“How can Nassau County’s elected officials understand the hardships facing LI Bus riders if they refuse to take a 15 minute bus trip?” asked Ryan Lynch, Tri-State’s senior planner and Long Island coordinator, yesterday.
Bus riders and representatives from Tri-State, Vision Long Island, Sustainable Long Island, the LI Progressive Coalition had gathered at the Rosa Parks Hempstead Transit Center after challenging county legislators and County Executive Thomas Suozzi to ride the bus and learn what a $2.8 million cut to LI Bus would mean for everyday riders. The cut, which represents over 25% of the county’s contribution, was included in Suozzi’s 2010 budget.
Unfortunately, none of the elected officials accepted the challenge, which had been issued by phone and e-mail and was reissued during Nassau County budget hearings on Monday.
Their absence reinforced the belief among advocates and bus riders that the County’s elected officials don’t appreciate the nation’s largest suburban bus system or care about its riders. Nassau County has cut or kept its funding for LI Bus stagnant over the past decade, and is contributing less now than it was ten years ago. All the while, the system has been busting at the seams as it tries to accommodate record ridership levels.
The groups participating in the ridership challenge held a press conference prior to boarding the N41 bus from Hempstead to Mineola, a trip that takes 15 minutes and ends at a station across the street from the Nassau County Legislature. At the press conference, the groups urged the Legislature to restore funding for LI Bus.
“We should be encouraging people to take transit, not making it more difficult and unattractive,” said Eric Alexander, executive director of Vision Long Island, in an accompanying press release. “These cuts will lead to poorer service, causing more congestion which hurts our economy and environment.”
In addition, the groups highlighted the irony of County Executive Suozzi cutting a system that is integral to his vision of “New Suburbia” and “Cool Downtowns.” Suozzi is trying to curb suburban sprawl and invest in Nassau’s existing downtowns and in mega-projects like the Lighthouse at Long Island.
“While we support the County Executive’s ‘New Suburbia’ and ‘Cool Downtowns’ vision, without a robust transit system there is nothing new or cool about it,” Lynch said. “It’s just the same old, same old suburbia, that will drive Long Island’s economy, environment and quality of life into the ground.”
Image: Tri-State Transportation Campaign.
LOL, Vision Long Island & Eric Alexander along with Sustainable Long Island & Ms. Lansdale can not bestow enough accolades and awards on County Executive Suozzi and his “mega projects” all of which have questionable and flawed so called traffic studies!
A particularly interesting “traffic study” condones the shutting down of the Oyster Bay Branch of the LIRR to justify a proposed $32 million taxpayer funded “ferry terminal” sans “ferry operator” for one of the County Executives “mega project’s” in his home town of Glen Cove. And since all attempts at ferry service has failed out of Glen Cove there is a requirement to build high rise density condo building’s to hopefully insure that this time high cost ferry service succeeds. Forget the fact that the proposed “mega project” is miles away from any alternative transportation options bus or train service and the surrounding infrastructure roadways, sidewalks etc are inadequate. In the end this “Mega Project” of “regional significance” is a “SOV” centric development that will literally DRIVE the quality of life for those living outside the Luxury Waterfront Development” into the ground! With the most adversely effected identified as one of Long Island’s “at risk community”
Irony indeed!
It is in actuality the “same old same old” with elected officials and vapid organizations co-opting word’s, :Smart Growth”, “Cool Downtowns” “New Suburbia” etc. to facilitate their own personal aggrandizement and agenda.
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