Joshua Miller decided Friday to take a bus trip Saturday to New York City, to visit a museum exhibit and other sights. He had an enjoyable day, but a harrowing night, recalling how he almost couldn’t get out of the city to return to his Easton home.
Miller planned to board the 6:15 p.m. bus from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey terminal in Manhattan, but he learned upon arriving the bus was canceled. Another bus was expected to leave the city at 9 p.m., however, and he was waiting to board that bus, standing in the back of a line with about 30-40 other passengers, when he heard a man with a cane yelling, “They screwed us.”
Other people yelled that the bus driver had made his last trip, Miller said.
Miller wound up hitching a ride with a person who had access to a van and driver, whom he met at the terminal. He paid an extra $25 but lost about $20 for the return ticket to Easton.
Sounding grateful he arrived home by midnight, Miller said most of the would-be passengers – from college students and older riders – were still at the bus terminal when he left, trying to figure out what to do.
“This was a crazy and sad sight,” Miller said.
Those riders fell victim to a persistent, nationwide bus driver shortage, which has been causing more standing-in-the-aisle rides and cancellations.
Tom JeBran, president of the Bethlehem bus company, said it is no different from other transportation providers dealing with the shortage. He said the shortfall led Trans-Bridge on Oct. 17 to implement a schedule reducing the number of trips to and from New York. That included canceling Saturday return trips to the Valley.
JeBran said the company notified customers via web alerts and on social media. Its website showed three buses were canceled under “Alerts” for Saturday trips from New York to Allentown: 4:15 p.m. 6:15 p.m. and 9 p.m. The company also said it offers a bus tracker app that can show the location of a bus with updated time of arrival on people’s cellphones.
“We are very sorry we cannot provide the reliable service we did prior to the pandemic,” the company said in a statement. “We are working very hard to recruit and train drivers to offer the quality service Trans-Bridge Line has been known for in the past. We can only hope our loyal customers will be patient and understanding until we can get there.”
Trans-Bridge and other bus companies continue to struggle finding drivers. Many older operators retired early during the pandemic, in some cases because they were concerned about contracting COVID-19 on the job.
In company newsletters on its website, Trans-Bridge, which in 2020 was forced to lay off workers as it dealt with a pandemic-induced decline in ridership, acknowledges these days it is severely understaffed not only with drivers but customer service representatives. It also is facing rising diesel fuel prices while trying to hold down fares.
Now, as private companies and transit agencies try to rebuild employment levels, they face competition from companies such as FedEx and Amazon that are also keen to hire employees with commercial driver’s licenses.
“A lot of these bus operators can’t provide the service that they want to provide,” said Philip Plotch, a researcher at the Eno Center for Transportation in Washington, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank. “During the pandemic it wasn’t as much of an issue, because ridership was down, but as we’re coming out of the pandemic, it is.”
Competition for operators has remained fierce. Plotch said while Trans-Bridge’s website lists starting salaries at $18.60 an hour, with sign-on bonuses between $500 and $3,500, other Lehigh Valley employers, including school districts and warehouses, are offering more in hourly pay for starting drivers.
Miller said he was suspicious of Trans-Bridge’s claim it is doing what it can for customers.
“They could have sent a driver with a poster about the cancellations into the Port Authority,” he said. “They could have called the ticket agents in the Port Authority and reminded them that two buses were canceled. Instead of taking responsibility for the stranded passengers on Saturday night, Trans-Bridge is putting the onus on them for not using social media. If their system was working, people would not have been stranded.”
Plotch said transportation providers should ideally provide customers with state-of-the-art information, with “art” standing for accurate, relevant and timely. Apparently, Plotch said, that’s not what Miller and other riders Saturday night got.
When could LV-NYC options improve?
Beyond consumers’ experiences with Trans-Bridge, Miller said that unless mass-transit options change, Lehigh Valley residents will lose one of those quality-of-life benefits of living in the region – being able to get to and from New York without having to drive, and in a day or less.
Problems with getting a bus to Manhattan preceded the pandemic. In early February 2019, Berks County’s Bieber Transportation Group, which stopped in the Lehigh Valley on the way to Manhattan to pick up riders, abruptly closed. Other carriers picked up the slack, including Trans-Bridge, which signed a license agreement for Bieber’s former Port Authority gate and added an NYC route to and from Wescosville and Hellertown.
At the time, Bieber owner Steven G. Haddad cited a drop in ridership and rising expenses, though his business’ financial problems extended back at least a decade, according to a Morning Call Watchdog Report
However, hopes of reviving passenger trains between the Lehigh Valley and New York have returned following the release of Amtrak’s 2035 Vision plan in May 2021. Among proposed routes from Pennsylvania cities is one from Allentown to Manhattan. During an August visit to the Lehigh Valley, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the timing for passenger rail has never been better because of billions of federal dollars pumped into transportation infrastructure.
The last passenger rail service from the Valley to New York was in 1961; service to Philadelphia ended in 1979. Attempts to revive service during the subsequent decades have not been successful.
Morning Call journalist Anthony Salamone can be reached at asalamone@mcall.com.
Bus rider alert
Customers with questions or refund requests can write to Trans-Bridge at webmaster@transbridgelines.com regarding reimbursement, or call customer service at 610-868-6001. If a customer is stuck without a ride, call the same telephone number and follow the prompts to reach its Dispatch Department at ext. 131. Office staff hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The company’s bus tracker app is available on Apple App Store or Google Play. Riders are also encouraged to sign up for the bus line’s consumer alerts.
