By Joseph Morales

Nassau County is one of two counties in the Long Island region of New York. Most of the county, with the exception of Long Beach, is located within one of three towns, Hempstead, North Hempstead, and Oyster Bay, which consist of many villages, such as Valley Stream, Mineola, and Massapequa. While the county is mainly suburban, many pockets of higher residential and employment densities are seen in the heart of villages, such as in the Mineola/Garden City/Westbury area along with Downtown Hempstead, as well as along certain transportation corridors such as Sunrise Hwy/Babylon LIRR Branch.

                    As Nassau County is one of the most densely populated areas of New York State outside of New York City, traffic congestion here is common and can make it especially difficult to get around since most Nassau County residents use cars. While the NICE(Nassau Inter-County Express) system provides both local and express bus services throughout the county and neighboring Queens, service is often infrequent, unreliable, and does not serve every community in the county. The Long Island Rail Road(LIRR) does provide service throughout the county; however, most lines run from east-west, and thus, intracounty trips are difficult to make unless both the start and end points are located directly along a specific east-west line. Another challenge with the LIRR is that stations are often not located centrally around core destinations, with key destinations and employment centers such as the Roosevelt Field Shopping Mall, Franklin Square, and Hofstra University being a significant distance from their closest LIRR stations. 

                   While Nassau County’s bus system may not entirely fit the county’s needs, the system has definitely had better days. Between 1973 and 2012, the MTA ran bus services in Nassau County through a subsidiary known as MTA Long Island Bus(previously known as the Metropolitan Suburban Bus Authority), similar to how MTA New York City Transit runs NYC buses. However, in 2011, the MTA terminated operations in Nassau County when the agency asked for a $17 million contribution from the county that the county said it could not afford. The county said this despite both Suffolk and Westchester Counties paying $33 and $24 million for privately run bus systems despite Westchester’s system serving a similar number of riders and Suffolk County’s system being one-sixth of the size, according to The New York Times. Nassau County only contributed $9.1 million to MTA operations at the time and later cut that contribution following the system’s privatization to $4.1 million. This led to drastic service cuts in which many bus routes were cut, and even more, are running with significantly reduced service to this day. More draconian service cuts were also made between 2016-17 due to budget deficits. Since the system’s privatization, NICE bus services have been run by the company Transdev(formerly known as Veolia Transport)

                  While the bus system has been notorious for service cuts over the past decade, Transdev has made or at least laid the framework for some improvements in the past few years. Initiatives have included the County’s first micro transit program known as NICE Mini, which debuted on the county’s South Shore last year, and the release of the Let’s Go Plan in July 2018, which outlines a slew of improvements and includes plans for more route coverage, more frequent buses, new express services and even express buses to Manhattan. 

                    Despite Transdev and Nassau County being relatively quiet on the plan, Transdev has made some of its most notable service improvements in years, starting just after Labor Day. While, for the most part, they do not align with the Let’s Go Plan, they still help to improve service along major travel corridors and make riding the bus more convenient in Nassau County. It’s also important to note that unlike the draft plans published for the MTA Bus Network Redesigns occurring in the five boroughs, the Let’s Go Plan was only published as a means of exploring how NICE services can be improved in the future and was not intended to be a blueprint for immediate transit improvements. Thus, the implementation of any of the even more comprehensive service upgrades outlined there has not been planned as of now. 

               The most significant addition to the network by far is the introduction of a new pilot express service between Roslyn and Downtown Flushing, Queens, known as the n20Xpress. For the first time, riders east of Great Neck will have access to a rapid, one-seat ride into one of New York City’s busiest central business districts(CBDs) outside of Manhattan in Downtown Flushing. Additionally, the route will provide to both the Flushing-Main St(7) subway station and the Flushing LIRR station, providing riders with connections to Western Queens and Manhattan.  Queens riders will benefit from additional reverse commuting opportunities as well as better access to NICE bus routes east of Great Neck that traverse Nassau County. 

                 This new route makes nine stops in the vicinity of key destinations only. Notably, the route makes just four stops between Douglaston, the easternmost section of Queens, and Downtown Flushing, a stretch where commuting by public transit usually requires the use of the infrequent/expensive Long Island Rail Road(LIRR) or slower MTA local buses. The service runs in both directions during peak hours only and has headways that are generally around every 30 minutes.

                   In addition to the new route, service was increased on several major routes throughout the NICE system, helping to substantially improve connections between different areas of Nassau County as well as between Nassau County and Queens. While buses in the suburbs are generally not subject to the same level of delays caused by traffic congestion as buses in NYC itself, commutes within suburban counties often take similarly long when compared to driving, largely due to low bus service frequencies. Too often, this leads to fewer people taking public transit, leading to even lower service frequencies and lower quality service for the individuals who still need to use mass transit in suburban areas across the United States. This phenomenon might have occurred in Nassau when former County Executive Ed Mangano decided to cut the county’s contribution to the MTA in 2011 as he embraced the ideals of capping government spending and cutting property taxes. 

                    Fortunately, in 2023, service frequencies were improved on many of the routes where riders likely need it most. Frequency on the n22, which runs between the Jamaica Bus Terminal in Downtown Jamaica, Queens, and the Mineola Bus Terminal in Mineola, NY, was improved to every 15 minutes all day. Both terminals provide ample transit connections throughout New York City and Nassau County, respectively, with the Jamaica Terminal providing connections to the NYC Subway,  NYCT bus routes, the LIRR, and JFK Airtrain, with the Mineola Bus Terminal providing access to a plethora of NICE routes as well as the LIRR. 

                 Another route that has received a frequency boost upon its return to service is the n16Xpress, which runs between Downtown Hempstead and Nassau Community College(NCC) and now runs every 20 minutes. As NCC is the largest single-campus community college in New York State, students likely attend from throughout Nassau along with the entire region. Hence, more frequent and reliable bus service from one of the county’s major transit hubs is imperative as many college students do not have the means to drive, and college classes often start and end at varying times of day, many of which are outside of traditional peak hours. 

                   Some other routes that have recieved improvements are those that run north-south in areas of the county that especially lack access to public transportation, including the LIRR. These areas, particularly in the southwestern area of the county, also tend to lack highway access, which may explain widespread congestion on north-south streets in these areas, which in turn slow down buses. This congestion makes already long transit trips due to lower bus frequencies even more tedious and inconvenient for riders. Improvements to these services will not only make it easier for these riders to traverse the county, but it may help to reduce traffic congestion/parking challenges if buses take even a few motorists off the road.

                    North-south routes that have received these types of improvements include the addition of midday trips on the n21(Great Neck-Glen Cove), 15-minute frequencies on the n25(Lynbrook-Great Neck) and n58(Great Neck-Kings Point) along with bi-hourly service on the n27(Hempstead-Glen Cove). These routes allow riders to travel between densely populated areas of the county and to the LIRR. The routes can also allow riders to conveniently use different LIRR branches for intracounty/Queens-bound trips and use another LIRR branch if the one they intended to use for Manhattan-bound travel is delayed or out of service. 

                      In addition to these routes, the n71, which runs between Hempstead and the Sunrise Mall in Massapequa on weekends, has now being extended to the Amityville LIRR station in Suffolk County to provide NICE riders with better connections to the Suffolk County Transit system. This, coupled with possible connections to the LIRR, will, for the first time, provide riders along the n71 with access to destinations across Suffolk County for the first time on weekends.

                    As the service improvements have been in effect for around two weeks now, hopefully, NICE bus riders have and will continue to utilize the new and improved routes. While the NICE bus system might not be perfect even with the recently improved routes, hopefully, the improvements can lay the groundwork for how transit can be built to adapt to Nassau County’s evolving transportation needs. 

Works Cited

Penner, Larry. “Nassau Inter-County Express Bus Celebrates Anniversary.” Long Island Weekly, 9 January 2020, https://longislandweekly.com/nassau-inter-county-express-bus-celebrates-anniversary/. Accessed 16 September 2023.

Applebome, Peter. “Riders to Lose Buses as Nassau and M.T.A. Battle.” The New York Times, 27 March 2011, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/nyregion/28towns.html. Accessed 16 September 2023.

Castillo, Alfonso A., and Nicole Fuller. “NICE cuts 11 bus routes despite rescue bid by Nassau lawmaker.” Newsday, 17 January 2016, https://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/nice-cuts-11-bus-routes-despite-rescue-bid-by-nassau-lawmaker-t85495. Accessed 16 September 2023.

News 12 Staff. “NICE Bus riders grapple with service cuts.” News 12 – Brooklyn, 21 April 2017, https://brooklyn.news12.com/nice-bus-riders-grapple-with-service-cuts-35212295. Accessed 16 September 2023.

Transdev, and Nassau County. “Nassau Inter-County Express – Working for Transdev.” NICE Bus, https://www.nicebus.com/About-NICE/Working-for-Transdev. Accessed 16 September 2023.

“Our history.” Transdev, 2023, https://www.transdev.com/en/our-group/our-history/. Accessed 16 September 2023.

Transdev, and Nassau County. “Nassau Inter-County Express – Nice MINI: rideshare service for the South Shore!” NICE Bus, 2022, https://www.nicebus.com/Passenger-Information/NiceLink. Accessed 16 September 2023.

Transdev. “NICE Bus Let’s Go! – A Multi-Year Transit Vision for Nassau County.” NICE Bus, https://www.nicebus.com/NICE/media/nicebus-pdfs/Let-s-Go-V2-Final-July-2018.pdf. Accessed 16 September 2023.

Transdev, and Nassau County. “Nassau Inter-County Express – FALL 2023 SCHEDULES AND FARE INCREASE.” NICE Bus, 2023, https://www.nicebus.com/Passenger-Information/Now. Accessed 16 September 2023.

Macropoulos, Angela. “Edward Mangano Faces a Big Task as Nassau’s Next Executive.” The New York Times, 28 December 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/nyregion/29mangano.html. Accessed 16 September 2023.

“Learn More About Nassau Community College.” Nassau Community College, https://www.ncc.edu/aboutncc/. Accessed 16 September 2023.

Google. “Google Maps Traffic Forecast.” Google Maps, https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7324389,-73.633312,11788m/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e1?entry=ttu. Accessed 16 September 2023.