By Jeff Plungis - Jun 1, 2012 12:52 AM GMT+0700
The U.S. Transportation Department shut down 26 bus companies as imminent safety hazards, closing dozens of routes out of New York’s Chinatown in the government’s largest safety sweep of the motor-coach industry.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s enforcement action primarily targeted three Chinatown operations in New York and Philadelphia: Apex Bus Inc., I-95 Coach Inc. and New Century Travel Inc. The government ordered 10 bus company owners, managers and employees to cease all passenger transportation business, including selling tickets, according to a Transportation Department statement.
A pedestrian walks past a sign that reads "No Buses" on the shuttered offices of Apex Bus Inc. in New York. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg
Preparing to board a bus leaving Manhattan for Boston in New York's Chinatown. Photographer: Chris Hondros/Getty Images
Signs informing customers that today's buses are canceled hang in the front window of the I-95 Coach Inc. bus stop at 87 Chrystie Street in New York, on May 31, 2012. Photographer: Esme E. Deprez/Bloomberg
“If you put passengers’ safety at risk, we will shut you down," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
“By ignoring safety rules, these operators put passengers and other motorists at risk,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a phone news conference today. “This is a notice to every bus company out there. Follow the rules and keep people safe, or we will shut you down.”
The bus crackdown follows a yearlong investigation that began shortly after a series of fatal crashes last year, Federal Motor Carrier Administration chief Anne Ferro said today.
Fatal crashes surged last year as intercity bus travel became the fastest-growing U.S. mode of commercial transportation. In 2011, at least 28 people died in eight fatal crashes, including three in an 11-week period involving carriers operating out of, or carrying passengers between, Chinatown neighborhoods in East Coast cities.
Curbside Operators
Curbside bus operators, which typically sell tickets online and pick up and discharge passengers on the sidewalk, have a fatal crash rate seven times higher than terminal-based operations, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board reported in October.
The three primary targets in the U.S. crackdown controlled a network of other companies, leading to the 26 separate shutdown orders, the transportation department said. The companies’ networks included one ticket seller, nine active bus companies, 13 companies already ordered out of service that were continuing to operate and three companies applying for permission to operate.
East Coast
The department’s actions cover companies operating in New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Maryland and Indiana. Besides New York and Philadelphia, there are affected routes in Washington; Atlanta; Richmond, Virginia; Charlotte, North Carolina; Orlando, Florida and more than 20 other locations, according to a Transportation Department fact sheet.
The carriers involved had multiple safety violations, including drivers without valid commercial licenses and drivers violating federal driving-time limits; failure to test for drugs and alcohol; and vehicles that hadn’t been regularly inspected or repaired.
Transportation Department officials handed out summaries of their shutdown orders to company officials in English and Chinese. Passengers received notices advising them to follow instructions from law enforcement officers and providing directions on how to apply for refunds. The notices were printed in English, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Spanish.
“The U.S. Transportation Department’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is placing this bus out of service,” the passenger notice says. “We understand this is an inconvenience, but your safety is our top priority.”
Newspaper Pictures
Sophia Xu, who sells tickets at I-95 Coach in New York’s Chinatown at 87 Chrystie Street, said Transportation Department officials came to the shop yesterday and said the company needed to close, without explaining why.
Signs posted on the glass outside and inside at the ticket counter give a phone number to call for online ticket refunds and say people who paid cash can get refunds at the counter.
Chen Chen, a fellow ticket seller, said Chinatown buses are being unfairly targeted.
“This doesn’t happen to Greyhound,” he said, holding a Chinese-language newspaper with pictures from the shop of police he said were rude.
The buses are safe, the two workers said.
A few people wandered to the New Century’s Washington office on H Street to find a handwritten sign taped to the front gate, “Don’t go upstairs -- Close.”
For Link Wolford, 46, the shutdown delays the start of his summer caring for his sister’s three daughters in Philadelphia. He called his mother to see if she could find him another ticket online. Wolford said he doesn’t expect he will ever see the $9 paid online for the ticket.
“This is an example of government agencies shutting down small businesses on a whim,” Wolford said. “We need to start up businesses.”
Yearlong Investigation
If New Century gets back in business, Oliver Oree said he wouldn’t hesitate to use the line again. The 56-year-old retired plumber bought tickets twice a month for trips from Washington to New York, preferring the $20 one-way fare to $70 on Greyhound.
“I don’t know what their problem is with safety,” Oree said. “I take my grandkids on it all the time. I’ve never had any difficulties.”
The FMCSA shut down some curbside bus companies last summer. Follow-up investigations found safety defects with other carriers operating on the Interstate 95 corridor, and agency investigators worked to establish links between bus networks.
Rule Change
An agency rule change that took effect May 29 enabled officials to expand their sweep in an unprecedented way, Ferro said. The FMCSA built a more extensive legal case against each company and is acting on all known affiliates simultaneously.
“We’ve closed each gap where entities may have been able to reincarnate in the past,” Ferro said. “All of this will be followed by continuous enforcement action.”
Retired naval serviceman Derrick Overbey, 50, had been planning to take an I-95 bus from New York to Hampton, Virginia for $35 today. On an earlier trip in March, government inspectors took a coach out of service, causing a 2.5-hour delay, he said.
“There could have been something wrong with that bus,” Oberbey said. “That’s something you think about.”
The American Bus Association, whose members include FirstGroup Plc’s Greyhound Lines Inc. and Stagecoach Group Plc (SGC)’s Megabus, has been calling for a crackdown on unsafe bus operators and strongly supports the Transportation Department’s effort, said Dan Ronan, a spokesman for the Washington-based group.
‘Whac-a-Mole’
“It’s almost been a game of ‘whac-a-mole,’” Ronan said. “The federal and state government go in, try to shut these carriers down. The owners transfer the DOT numbers, repaint the buses, and in a few hours they’re back on the road.”
The NTSB, in a separate investigation of the March 12, 2011 crash that killed 15 people in the Bronx, found the driver had been hired even though his license had been suspended 18 times and he’d been fired from two previous transportation jobs, according to documents released earlier this month. The board is holding a hearing to discuss its investigation of that crash June 5.
“With these actions today, the DOT and its state partners are telling bus operators to put safety first or get put out of business,” NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said today. “We’ve seen the tragic results of rogue operators too many time in our investigations.”
In its report last year, the safety board found that curbside operators, which offer fares as low as $1, outnumbered traditional terminal-based companies like FirstGroup Plc (FGP)’s Greyhound Lines Inc., 71 to 51.
The FMCSA, which regulates the trucking and bus industries, doesn’t have enough people to do adequate oversight, the NTSB said in its October report. The 878 FMCSA and state inspectors are responsible for 765,000 motor carriers, a ratio of 1.15 investigators for every 1,000 companies, it said.
“Today is a watershed day for America’s bus passengers,” Ferro said. “Passengers expect and deserve to arrive safely at their destinations, every trip, every time.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Plungis in Washington at jplungis@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bernard Kohn at bkohn2@bloomberg.net
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