MTA Bus Time arrived last weekend in the final two boroughs, Brooklyn and Queens, making it now all 5 boroughs where you can now track your route and bus through various online channels (web, text, QR Code scanning at bus stops, and a dozen good apps for your iPhone or Android device). The MTA Bus Time application is a user friendly interface where people are no longer need to stand in the elements, waiting for their bus to arrive. However, I and a few other eagle eyed busfans noticed a few hiccups in the Queens routes. One of them were the bus stops on the Green Acres bound Q5 and Q85 routes which I noted in Buschat - they have stop locations where stores went out of business a decade ago. Pictured below is a snapshot of the Q5 route, notice on the stops along Sunrise Highway and Green Acres show "Caldor" (gasp!) "Woolworths" and "Sterns". Woolworth's was gone by 1997, Caldor went belly up in 1999, and Sterns closed in 2001.
Two people on Buschat reported that many buses are not equipped with the GPS modules and therefore cannot be tracked on Bustime. And another Buschatter noted that the Sunrise Multiplex bus stop was removed. Hopefully, NYC Transit will correct these issues, because these are serious problems which need to be addressed. Given NYC Transit's poor track record in correcting mistakes, we could see these old bus stop names for the next 20 years.
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