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Merchants Complain About Bleecker St. Project

Posted by
on April 15th, 2009 at 1:19 am

For almost 3 years, I spent many a night transferring between the 6 Train train & D Train, F Train, or V Train & vice-versa at the Bleecker St – Broadway/Lafayette station. These trips were mainly for the many amazing nights I spent watching friends perform in & around the Lower East Side or just hanging out on a rare non-show night. While heading downtown & transferring was a breeze, the trip back was the exact opposite. Many times, I just exited the station & re-entered due to having an unlimited MetroCard. Other times, I just hopped the train down to the Brooklyn Bridge & rode it back uptown. Either way, I would always wish that I could have been able to transfer to the uptown 6 Train without hassle.

Thankfully my prayers & I am sure many others were answered when the MTA finally started work on connecting the uptown 6 Train train to the D Train, F Train, or V Train. However for as useful as this major construction project is, leave it to some to complain. As is to be expected, the main complaints come from merchants who are frustrated at a decline in business due to the construction. Rich Shapiro of the New York Daily News has more in this report:

As if times weren’t hard enough.

NoHo business owners are up in arms over a subway construction project that has transformed their sidewalk into a pit of mud and maze of fencing.

“It’s already bad with the economy, and now we have this,” said Jack Wu, owner of Adore Floral, looking at the mess along Lafayette St. between Houston and Bleecker.

“It’s definitely affected the walk-in traffic. … The timing couldn’t be any worse.”

Wu, along with other shop owners on the block, said business was struggling before the work crews and heavy machinery took over their strip last month.

Soon the sidewalk was gone. Workers installed fencing around a makeshift walkway, allowing pedestrians to enter only at the end of the block.

A cement truck blocks the walkway for several minutes every day and, merchants say, the earsplitting noise and swirling dust give people even more reason to stay away.

“It’s a lot of noise, a lot of dust – all day,” said Mia Kwon, manager of Save Khaki, a clothing store.

“With the economy the way it is, they couldn’t have picked a worse time. And this is just the beginning.”

Indeed, work on the $133 million project to connect the uptown 6 train platform at the Bleecker St. station with the B, D, F and V lines at Broadway-Lafayette is expected to continue on the east side of Lafayette until December.

NYC Transit spokesman James Anyansi said the agency has taken steps to limit impact, including posting signs in the subway making clear the shops remain open.

“We regret the inconvenience,” Anyansi said, “but this is work that has to be done.”

The store owners disagree.

Click here for the complete report.

I am sorry but the business owners are completely wrong here. While the construction might have led to a decline in business, they should have accounted for that happening at some point. When your business is in close proximity to a subway station, construction should be something you should expect & budget for in your business plan.

This might be an inconvenience to a few businesses but the amount of people it benefits is without question greater. Sometimes in life it boils down to what is good for most is more important than one person’s needs. I hope the businesses survive the construction & overall tough economic times. However with saying that, I can’t wait for this project to be done!

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A Happy Ending To Poor Parenting

Posted by
on April 15th, 2009 at 12:32 am

Oh the trouble kids can get themselves into. Parents from all over the world can understand how it is to have a child either try to or successfully run off in some unwanted direction. Most times, nothing serious comes from it but once in awhile that is not the case. This next story qualifies for the latter as 5-year-old Samuel Sosa ended up riding the 1 Train train by himself from the Bronx to the South Ferry terminal. Joe Kemp, Pete Donohue, & Jonathan Lemire of the New York Daily News had more in this report:

Samuel Sosa learned firsthand Monday that the Bronx is up and the Battery’s down. Way, way down.

The precocious 5-year-old boy wandered off from his mom in the morning and hopped on a southbound No. 1 train, riding it from the Bronx all the way to the end of the line in lower Manhattan.

Sammy, as he is known to his family, was on the train for a remarkable 34 stops until alert conductors noticed him still sitting in his seat after the train went out of service at South Ferry.

Although he gave his mother the scare of her life, the boy was unfazed by his underground adventure.

“I feel fine,” he said after he was reunited with his relieved mom, Griselda.

The amazing, hour-long train trek began at 7:40 a.m. when Sammy quietly walked away from his mother and boarded the downtown-bound train at the 225th/Marble Hill station.

Samuel, who had the day off from school, was being taken to a baby-sitter on W. 171st St. and wanted to take the bus, but his mother insisted that they board the subway, she said.

“He was mad [because] he wanted to take the bus,” Griselda Sosa said. “I said, ‘No, we’ll take the train.'”

Her son apparently resigned himself to that decision, because he turned around and headed for the station – even though his mother was first making a quick stop at a bodega.

“When I open the door, I don’t see him,” she said.

Fearing that her boy may have stubbornly boarded the bus, Sosa ran to the nearby stop but didn’t see the boy. She then dashed up the stairs to the elevated train station, but her son was nowhere to be seen.

Investigators believe Samuel had already slipped underneath the turnstile in the station and boarded the 1 train heading downtown.

Click here for the complete story.

I am glad to hear this story had a happy ending. However I feel that parents have to pay extra attention to their kids when it is possible for them to run off to anywhere in public like this. I have to question how you are that out of touch with what is going on that your kid was able to hop in the subway like this. I have frequented that station many times over the years & it is not a short distance from the street level to the boarding platform area. I even have a good idea of what store she was in as I have been in that store before. Seriously, what the hell was she doing that he was able to pull this off?

I think it is pathetic to see her smiling with her son in the picture. She should not even want to be seen after such an event. A complete lack of parenting skills in this case does not deserve positive media attention.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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Brooklyn Local Bus Rider Report Cards Concludes

Posted by
on April 13th, 2009 at 7:17 pm

As with the previous entry, another press release was e-mailed earlier this afternoon. This press release was to talk about the conclusion of voting on the 2008 Rider Report Cards for local Brooklyn bus routes. Here are the complete details:

MTA New York City Transit officials today announced that Brooklyn local bus customers will conclude rating their rides this week when Rider Report Cards are once again distributed along several routes and neighborhoods borough-wide.

Brooklyn bus customers will be able to rate various aspects of service such as “Reasonable wait times between buses,” “Seat availability,” “Smooth handling of bus,” “Courtesy of bus operators and dispatchers,” and “Reliability of wheelchair lifts.”

Report Cards will be distributed at other key Brooklyn locations during the morning rush periods. Surveyors distributed report cards during this morning’s rush period aboard select trips on the B23 and B9 bus routes. On Tuesday, April 14, cards will be handed out at select bus stops along Smith and 9th Streets, and on 7th Avenue in Carroll Gardens, Park Slope and Greenwood Heights. On Wednesday, April 15, the distributions will take place at bus stops throughout Downtown Brooklyn. On Thursday, April 16, Broadway Junction and East New York will be surveyed. Finally, on Friday, April 17, surveyors will hand out cards in Ridgewood, Brooklyn and Middle Village, Queens.

As before, riders are being asked to mark the route they ride, and then provide a letter grade – A through F or G for “not observed” – for each of the 20 different service attributes listed, as well as a grade for the overall performance of the route. Rider Report Cards will be issued in a self-mailer format.

To date, over 35,000 Rider Report Cards have been distributed in Brooklyn. Last year, more than 69,000 report cards were given out to Brooklyn bus riders and approximately 6,350 were returned.

Riders can also go on line, www.mta.info, to fill out report cards in English, Chinese and Spanish. The last day to accept on-line and mail responses for Brooklyn bus customers is May 22. Queens voting will begin the week of April 20.

I wonder if the turnout will be as poor this go around as was the case for all subway lines. If I had to bet on it, I would bet all of my money on that being the case.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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MTA NYC Transit Bus Service Advisory

Posted by
on April 13th, 2009 at 7:12 pm

Earlier this afternoon, MTA New York City Transit issued a press release via e-mail to talk about bus reroutes that will take place over the next two days. The reroutes are due to the installation of Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan as the 10th Archbishop of New York. Here are the details:

Ceremonies surrounding the installation of Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan as the 10th Archbishop of New York will take place on Tuesday, April 14 and Wednesday, April 15, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral located on Fifth Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets. To avoid congestion, these buses will be rerouted in the area on both days: M1, M2, M3, M4, M5 and Q32. All express and MTA bus routes in the area are also subject to reroutes. Bus stops on Fifth Avenue may be bypassed and buses may be rerouted to Lexington Avenue.

From approximately 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday and from 9:30 a.m. until 1:15 p.m. on Wednesday, M2, M3 and M5 bus operators will bypass the bus stop located on Fifth Avenue at 50th Street. In the evening between 6:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Tuesday and between 1:15 p.m. and 1:45 p.m. on Wednesday, all Fifth Avenue bus routes (M1, M2, M3, M4, M5 and Q32) will divert from Fifth Avenue to Lexington Avenue between 57th Street and 42nd Street. These detours are subject to change due to the availability of streets and the size of crowds.

Please look for bus stop posters and listen to bus operators’ announcements for the latest NYC Transit bus stop information. Bus and subway customers should give themselves extra time for traveling and consult www.mta.info for the latest Service Alerts on bus detours and subway service.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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1

The Battle Rages On….

Posted by
on April 13th, 2009 at 1:14 am

The battle between drivers & mass transit users has raged on for ages & will continue to do so long after I’m gone. In what can be classified as round (enter any ridiculously high number here), the fate of our transit system might depend on the benefits aimed towards drivers. William Neuman has more in his report which will appear in today’s print of the New York Times:

Almost from the beginning, Republicans have criticized the push to have the State Legislature pass a financial rescue plan for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority because it ignored another gaping hole in transportation spending: financing for a statewide highway and bridge-building program.

Those complaints have taken on a new urgency as the rescue plan has floundered in a narrowly divided State Senate, which is controlled by Democrats who acknowledge that passing the plan may require Republican support.

“To just ignore the highway, road and bridge plan and go to trying to negotiate a schedule for a new M.T.A. capital plan was just not the right thing to do,” said Senator Thomas W. Libous, a Republican from Binghamton who is the ranking minority member on the Senate Transportation Committee.

The dispute centers on separate five-year capital spending programs for the New York City metropolitan area’s mass transportation system and the state roadway network, both of which expire within the next 12 months.

In the past, the Legislature has generally allotted equal amounts to roads and transit.

That has ensured support from both parties and all areas of the state: The city is seen as benefiting most from the transit money, while upstate areas rely heavily on roadway spending.

But that pattern was broken last year when Mr. Paterson chose to seek a financial rescue for the authority first.

The rescue plan was primarily intended to be a stable source of financing for the authority’s next capital program, which is to run from 2010 to 2014.

“If you brought in the bridge and highway program, that would help it become a bipartisan issue, as it’s been in the past,” said Robert D. Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, a civic policy and planning group. He said allowing the capital programs to lapse would cost the state tens of thousands of jobs. “This is a pretty fundamental economic issue for the whole state,” he said.

An estimate last year said a new highway program would cost $26 billion, though its final price would probably mirror that of the authority’s program. It would pay for general roadway upkeep, like repaving and the installation of new signs and traffic signals, and also for larger projects, like the construction of bridges and roads.

The road and transit programs receive some funds from the federal government, with the rest coming through the sale of bonds.

Borrowing costs for the current highway program are paid out of a trust fund financed largely by gasoline-related taxes and motor vehicle registration and licensing fees. But that fund is running out of money, and to pay for the next five-year program more financing will have to be identified — possibly by substantially increasing the same taxes and fees that supply the trust fund.

That will not be an easy task during a recession and will almost certainly ignite a public debate that could be just as rancorous as the one raging over the transportation authority rescue.

An early proposal for a new five-year highway program written last year estimated that the state would have to inject an additional $5 billion into the highway trust fund over the course of the program — with more needed to pay debt service in following years.

Click here for the complete report.

Senator Libous’ statement

To just ignore the highway, road and bridge plan and go to trying to negotiate a schedule for a new M.T.A. capital plan was just not the right thing to do,”

is the exact kind of rhetoric that comes from the side of drivers who look down on the importance of mass transit & the millions who depend on it. This kind of attitude has been on display in Albany from so many over the years mainly in the form of inadequate funding. At this point, we need to see results. If it takes rubbing some greedy hands, so be it as the funding of our transit system has to be taken care of. The region can under no circumstances afford for our system & its infrastructure to crumble. The repercussions of such a tragic event will be felt by everyone & I mean everyone!

xoxo Transit Blogger

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