Since buses have emerged as a theme on Trainjotting this week, we ease a day closer to the long weekend with a story from the NY Times’ Metropolitan section on the dmise of the QM22 bus, which goes from Jackson Heights to Manhattan twice a day, and will be disbanded when the transit cuts take effect in a few weeks.

Due to the bus’s limited schedule and long ride (think about that…a bus from Jackson Heights to Manhattan, and vice versa, during rush hour, twice a day…), people on the QM22 are extraordinarily close–a “family”, in fact, according to one rider.

The bus cabal even has its own social chairwoman.

The bus’s final run is June 25.

The so-called “Bus People” are typically older women–not quite the demographic for the iPods, iPads and laptops that tend to break up community and shared experience on transit. They’re bummed to think about what their lives will be like when the beloved QM22 ceases to be in less than a month.

The Bus People used to play the lottery together — their biggest win was $81 about a decade ago on regular Lotto — and they give one another birthday parties and baby and bridal showers. There is an annual Christmas party in an Astoria restaurant. In early April, some members gathered at a bowling alley to see an Elvis impersonator, and once or twice a year they take a trip to Atlantic City — in a rented bus, naturally.

When the previous social chairwoman, Mitch Caglioti, stepped down in 2008, the Bus People gave her a dinner party to end all dinner parties, she said. They gave her a diamond cross necklace and a $100 American Express gift card. “Even when people leave, we all keep in touch,” Ms. Caglioti said.

Laraine Amendola, who stopped riding the QM22 regularly when she took a job in Astoria four years ago, still thinks of herself as part of the group. “We all go out to shows and to movies,” she said. “When I get on the bus now, everybody starts screaming.”

We’ve seen irate passengers menace drivers with metal hook appendages–quite recently, in fact–but we’ve (thankfully) never seen one spit on a driver.

Yet it happens–quite a bit, in fact.

The NY Times says there were 51 reported “spat upon” incidents, as they are known in bus driver ranks.

On average, the recipients of the spat upons took 64 days of paid leave to recover; one took all of 191 days–with pay.

Needless to say, being spat upon would be nothing short of traumatic. How long would it take before you felt you could get back on the job? It’s hard to say.

MTA execs say it’s a tough cost to, uh, swallow in light of the massive MTA budget shortfall.

Reports the Times:

Transit officials, facing a budget shortfall of $400 million, called the numbers troubling. “We have to see what we’re going to do with that,” said Joseph Smith, who oversees bus operations for New York City Transit.

All sorts of weirdness on the M1 bus this week.

I hopped on at 40th and Park Ave South yesterday, and didn’t realize until we’d pulled out at 34th Street that the next stop was 23rd–five blocks south of where I sought to exit.

I knew something was fishy when I went to hit the yellow let-my-ass-off strip, and nothing happened.

I stepped to the foul line near the driver and asked him if he could stop at 28th. He said it was the express bus, and I should’ve taken the local right behind us.

I occasionally take the M1, and have been doing so for a few years. There was never any distinction between locals and expresses on this line.

This same bus I mocked in these very cyber-pages just weeks ago for stopping way too much, now stops way too little.

Stopped at a light at 28th, I asked Mr. Bus Driver to simply open the doors and let me sneak out. No dice. “If you fall, it’s on me,” he said. (Frankly, judging by the size of him, falling on the man didn’t seem like it would be too painful.)

Today, more of the same. I was going to walk, but saw the bus sitting at the light at 40th and hopped on. Once we crossed 37th, a woman of about 40 who had some sort of history with the driver, a large, stone-faced black man of about 40 with a moustache, flirted from the foul line. She had an injured foot and wanted him to stop at 33rd. He wouldn’t go for it. She tried every trick in the book: told him it would be good for their friendship, threw in a comment about a fun trip to Atlantic City with her friends coming up, all that. He didn’t bite, and dropped her off at 34th.

The woman, well dressed with big sunglasses and straight brown hair, said good bye and limped off.

Seated in the front seat, I listened to see if the man would announce the next stop. He did not.

At a light at 31st, I asked if he would stop at 28th. He said no, next stop is 23rd. I asked how one was supposed to know the difference between an express bus and a local bus; he said the expresses have a Limited sign in the windshield. But he told me not to bother remembering that, as the bus would no longer run down Park Ave South in a few weeks.

There were only five other people on the bus, and two started howling (not including me) when he cruised past 28th. One, a white man, necktie and khakis, most notably a hook for his right hand, yelled, “You’re the ONLY one who won’t stop at 28th! I’m gonna lose my fucking job because you won’t stop at 28th! I’ve got a handicapped pass, and you’re making me walk five blocks!”

I wanted to point out that having a hook for a hand probably won’t slow his walking down, but wisely stayed quiet.

The man told the driver he’d never announced 23rd Street. I told the driver the man was right, I’d been listening the whole time–from the front seat, no less. I’d even taken my iPod off to eavesdrop on the funny conversation between the woman on the bad foot and the driver. (Oddly, my iPod shuffle prophetically brought up The Guess Who’s “Bus Rider” while I was on the train this morning…Why is The Guess Who even on my iPod?) 

“I don’t know what you’ve been listening to,” he said. “I said it.” 

We got off at 23rd. As I made my way up Park Ave, I heard a loud ping behind me. The man with a hook for a hand, furious at the driver and the system, had whacked the side of the bus with his artificial appendage.

As I walked past 27th a moment later, I saw an M1 bus easing over to the sidewalk to stop. It had a Limited sign in the windshield.

WTF?

It’s a beautiful day, I should’ve walked anyway.

* Headline refers to obscure Springsteen song called “Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street.”

The M1 bus.

I take you, M1 bus, every once in a while, when the mankind morass assembled at the 4-5-6 train escalators in Grand Central seems too foreboding, or these tired legs just don’t have the requisite spring to catapult me down toward lower Park Ave. South.

Frankly, M1, you’re not very prompt, and it’s usually faster to walk than to wait for you. And your driver that rides the horn every block or so–she should chill out a bit. Maybe do some yoga.

Maybe you’re so slow because you stop too much. I mean, you stop on Park Avenue South between 27th and 28th, M1. No problem there–28th is a nexus, with a subway stop, and a Mickey D’s and Duane Reade to boot.

But then you stop between 26th and 27th, M1. That’s a block later!

Don’t you realize, M1, that this is why people make fun of you and your bus brethren? You’re playing right into your stereotype: too many stops, too many folks who are advanced in age, weight or, typically, both, climbing on and off. Those minutes add up!

With all the proposed cuts in the MTA beckoning–entire subway and bus routes wiped off the map, token clerks banished to unemployment–can we really justify stopping between 27th and 28th, and again between 26th and 27th?

I think not.

By the way, I work right on 26th, so thank you for stopping right in front of my office. Some days the legs just don’t feel like walking all the way from 27th.

Ambivalently,

Trainjotting

Squeaking, lurching and hissing city buses are as much a part of the Manhattan soundtrack as cab horns and Ramones tunes coming up through the floor from that skinny guy in 2D.

But a pilot program from the MTA unveils some buses that are conspicuous in their silence. The New York Times reports that three of them, at $559,000 apiece, are currently on the road.

When the DesignLine stops short, or takes off from a light, there is little more than a low groan. An onboard air-conditioner usually drowns out any sound from the engine.

The other day, one block north of Astor Place, James Sollecito sat down behind the wheel and gradually eased the bus onto Fourth Avenue for a 90-minute trip to Washington Heights. The engine hummed softly as its driver peered out from the extra-large Plexiglas windshield, a sheer single pane that resembled an astronaut’s visor writ large.

“I never drove anything that accelerates like this,” Mr. Sollecito, who has driven city buses for 15 years, said approvingly, as the bus glided along the street jerk-free.

Silence, that rare commodity on the city streets, is achieved by throwing out the most basic element of automobile design: internal combustion. Instead of a noisy, piston-based engine, the DesignLine operates on a spinning turbine that recharges a lithium-ion battery, a green energy source more commonly found inside laptop computers. That means fewer moving parts, and fewer ways to create a racket.

It being New York and all, some riders were not impressed. Others dug the quiet–and apparently sweet-smelling–buses.

Malachai Williams, a second grader at Public School 171 in East Harlem, put it more bluntly. “This bus is awesome!” he said, plopping into a seat toward the back. “It smells like a bus that takes you to different countries and states.”

Number of words uttered by grim-faced M1 busdriver after I boarded and said “Good morning” today: 0

Number of times grim-faced M1 busdriver honked her horn as the M1 plodded through construction-induced congestion on Park Ave. South between 40th and 38th: 6

Number of times grim-faced M1 busdriver honked her horn as the M1 seemed to be making good progress down Park Ave. South between 38th and 28th: 2

Number of words uttered by grim-faced M1 busdriver after I said “thank you” and “have a nice day” upon exiting: 0

I’m waiting for the green at 27th and Park about 10 minutes ago. A man is settling up a cab fare with a cabbie who’s rested his car just west of 27th on Park, right up against a parked car.

The transaction is taking longer than it should; the former rider, slicked back brown hair, 35, blue sweater, jeans, cigarette dangling from his lips, is counting singles like a parolee given an allowance for a strip club.

A bus is behind the cab, waiting to hit 27th but blocked from doing so. The bus is blocking the whole of the southbound lanes on Park, every motorist treated to a huge bus ad about a Lincoln exhibit at the New York Historical Society that says “The Most Beloved Leader That New York Ever Hated.” The bus driver is not happy.

Still, the transaction goes on. The former rider is gesturing to the irate bus driver behind them, and more traffic behind the bus. His movements say, let’s settle the f*** up, a**hole!

Cigarette Man and the driver are feuding over the cost. Cigarette Man gestures again to the mounting traffic and escalating horn noise and says, “You’re the reason for all this!”

Finally, they settle up. Cigarette Man is furious. He slips the singles into his wallet and scoots through the narrow passageway between the cab’s rear bumper and the bus behind it. The cigarette dangles from his lips as his eyes shoot daggers.

You can see where this is going. As they say in the theater, if you’re showing the audience a gun in the first act, you have to use the damn thing in the third act. Indeed, Cigarette Man removes the cigarette from his lips and flicks it at the driver. The butt rolls around on the cab’s hood and stays, like a punt spinning to a stop on the 1 yard line.

Against all logic, the cabbie remains parked, long line of traffic behind him, because of him. 

The bus driver has had enough and climbs down. He’s a solid black man of about 45, looks a bit like Cedric the Entertainer.

He goes over to the cabbie’s window.

“Fuck the way!!!” he yells, a bizarre shorthand for “Get the fuck out of the way!”

“Fuck the way!” he repeats, then climbs back into his rig.

Finally, the cabbie does indeed fuck the way, and New York gets moving again.