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Three finalists for LI Bus possible Takeover
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S-60 To Smith Haven Mall




Joined: 29 Nov 2007
Posts: 1757
Location: Suffolk County, NY

PostPosted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 10:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

RailBus63 wrote:
upperharlemline4ever wrote:
Weren't the last batch of new buses bought by the MTA? Isn't that the reason they don't have the orange Nassau stripe on them anymore?


I believe the 1700's were funded with Federal dollars. The MTA is the designated recipient for Nassau County for those funds, but the money would have been intended for buses for the county's operation, so I'm sure they will stay behind if this is how they were paid for. The blue stripe is no doubt the MTA wishing to use a common paint scheme.


Wasn't LIB to be folded into the MTA's planed Regional Bus Operations, thats why the 1700's have the MTA scheme.

Though i read somewhere that the 1700's are titled to the MTA.
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Hart Bus



Age: 73
Joined: 24 Apr 2007
Posts: 1150

PostPosted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 12:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

S-60 To Smith Haven Mall wrote:
upperharlemline4ever wrote:
With the private lines in NYC, really the only one that was run efficiently and provided excellent service was NY Bus Service. The others were in very poor shape. But anyway, thanks for the info. Again the only ones who are going to suffer are the bus riders. Nassau county has really shafted the MTA buy reducing rather than increasing their payments to the MTA. Weren't the last batch of new buses bought by the MTA? Isn't that the reason they don't have the orange Nassau stripe on them anymore?


Weren't all the private bus lines, except for New York Bus Service, owned by the same family?


Not quite. NYBS was owned by the Arrigoni Family. Liberty Lines was independently owned. QSC was owned by the Burke Family.

However, JBL, TCC, GBL and its subsidiary Command, were owned by "The Cooper Group". The group were descendants of Jerome Cooper. I believe that different descendants owned different percentages of each company.
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upperharlemline4ever




Joined: 26 Oct 2007
Posts: 60
Location: New York State

PostPosted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 12:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The other bus companies were owned by the Cooper family. Again, their exiting the picture cost the MTA and consequentially the taxpayers a bundle. But the people of Queens and parts of Brooklyn now have better bus service and equipment. The city owned the buses which were maintained by the operators and most of the time there were no parts to make repairs with. Compare an MTA maintainence facility to a PVBL facility. Most of the time the PVBL facility was no larger than a auto dealership's facility.

Yes you are correct S-60. Furthermore, one of the reasons for the long delay in ordering the buses was Nassau County's refusal to pay it's share of the cost of the buses, so the MTA went ahead with the order coughing the money. Remember reading the MTA rep saying that Nassau County can have their orange stripe if they're willing to pay their share of the tab for the buses.

What will now happen to the MSBA (publicly referred to as LIBus) employees. They work for the MTA and have paid into the MTA pension fund for as long as they've worked for the agency. Will they get their money back? They also won't be guaranteed a job with the new employer. This looks like a major lawsuit coming down the pike. Who will pick up the tab for that one, John and Jane Q Public of course.
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S-60 To Smith Haven Mall




Joined: 29 Nov 2007
Posts: 1757
Location: Suffolk County, NY

PostPosted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 1:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

upperharlemline4ever wrote:
The other bus companies were owned by the Cooper family. Again, their exiting the picture cost the MTA and consequentially the taxpayers a bundle. But the people of Queens and parts of Brooklyn now have better bus service and equipment. The city owned the buses which were maintained by the operators and most of the time there were no parts to make repairs with. Compare an MTA maintainence facility to a PVBL facility. Most of the time the PVBL facility was no larger than a auto dealership's facility.

Yes you are correct S-60. Furthermore, one of the reasons for the long delay in ordering the buses was Nassau County's refusal to pay it's share of the cost of the buses, so the MTA went ahead with the order coughing the money. Remember reading the MTA rep saying that Nassau County can have their orange stripe if they're willing to pay their share of the tab for the buses.

What will now happen to the MSBA (publicly referred to as LIBus) employees. They work for the MTA and have paid into the MTA pension fund for as long as they've worked for the agency. Will they get their money back? They also won't be guaranteed a job with the new employer. This looks like a major lawsuit coming down the pike. Who will pick up the tab for that one, John and Jane Q Public of course.


I Knew that Nassau was mad that the MTA wanted to put the blue stripe on the buses the county owned. I wasn't aware that Nassau refused to pay a share for the 1700's, I just assumed that the MTA brought them to have the blue stripe on them to show that LIB was part of the Regional Bus Operations
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Hart Bus



Age: 73
Joined: 24 Apr 2007
Posts: 1150

PostPosted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 6:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

upperharlemline4ever wrote:
The other bus companies were owned by the Cooper family. Again, their exiting the picture cost the MTA and consequentially the taxpayers a bundle. But the people of Queens and parts of Brooklyn now have better bus service and equipment. The city owned the buses which were maintained by the operators and most of the time there were no parts to make repairs with. Compare an MTA maintainence facility to a PVBL facility. Most of the time the PVBL facility was no larger than a auto dealership's facility.

Yes you are correct S-60. Furthermore, one of the reasons for the long delay in ordering the buses was Nassau County's refusal to pay it's share of the cost of the buses, so the MTA went ahead with the order coughing the money. Remember reading the MTA rep saying that Nassau County can have their orange stripe if they're willing to pay their share of the tab for the buses.

What will now happen to the MSBA (publicly referred to as LIBus) employees. They work for the MTA and have paid into the MTA pension fund for as long as they've worked for the agency. Will they get their money back? They also won't be guaranteed a job with the new employer. This looks like a major lawsuit coming down the pike. Who will pick up the tab for that one, John and Jane Q Public of course.


A lawsuit? I bet there'll be plenty of them. I can see the EEOC getting involved and any other Federal Agency that has some part of a takeover. I know that there is a rule about giving a certain amount of notice about going out of business if you have that a certain # of employees. MSBA is way over the threshold.

As far as pensions go, Federal Law says that if you have been in a pension plan for at least three years you are either partially or fully vested. That means that you (always) get what you paid into the system and a certain amount (if not all) of what the employer paid in + any growth in the investments. What you don't get is any definite monthly payout for the rest of your lifetime. Of course the MTA can agree to freeze the pensions and pay them out at normal retirement age.

If that isn't don't and you are under the age of 59 1/2, you have 60 days from the date of the check to roll the employer contribution + growth into an IRA otherwise its the 10 % early withdrawal penalty + the addition to your income at 4/15.

How this impacts the union health and welfare funds I don't know, but here comes more lawsuits.
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RailBus63
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Joined: 16 Apr 2007
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 9:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There is precedence for this. Foothill Transit started out in the early 1990's by taking over routes from Los Angeles SCRTD and Fairfax Connector in Virginia took over routes that had been operated directly by WMATA's Metrobus. I don't know what happened to the workers in those cases - I believe the union in Los Angeles filed a lawsuit but the Foothill district prevailed.
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scatman



Age: 51
Joined: 01 Dec 2009
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 11:34 am    Post subject: privatization and painting Reply with quote

on the side note for all u speculators, just an interesting thing i've noticed recently, everyday more and more of the 1500 and 1600 NASSAU owned buses are running around with solid white, repainted backs as per the newest MTA system wide trend. while suozzi threw a fit about the removal of all the orange it seems that LIB is working diligently to repaint all the rears of the 1500 and 1600s and this is most evident by looking at 1648 which is still sparkling from the fresh white paint in the rear that it recently received.

Now, with that said, if LIB knew they were on the verge of handing these orion Vs back to Nassau County in just a few short weeks for someone else to operate, why go out of the way to modify the rear paint scheme to MTA standards??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
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S-60 To Smith Haven Mall




Joined: 29 Nov 2007
Posts: 1757
Location: Suffolk County, NY

PostPosted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 12:11 pm    Post subject: Re: privatization and painting Reply with quote

scatman wrote:
on the side note for all u speculators, just an interesting thing i've noticed recently, everyday more and more of the 1500 and 1600 NASSAU owned buses are running around with solid white, repainted backs as per the newest MTA system wide trend. while suozzi threw a fit about the removal of all the orange it seems that LIB is working diligently to repaint all the rears of the 1500 and 1600s and this is most evident by looking at 1648 which is still sparkling from the fresh white paint in the rear that it recently received.

Now, with that said, if LIB knew they were on the verge of handing these orion Vs back to Nassau County in just a few short weeks for someone else to operate, why go out of the way to modify the rear paint scheme to MTA standards??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????


I would figure that since the MTA is currently operating them, they would have to also provide maintenance on them, if its part of their contract, until what ever time there contract is up or the contract is terminated.

Painting the rear of the bus i would figure, would fall under the maintenance, but changing the whole scheme of buses you don't own just so the buses would look like other buses you own some place else, wouldn't fall under maintenance of the buses. Unless otherwise stated in the contract. Though like i said thats just my guess.
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GBL Rebel
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Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 608
Location: Long Island, N.Y.

PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 8:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

upperharlemline4ever wrote:
The other bus companies were owned by the Cooper family. Again, their exiting the picture cost the MTA and consequentially the taxpayers a bundle. But the people of Queens and parts of Brooklyn now have better bus service and equipment. The city owned the buses which were maintained by the operators and most of the time there were no parts to make repairs with. Compare an MTA maintainence facility to a PVBL facility. Most of the time the PVBL facility was no larger than a auto dealership's facility.


When you have a hybrid bus and have to wait weeks for a part to come from the manufacturer, I would not call this parts available. Futhermore, I am talking about a bus that is atleast 3 years old. You have no idea how much remove from here to put on there I have seen since MTAB took over the PBL. As far as the service, NYCDOT set the service, not the companies. NYCDOT controlled the money for repairs, what you need verse what you got was not the same. Do you put new panels and paint on a bus or stick an engine in a different bus? I would think an engine so I am not standing in the bus stop waiting, but some people think new paint means the world.

In NYC the employees of the PBL's were covered by a law refered to as Section 13C which protected their jobs. Don't know if it is a city or state thing. Where you would find so many people to replace all the employees at LIB is more of a self answering question. In such a short time replacing everybody in one shot with people who really know what they are doing, the odds are not good.
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upperharlemline4ever




Joined: 26 Oct 2007
Posts: 60
Location: New York State

PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 9:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

13C was part of the take over legislation. That guaranteed the PVBL employees would continued to be employed by MTAB. In this case, the people would be going from a public agency to a private employer. No job guarantees. They can either (a) bring in their own people and/or (b) have the current employees reapply for their jobs and the employer can pick and choose who they want to hire.
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upperharlemline4ever




Joined: 26 Oct 2007
Posts: 60
Location: New York State

PostPosted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 11:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jay Walder apparently says that the responsibility for bus service outside of New York City rests with each county. Well, there is an operation within the MTA, MTA Regional Bus. If what he says is true, then abandon this unit of the MTA and put the monies allocated to this entity to other operations of the MTA.
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RailBus63
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Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 1063

PostPosted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 12:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

upperharlemline4ever wrote:
Jay Walder apparently says that the responsibility for bus service outside of New York City rests with each county. Well, there is an operation within the MTA, MTA Regional Bus. If what he says is true, then abandon this unit of the MTA and put the monies allocated to this entity to other operations of the MTA.


If Nassau spins off LI Bus, then MTA Regional Bus will only serve New York City.
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upperharlemline4ever




Joined: 26 Oct 2007
Posts: 60
Location: New York State

PostPosted: Thu Nov 18, 2010 12:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If the MTA gives up LI Bus, there is no Regional Bus, there's only NYC Transit and MTA Bus which only serve NYC, except for 2 short MTA Bus runs (1) Bx-M 3 which goes about a mile into Yonker and (2) the 5 and 85 which go to the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream which is right over the NYC-Nassau border. I don't think either of these runs qualify as Regional Bus; they are simply very short extensions of NYC bus routes.
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GBL Rebel
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Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 608
Location: Long Island, N.Y.

PostPosted: Thu Nov 18, 2010 5:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hart Bus wrote:
However, JBL, TCC, GBL and its subsidiary Command, were owned by "The Cooper Group". The group were descendants of Jerome Cooper. I believe that different descendants owned different percentages of each company.


They are/were descendants of William Cooper. When William died, sons Burton and Jerome "took the wheel". Burton has since passed as well.
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Mr. Linsky
BusTalk's Offical Welcoming Committee



Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 5071
Location: BRENTWOOD, CA. - WOODMERE, N.Y.

PostPosted: Fri Nov 19, 2010 12:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

GBL Rebel wrote:
Hart Bus wrote:
However, JBL, TCC, GBL and its subsidiary Command, were owned by "The Cooper Group". The group were descendants of Jerome Cooper. I believe that different descendants owned different percentages of each company.


They are/were descendants of William Cooper. When William died, sons Burton and Jerome "took the wheel". Burton has since passed as well.


I'm not getting in on this conversation - it would take too many threads to tell the whole story although you will find bits and pieces elsewhere on this board.

Regards,

Mr. 'L'
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