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There's something to be said for bus terminals
By adamg on Mon, 06/23/2008 - 1:11pm
Pedestrian killed when a dump truck plowed into a Fung Wah bus in New York's Chinatown this morning.
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NYT coverage of bus accident
Here's the NYTimes article on the crash. Looks like they are periodically updating it.
It's part of their 'City Room' blog page rather than their regular news section, which makes the story very difficult to locate from their home page.
Updated
Thanks for spotting that; I've switched the link from the Globe to the Times.
There's something to be said for bus terminals
This is more media crit than rider crit, but...
I think it's ridiculous that the Globe story lumps in all the safety probs that Fung Wah has had in the past to this current accident. No one can prevent a runaway truck from hitting them. The bus was just sitting there, big as... well, a bus.
Fung Wah
Is that Chinese for the opposite of Feng Shui, like Feng Shui gone bad?
If Feng Shui is about how to situate a window so prosperity will fill your living room, then Fung Wah must entail how to park your bus so it'll get hit by a runaway dump truck.
in a way, not far off
Feng shui is literally 'wind' 'water.' The phrase put together as such gives the idea of finding the balance between the two and generally creating harmony in your physical environment.
The fung in Fung Wah is the same character for wind. The Wah (hua in mandarin) could mean 'beautiful' on its own, but is more commonly used to refer to the Chinese diaspora. So, 'Chinese wind' could be a decent translation.
Is Chinese wind the opposite of harmony?
Ask an Olympic runner
If you queried an Olympic runner, I'm betting they'd have something not-so-nice to say about the "Chinese wind" they're going to have to wheeze through in Beijing this summer.
What's that smell?
They call it the Fung Wah.
I thought it was an early 80s dance thing
Everybody have fun tonight
Everybody Fung Wah tonight
It wasn't so long ago that
It wasn't so long ago that smell would have been us. Remember when the skies over the midwest were black with the exhaust from steel mills and factories, and the Ohio River was so polluted with chemicals that it would regularly catch fire, and acid rain would fall on the cities downwind of the industrial heartland?
But we've cleaned up the US by moving industry to China and India. Now they've got the pollution. Progress.
Shouldn't there be a
Shouldn't there be a handicap for that?
justified
I think that this accident does fall under the category of Fung Wah not being safe. The safety of a bus parking on the side of the street to board passengers has come into question before. This is an example of why.
Lots of buses board passengers on the side of the street
such as every MBTA bus, and every NYC transit bus. Even Peter Pan has some stops on ordinary streets, such as the one in Lenox, Mass.
In no way is this accident Fung Wah's fault.
Been in NYC Chinatown - ever?
Have you ever taken that bus? I have - about seven or eight times. When ever those busses pull off, something else pulls into the space. Sometimes they need to circle until whatever it is leaves so they can pull up to load.
If it is where Fung Wah has picked up all along, it is a commercial loading zone. If it wasn't a Fung Wah Bus that was there, it would have been another truck or delivery van. Check out the site on google maps streetview - Canal and Bowery, NYC, NY - spin the little yellow guy around until you see a Fung Wah in its docking space. That truck had to be way out of control to hit that bus!
There are pedestrians all over the place in that area of Chinatown, so it wouldn't work to claim that there would have been nobody to run over had the bus not been there, either.
Way out of control?
If the truck was coming down off the bridge or turning from Canal St to Bowery, then that little access road is only wide enough for the bus and one other vehicle.
I doubt this was a case of maniac behind the wheel, but still, hitting a parked/parking bus onto the sidewalk where pedestrians are waiting/boarding is still a pretty good slam.
Coincidentally, here's a good link to the parking site/accident location. The bus plus an SUV pretty much fill the width of the road there.
look again
Check out the bus/SUV pic from the 72 Bowery location. There is nearly another car width between the left curb and the SUV.
I've been there multiple times and been there fairly recently. A bus can actually pass another bus along there - the last time I went, our Fung Wah bus dropped off us off along side another parked bus with enough space for people to get off. Tight squeeze, but possible.
That truck must have been screaming along to create enough force to bounce the bus around the corner like that. He was clearly speeding for that little street, as it is a short access road with a stop and turn at the end.
(I suspect that the bus went around the corner because the driver probably had it toed into the curb - it is a downhill ramp, actually)
Greyhound, Boltbus, megabus
Greyhound, Boltbus, megabus and others all have street boarding in NYC and most other cities. I only know of Boston with a terminal.
Greyhound doesn't use the Port Authority bus terminal?
Are you sure of that? I find it hard to believe.
And most major cities have a Greyhound station, though it may not be the most pleasant place to be or in the best part of town.
Greyhound does use Port Authority
as does Peter Pan, NJ Transit, and others.
Megabus, Boltbus, Vamoose and several others use street boarding near Penn Station.
Tour Buses
... which are the same size and type as all of the above, seem to pull up wherever they can or feel like.
That goes for Boston as well as NYC. There is usually a solid line of them waiting out back of where I work in the Navy Yard.
And along Huntington
And there's also tour bus parking along Huntington Ave next to the Christian Science plaza.
Not all of Greyhound
Actually, there are a few Greyhound schedules that do NOT use PABT...namely, BoltBus, which is a Greyhound brand, and NeOn, a Greyhound Canada/New York Trailways brand.
NY has the Port Authority
NY has the Port Authority Bus Terminal for Greyhound, NJ Transit and others.
Where do the buses come in?
Ask a New Yorker, and some of them, anyway, will say it's the "Port of Authority" bus terminal. LOL I love that!