Fung Wah Bus Transportation

Fung Wah Bus Transportation, Inc.

Fung Wah Bus Van Hool C2045 #98 makes a stopover in eastern Connecticut along its route.
Founded	1996
Headquarters	25 Edinboro Street, Boston, MA 02111
Locale	Northeastern United States
Service area	New York City and Boston
Service type	Line-run service
Routes	1
Stations	2
Fleet	22
Web site	fungwahbus.com

Fung Wah Bus Transportation Inc. (Traditional Chinese: 風華巴士有限公司, Simplified Chinese: 风华巴士有限公司) is a bus company that operates between Boston and New York City.

Fung Wah operates more than 20 buses a day with hourly scheduled service. Like other Chinatown bus lines, Fung Wah operates between South Station in Boston and New York's Chinatown.

For the year 2009, Fung Wah had 33 drivers and 2,916,000 Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (United States Department of Transportation) records.^[1]

Fung Wah is known for its low fares in comparison to other bus and rail routes between Boston and New York. Due to the low prices, Fung Wah has become a popular way for young people and other travelers on a budget to travel between Boston and New York.^[2] The company has also become known for its high rate of accidents, as well as a discrimination lawsuit filed by the Massachusetts Attorney General for refusing to sell tickets to a visually impaired couple with a guide dog.

The name Fung Wah comes from the Cantonese pronunciation of the Chinese name, 風華, which means "magnificent wind."

Contents 1 History 2 Safety 3 Incidents and accidents 4 Discrimination lawsuit 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links

History

Fung Wah was founded in New York City in 1996, as Fung Wah Transport Vans, Inc., by Pei Lin Liang, who had immigrated from Zhuhai, China in 1988. Before founding the company, Liang had worked as a driver for Four Seas, a local Chinese shuttle service that took passengers from Sunset Park in Brooklyn to Chinatown in Manhattan. Liang founded Fung Wah to directly compete with his former employer in transporting Chinese garment and restaurant workers to Chinatown.^[3] Fung Wah began as a dollar van service shuttling Chinese immigrants between Brooklyn and Manhattan's Chinatown.^[4]

A year later, at the request of customers who wanted to visit their children in college in Boston, it expanded, connecting Chinatowns in New York and Boston,^[4] and gradually grew to being a low cost intercity transit provider.^[5] It originally operated curbside out of Boston's Chinatown, but moved to the nearby South Station bus terminal in 2004 due to traffic concerns from the city.^{[6] [3]}

On June 15, 2009, Fung Wah expanded service to Providence, Rhode Island at the Kennedy Plaza Bus Terminal in downtown Providence, but discontinued this route in 2010.^[7]

Safety

Fung Wah buses have been involved in several safety-related incidents. In 2005, the company was given a federal safety rating of 73 out of 100, 100 being the worst, and 75 or above considered at risk of being unsafe and subject to crashes.^[4] Ian Grossman of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (United States Department of Transportation) reported that Fung Wah drivers rated in the worst 2 percent of drivers nationwide based on regulatory violations, and nine out of 71 Fung Wah drivers were suspended after inspection between 2004 and 2006.^[5]

• August 16, 2005: A New York-bound bus caught fire on Interstate 91 near Meriden, Connecticut. Though the passengers later criticized the driver for being unhelpful and untrained in evacuating the bus, all passengers were eventually evacuated and no injuries were reported.^[8]
• September 6, 2006: A bus rolled over in Auburn, Massachusetts and caused minor injuries to 34 passengers.^[9] Excessive speed was cited as a factor and the bus company was fined.^[10]
• January 3, 2007: In Framingham, Massachusetts, a New York-bound bus lost its back two wheels. No injuries were reported.^[11]
• February 14, 2007: The driver of a New York-bound bus lost control in a winter storm and hit a guardrail on the Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90) in Allston, Massachusetts. No injuries were reported.^[12]
• March 23, 2007: A New York-bound bus got stuck on a concrete barrier in front of a tollbooth on the Massachusetts Turnpike at Route 128 in Weston, Massachusetts, when the bus drove up on a cement lane divider. The driver had entered an automobile-only lane and tried to change lanes. No one was injured in the incident, but the bus was taken out of service and passengers boarded another Fung Wah bus that arrived later.^[13]

There were no crash incidents reported to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (United States Department of Transportation) by states for 24 months prior to December 26, 2011.^[14]

Incidents and accidents

• June 23, 2008: A bus loading passengers was struck by an out of control dump truck at the corner of Bowery Street and Canal Street in New York’s Chinatown. The force of the impact pushed the bus onto the sidewalk and into a bank. As the result of the accident, a sign attached to a light pole fell, injuring a 57-year-old woman; the woman later died as the result of a heart attack. Several people, including two police officers, were treated for minor injuries.^[15][16][17] State Department of Transportation inspectors found the dump truck, owned by CPQ Freight Systems, had eight mechanical issues including faulty brakes which led to the accident.^[18]

Discrimination lawsuit

In January 2004 the Fung Wah Bus Company refused to sell tickets to a blind couple traveling with a guide dog under the company's policy barring pets from buses. Even when informed by the couple, and later by police responding to a disturbance call, that they had the right to board the bus with a service animal, the company refused to allow the couple to buy a ticket.

In conjunction with the Massachusetts Attorney General, the couple later filed a discrimination lawsuit against the company. Per the Attorney General's office: "Massachusetts law prohibits discrimination against blind persons and requires businesses to allow service animals in their establishments even when there is an existing “no pet” policy, as long as the animal is controlled and does not otherwise pose an undue burden."

In July 2007, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination awarded the couple $60,000 in damages, assessed a $10,000 civil penalty payable to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and ordered the company to take several steps to prevent discrimination in the future.^[19][20]

References

Further reading

• Lewis, Sam, "Many Travelers Not Deterred by Deadly Bus Crashes", WNYC news, New York City, Tuesday, March 15, 2011
• Bowen, Alison, "Boltbus, Megabus and Fung-Wah: Curbside buses more dangerous: Buses that pick up passengers off the street are more dangerous than those that use a terminal, a new report found", Metro newspaper, New York City, October 31, 2011

External links

• Fung Wah Bus official website