Ikea Shuttle Bests MTA Service for Some
The Daily News reports that “countless commuters” are using the free Ikea shuttle service instead of city buses, saving $2 and, in some cases, shortening their commutes. “It’s like a free car service,” says a woman who takes the Ikea bus from Downtown to where she works in Red Hook. “It takes us straight downtown…
The Daily News reports that “countless commuters” are using the free Ikea shuttle service instead of city buses, saving $2 and, in some cases, shortening their commutes. “It’s like a free car service,” says a woman who takes the Ikea bus from Downtown to where she works in Red Hook. “It takes us straight downtown and I don’t have to wait for the bus to stop every block to let people on and off.” The paper found that only eight of 19 passengers on a recent trip were actually going to Ikea. One shuttle driver said that many of his morning passengers are actually patients at a methadone clinic. A spokesperson for Ikea says the company supports “mass transit, and if people are using our services and not going to Ikea, that’s fine with us as well.”
Commuters Using Ikea Shuttle Bus to Bypass MTA Routes [NY Daily News]
Photo by street scenes.
I guarantee that there will come a time when the honeymoon is over and Ikea will go back to their bottom dollar ways and there will be no more free shuttle service.
Brownstoner,
Instead of being a part of the Ikea marketing machine and posting a photo of their two shiny new buses, why don’t you do some real reporting and post a photo of all the old crappy buses that they are shuttling people back and forth in. Maybe find out exactly how old these buses are. How often they only carry 5 or 10 passengers. What the impact is on the neighborhoods where these shuttles pass through. That would be an interesting story.
I live in Cobble Hill and work at World Financial Center. I take the water taxi home every day from Wall Street, and then either get 61 bus or meet wife in ikea lot with car…Or, my wife and son meet me in manahattan and we take it back together, it’s great.
10:51 = bitter
So I gotta deal with Ikea shuttling people through my neighborhood all day long in their old over-sized buses that spew diesel fumes all over that place and these people taking their shuttle service are not even shopping at Ikea. I would rather that everyone used the public buses. At least they are much cleaner. If Ikea has started shuttling commuters then they need to reduce the number of times the shuttle goes back and forth or get smaller cleaner shuttles. Show some f***ing respect for the neighborhoods around you Ikea.
Of course they don’t care – this was obviously one of the ways they got permits to build there – providing some public transit to city residents. I think it’s all fabulous. Sort of sad how much I love IKEA. Now when walmart opens next door, that’s when things are going to start being depressing.
two words: methadone meatballs.
They don’t care. Unless it gets to the point that non-shoppers crowd out shopper.
Is the grey type troll back? Seems so.