Staten Island alert affected to buses

[Juan]

Hi MTA folks,

We notice there is a Service Alert in the GTFS-rt for mta-bus that reads:

"Staten Island Ferry reduced service today. Transfer to S53, S79-SBS, S93, or SIM buses and take them to/from Brooklyn for the R train to/from Manhattan."

This alert is assigned to all the Staten Island buses and also to some Manhattan ones.

We understand this may be because it can be pertinent for riders on the suggested connecting lines but, since not many users will go to the ferry, the alert is not useful for most of the people who are seeing it.

Ideally, this alert would be assigned to the Ferry line and people taking the ferry would see it.

Do you think this is something that can be improved?

Thanks in advance.

[Sam Salkin]

Hi Juan - agree it's a bit of a blunt instrument but we were doing whatever we could to help get the word out about a significant disruption. This was a big collaboration across the higher levels of multiple agencies. The other point is the MTA doesn't run the SI Ferry (NYCDOT does) so we have no control over their GTFS or alerts. I checked with the team that writes our service alerts and they said later versions of this alert were more tailored to bus routes that directly serve the SI Ferry.

Thanks for the feedback! It's good to know people are paying attention out there!

--Sam