Brannan: Give city control over transit system
Council candidate says MTA offers poor service
The chances of it happening are probably slim, but a City Council candidate from Bay Ridge is proposing that control over the running of the buses and subways be handed over to New York City.
Democrat Justin Brannan, who is running for council in the 43rd District (Bay Ridge-Dyker Heights-parts of Bensonhurst), said New York state should give the city more of a say in the transit system.
“Fifty years of state control of the MTA has given us nothing but poor service, political pet projects and upstate lawmakers making decisions about a transportation network they’ve never even set foot in,” Brannan said in a statement. “New York lives and dies by its transportation network, and yet we don’t have the power to make significant decisions about how funds are allocated or where new train lines are built. It’s time we undo this decades-old political decision and right a wrong affecting millions of New Yorkers.”
The move is seen as highly unlikely, given that it would require state legislation to make it happen.