Trouble at the MTA - a North Bronx Perspective

December 12, 2008 11:52 PM -- video | 1 Comment

The MTA needs a bailout. The agency plans to make up it's budget deficit by increasing user fees and cutting back on services. Some bus and subway lines are slated to be eliminated entirely.

Fernando Tirado, the Community District Manager for Bronx Dixtrict 7, which includes the neighborhoods of Fordham, Norwood and Bedford Park, is concerned that reductions in MTA services will hit his community particularly hard.

"There's already such an economic divide as it is. People have to travel farther to go to work and do their shopping," Tirado said. "Increasing the cost of the only means these people have to travel outside their communities just isn't fair."

One of the buses in Bronx district 7, the Bx10 line, is scheduled to begin only running in the evenings, while another line, the Bx34, may be eliminated entirely.

Fernando Tirado explains how the needs of the community must be taken into account when planning for transit service cutbacks. He has a plan that would modify the current reductions so that none of community's current bus routes are completely eliminated.

On top of these reductions in their local mobility, residents traveling to Manhattan will feel the effects of reduced frequency of trains on the B/D line and no improvements on the decrepit and over-crowded No. 4 line, recently named "the line that arrives with the worst regularity of any line" by NYPIRG's Straphangers' Campaign.

Scenes from the subway lines that connect Manhattan and the Bronx.

When it first became apparent that the economic crisis would have a major impact on the MTA, the Governor commissioned a team of experts, headed by former MTA Chairman Richard Ravitch, to explore possible solutions.

The report, issued at the start of this month, proposes to avoid service reductions, reduce the size of the fare increase, and allow for continued investment in the capital plan. Part of the revenue needed to would be drawn from an increased payroll tax, under the logic that the business in the region benifit from their employees' access to public transit.

The report also suggests imposing tolls on motor vehicle traffic crossing the bridges over the East River and the Harlem River, all of which are currently free of charge. Bronx Community District 7 is connected to Manhattan's Upper West side by the University Heights Bridge and the bridge at Broadway and 225th Street.

Tirado said that residents in his community are accustomed to traveling freely into Manhattan's Upper West Side to go shopping, use the parks, and catch the No. 1 subway line as an alternative to the No. 4.

"Putting tolls on the bridges is not an option," he said.

Resident Doug Cunningham, however, is open to the idea as long as the revenue is used to improve public transportation.

Doug Cunningham lives in Bedford Park. He explains the problems he sees in the transit system, and why he thinks tolls on the Harlem River bridges might not be a bad idea.

tagged with: Bedford Park, bridge tolls, Bronx district 7, bus, MTA, subway

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