Board Member Calls for Bus, Subway Improvements
By Harold Egeln
Brooklyn Eagle
BAY RIDGE — Utterly frustrated by traveling in her daily commute back and forth to Manhattan for up to two hours each way every day by subway, Bay Ridge commuter Jeannie May is doing something about it. She is circulating a petition around Brooklyn calling upon the city to improve and upgrade mass transit systems in the borough.
The Bay Ridge-Manhattan commuter is a civic activist, being a member of Community Board 10 and the Brooklyn Democrats for Change, and president of a tenants association. Like many commuters, she is a rider unhappy and frustrated by the long rides and delays on the R subway line, and she feels that more attention is paid to Manhattan than Brooklyn when it comes to mass transit.
“I live in Bay Ridge and don’t drive a car by choice, even though I once drove a car,” said May, who is a hospice nurse. “How different Bay Ridge is when you walk rather than depending on a car, with its costs and parking problems. And you must depend on the subways and buses.”
Working in Manhattan, she usually boards an R in Bay Ridge at 7:20 a.m. at 86th Street, and changes to an express train at 59th Street, she explained, arriving at her destination at 8:30. “If I took the R all the way in, forget about it,” she said. “The city is too Manhattan-centered.”
Shortly before Christmas, May decided to start circulating a petition, which now, after a break during the holidays, is getting around to community boards, and she is getting calls from people who want to sign and distribute them.
The congestion-pricing plan of Mayor Michael Bloomberg is too Manhattan-orientated, said May. “Every borough needs congestion pricing for its own needs,” she said. “Under the mayor’s Plan2030, it projects one million more New Yorkers. They’re not going to just live in Manhattan. Most will be living in the other boroughs, like Brooklyn. We got to be prepared for that.”
“We pay City of New York taxes and the MTA fares for the use of mass transit,” reads the petition. “We expect equal consideration in allocation of funding for our New York City residents to be used within our borough and travel within the boundaries of the city of New York.”
The petition, directed to top city officials, is asking the city to help riders who travel from borough to borough by improving and upgrading mass transit options, which it said has been done more times in Manhattan than in Brooklyn.
A poll released on Jan. 10 by Quinnipiac University revealed support by New Yorkers for congestion pricing, but only if the money raised was put into mass transit. Forty-three percent favored that, while 35 percent did not, with others either indifferent or undecided.
Public hearings are being held by a state-city commission to gauge public support for congestion pricing, with the Council and State Legislature having to approve the plan.
After getting enough signatures, the petition will be sent to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the NYC Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, and city and state legislators.
© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2008
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