This morning the New York Daily News reported on the doomsday budget that the MTA will unveil at its next board meeting on Thursday. It’s not pretty. According to the News, if the city, state, or federal government don’t come through with aid or new sources of revenue the MTA will:
- Eliminate W, Z, and express J subway service,
- Halve G and M service,
- Cut night and weekend service on dozens of bus routes.
- Run night and midday trains less frequently, and
- Lay off 1,500 employees including hundreds of station agents and bus drivers.
And that’s not all. The News didn’t even cover what could happen to Long Island Bus, LIRR, and Metro-North riders.
New York cannot let that happen. That’s why the Empire State Transportation Alliance and Campaign for New York’s Future, two coalitions which represent over 170 business, civic, labor, health, and environmental groups (including TSTC) are mobilizing to keep New Yorkers and New York’s economy moving.
This week there are two ways you can get involved. During Wednesday’s morning rush, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz will join representatives from the Campaign for New York’s Future at subway stations throughout NYC. There they will ask commuters to sign giant postcards urging New York elected officials to invest in transit and fend off service cuts. If your commute doesn’t take you through those stations, you can support the message by visiting www.KeepNewYorkMoving.org, and signing the petition online.
How about we auction Brooklyn’s Vanderbilt Yard to the highest bidder, rather than selling it to developer Bruce Ratner for less than half the MTA’s own appraised value? Better yet, how about we divide the railyard into multiple parcels, and auction each of those?
[…] daily and service cuts, job layoffs, stalled projects, and subway line eliminations loom, EDF and many other groups are targeting elected officials in an effort to provoke massive system-wide investment in the […]
Why cut services to those who have to use public transportation when we should be taking the money from the brokers who got us into this mess in the first place, who don’t use public transportation.
I could swear that I saw H. Dale Hemmerdinger skydiving with a golden parachute on the other day…
Rather than slice and dice the existing service and overcrowd the already overcrowded trains and buses, why not “uncrowd” the congested offices at 347 Madison Avenue? Eliminating the jobs of station attendants and bus drivers doesn’t affect only the employees, but the families they can no longer afford to support, the friends they can no longer afford to see, the landlords they can no longer afford to pay, the banks they can no longer afford to hold accounts with, the stores they can no longer afford to shop at, etcetera. The ripple effect goes on and on and on.
I hate a crowded train just as much as the next person does, and I also believe that immense improvements can be made to upgrade existing service and infrastructure. However, it breaks my heart to think that while today a man or woman might be sweeping up the platform at Broadway-Lafayette and removing the trash from the refuse bin, and tomorrow, that same man or woman might be sleeping on the platform and scouring through the trash for food.
Has anyone also considered the effect that this may have on contract negotiations between TWU 100 and NYCTA?
This is something that everyone, from the Staten Island-Astoria commuter to the tourist from Russia, to the hard-working men and women who drive buses, operate trains and keep our stations in order shall be burdened with for a long, long time to come.
[…] This morning, coalition members from the Empire State Transportation Alliance and Campaign for New York’s Future, including Tri-State, Straphangers Campaign, and RPA hand-delivered to the MTA Board meeting seven postcards covered with 4,000 signatures from subway riders asking elected officials to fund the transit system. The postcards were signed during events across NYC yesterday morning. […]
With all due respect, I do not think it possible to cut service on the G line without closing it down completely. I live in Jacksion Heights and while waiting for my “R” train, rarely even see a “G” train.
I do agree that 347 Madison Avenue could be purged, and staff layers thinned. However while laying off staff is horrid, and indeed I was recently laid off, the sight of the four transit staff gathered together every morning on my platform, except in the summer when it is to hot for them and they gather in the ticket office, chatting away as trains come and go affords me little sympathy for potential job cuts.
I think it’s time for us the comuters to strike. Maybe if we decide not to take mass transit for one week or even a few days then they will do something about the atrocious conditions and think twice about raising fares, and start to seriously look into why the MTA is so poorly run that there is always a deficit