Norwood News

Wielding signs reading “rescue the riders” and “Access-A-Ride should be free,” an angry crowd occasionally broke into chants and spirited applause at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) final hearing on proposed fare hikes and service cuts in the Bronx.

About 450 people packed the auditorium at Lehman College on Feb. 4 to protest the MTA’s plan, which includes elimination of the Bx34 bus, overnight Bx10 service and station customer assistants at stations throughout the city, including the 205th Street D train station.

A host of speakers spoke passionately against a proposed Access-A-Ride fare hike, which would raise the cost of van rides for seniors and disabled people from $2 to $5 or $6.
“You’re taking and you’re not giving us anything,” said Joyce Hume, 75, a dialysis patient from Soundview who said she uses Access-A-Ride 10 times a week.

Bernarda Rivera-Velez, an advocate from Staten Island Developmental Disabilities Services, trekked from the other end of the city to show opposition to the Access-A-Ride fare hikes. “It’s not fair,” she said. “We need to keep the fare where it is.”

“Please, please, please save Access-A-Ride,” said Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum. “I beg of you.”

Andreeva Pinder, vice president of the Station Department of Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100, attended to protest the possible elimination of station staff. “It’s not just for riders,” she said. “Sometimes people come in from off the street when they’re being accosted because they know someone is in there.”

Others focused their opposition on the MTA’s proposed cuts to bus routes and base fare hikes. In addition to the Bx34 and Bx10, other Bronx lines slated for elimination or reduction are the Bx33, Bx4, Bx8, Bx14, Bx19, and Bx20. A single ride could be raised to as much as $3.

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, who spoke at the hearing along with a handful of other Bronx politicians, said he supports many recommendations of the Ravitch Commission, the governor-appointed panel that advised tax increases to avert the worst service cuts and fare hikes. But he was angry that the state legislature, which is responsible for enacting these tax increases, had been forced into the position of saving public transit service.

“It’s offensive to me, them saying ‘tell your legislators [to fix the transit budget],’” said Dinowitz. “The deficit is partly their own incompetence.”

The legislature must act before the MTA’s final vote, but MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said the date for the vote is in flux.
“It’s likely the board will meet and vote in early March,” he said, adding that the nature of final cuts will depend on the actions of the state legislature. Implementation of service cuts would be staggered throughout the spring.

Gene Russianoff, a spokesman for the New York Public Interest Research Group’s (NYPIRG’s) Straphangers ampaign who testified at Lehman, said the State Senate would be holding its own hearings on Feb. 18 in Brooklyn and Feb. 19 in Harlem.

“The [state] Assembly is more likely to take action quicker” to pass the Ravitch recommendations, he said. “The margin of victory in the Senate is [more] narrow,” but he said he expected the worst of the cuts would be averted.

By the start of the hearing, lines to pass through two metal detectors snaked through the hallway. Some riders waited until midnight to testify, though by that time, MTA CEO Elliot Sander, who was the target of much of the crowd’s animosity, had left the building.