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March 24, 2010
Atlantic Yards YES! Transit riders NO!!
Finally! Someone inside the MTA has spoken out about the foolish giveaway of valuable assets to Bruce Ratner for a fraction of their value, while the transit system is sliced and diced for want of money.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn’s Not on Board With Bus, Subway Cutbacks
Unfortunately, he's just a conductor — and the board wasn't paying attention.
John Ferretti, an MTA conductor, wondered aloud why the MTA had given control of the Vanderbilt Railyard site to Bruce Ratner, “a developer with a penchant for spending public money,” while the competing Extell Development bid, which would have paid the MTA $100 million more than Ratner’s Atlantic Yards plan, was rejected.
Meanwhile, the usual numbskulls were out in force, decrying the cuts while conveniently ignoring their roles in bringing them about through their unflagging support for the cut-rate sale of the Vanderbilt Yard to Forest City Ratner.
On Tuesday, Borough President Marty Markowitz hosted a press conference outside Borough Hall to denounce the cutbacks. On the subject of the bridge-bus cutbacks, he said, “The B51 is the only bus that takes riders from Downtown Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan, and the B39 is the only service for passengers from Williamsburg to the Lower East Side.
“These routes may not be the most heavily used, but they are absolute lifelines for riders with disabilities or who are elderly.”
Maybe those old folks can skip visits to Manhattan and join the Netsational Seniors instead!
[State Senator Marty Golden] continued by saying, “My community can not accept the complete elimination of evening service on the only bus into and out of Gerritsen Beach, the B31. There are no trains in Gerritsen Beach. How can you have an entire community with no overnight public transportation?”
Good question, Marty. Here's another one: how are your constituents going to get to Nets games when the bus doesn't run after dark, thanks to your support for hundreds of millions in subsidies for Bruce Ratner and Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov?
Albany and Gov. David Paterson have said they do not plan to bail out the agency. The shortfalls stemmed from reduced financing last year by state lawmakers. In addition, tax revenues from real estate transactions, which once financed the bulk of the authority, have tanked during the recession.
The Brooklyn Paper has a run down of the service cuts, brought to you courtesy of Bruce Ratner, Marty Markowitz, Marty Golden et al.
Posted by eric at March 24, 2010 9:42 PM