960-61 SDM4501s, one an SDM5302 with V8 engine (restroom since removed from this bus), and a relatively new S8M5304A. D&F Transit conveyed five 4106s to NFT Metro in 1974 and those continued in NFTA service for a time. Blue Bird Coach Lines bought all five of them when NFTA got new equipment to replace them. The two SDM4501s looked like they were air conditioned and had the housing over the rear window. At one time Grand Island Transit had four of them and I had ridden all four of them and do not remember any AC ever being used on those buses, or was it a dummy housing that hung over the rear window of those buses?

[RailBus63]

[HwyHaulier]