A 75% fare increase for Long Island Bus, and a 23% LIRR fare increase with deep service cuts, aren’t fair. The Tri-State Campaign, Long Island ACORN, the Long Island Progressive Coalition, Able-Ride, and others brought that message to the office of State Sen. Craig Johnson in Garden City Park this morning.
“We’re horrified,” LIPC’s Lisa Tyson said. “This will destroy the Long Island public transportation system.”
Representatives from Able-Ride and community group CURB were there to protest a 71% fare increase for Able-Ride, Long Island Bus’s paratransit service. Although the MTA canceled a plan to set NYC’s Access-a-Ride fares at double the bus and subway fare, Long Island’s Able-Ride fares will still increase to $6, from $3.50.
After the rally, representatives from the protesting groups met with Sen. Johnson’s chief of staff and asked that the senator support a transit bailout plan that treated LI Bus riders fairly. He agreed, and said that the senator “was not the biggest fan of the payroll tax” proposed as part of the Ravitch plan but that the worst-case scenario would be to pass no plan. He also said that an MTA rescue would likely be separate from the budget.
Throughout the region, rider anger over planned service cuts and fare increases seems (for once) to have convinced state legislators that they must act to rescue transit riders. If they don’t, it’ll be Long Island’s bus riders who are hardest hit.
[…] events, such as the awarding of the Stratford, Conn., transit-centered development grant, and a rally outside New York State Sen. Craig Johnson’s office. Possibly related posts: (automatically […]
Kate, this is a dismal state of affairs. Our MPO, elected officials amd the region 10 DOT seem well prepared to funnel millions of tax payer dollars into a doomed folly, a ferry terminal in County Executive Tom Suozzi’s home town of Glen Cove, yet they all turn a blind eye to the need of improved mufti-modal transit for the average individual, improved bus and rail service.
Conditions for bus riders in this immediate and surrounding community are deplorable. There are no shelter’s for bus users and the Oyster Bay Line runs on a time table that does not fit the needs of the local commuter.
Senator Johnson, should own up to the fact that those that can afford it purchase parking spaces in his justification to avail themselves of the Port Washington line. This has decimated the walkability and economic vibrance of the downtowns in his district.
I want to know if I vote for you, can you assure me that Able Ride will go back to picking up and driving disabled people to where ever they need or want to go in Long Island, in lieu of only under the ADA that your stops have to be w/in ¾ of a mile of a bus stop. I lived in Freeport for 25 yrs, I have family that live in Freeport and I can’t visit them b/c there are no bus lines where they live which is 3 blocks from Woodcleft Ave. a.k.a The Nautical Mile, which I can’t go there any more either. The ADA was put into law to protect people who are disabled and Able Ride gets to decide where I can or cannot go. That to me is in violation of the ADA, so again I ask you, what are you going to do about this situation that is discriminatory to me and thousands of others just on Long Island, especially since you had a law passed into Legislation July 2010 against discrimination against the disabled.
Thank you,
Sharyn Fitzpatrick