NEW YORK, NY--
Today, Tuesday, December 4, 2018, Chair of the Transportation Committee, Ydanis Rodriguez, was joined by Council colleagues, advocates and stakeholders outside the City Hall R/W subway station to urge the MTA to provide sustainable and cost effective solutions to fix the subway and bus systems in NYC. Ahead of the Committee on Transportation Oversight Hearing -- The Plan to Fix New York City's Mass Transit System today, Council Member Rodriguez and advocates called for congestion pricing and a millionaire's tax, along with new sources of revenue to #FixNYCMassTransit and fully implement the
Fast Forward Plan
that was released earlier this year by MTA NYCT President Andy Byford.
At the Committee on Transportation oversight hearing, President Byford, Chief Customer Officer Sarah Meyer, and NYCT Executive Vice President Tim Mulligan were asked by Committee Members to provide real, sustainable solutions to their impeding budget deficit that would not transfer the costs to riders, to deliver an update on the implementation of the Fast Forward Plan, and to discuss how they plan to address the lack of accessibility at stations throughout the subway system.
Chair Rodriguez was joined by Transportation Alternatives, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, the TransitCenter, the Straphangers Campaign and Bus Turnaround Coalition, Riders Alliance, and the Center for Independence of the Disabled NY in calling for much needed improvements and a better financial plan to fund the associated costs.
"We cannot continue to have unreliable subway and bus service and provide monetary assistance to the MTA. The City cannot commit to additional funding of the Fast Forward Plan until the MTA commits to not increasing the fares, looking at additional funding and revenue sources from the state such as a millionaire's tax, congestion pricing, other ideas such as the MTA raising additional revenue by leveraging the property they own. I expect MTA leadership to also pledge to control the costs of maintenance and repairs," said
Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez, Chair of the Committee on Transportation.
"Buses provide critical transit service to New Yorkers in every neighborhood across the five boroughs, and require transformative change to turn around years of stagnated and unreliable service, both on the bus and at street-level. New York City's chief role in ensuring the success of Fast Forward must be to prioritize the needs of over two million bus riders on city streets by committing to the creation 100 new miles of dedicated bus lanes in the next five years, expediting the rollout of transit signal priority along applicable bus routes, and installing shelters at all bus stops citywide," said Jaqi Cohen, Campaign Director for the Straphangers Campaign and member of Bus Turnaround Coalition.
"New York City's transportation network is in a state of crisis, and New Yorkers can't afford to wait any longer for elected leaders to take action," said Jack Davies, campaigns manager at Transportation Alternatives. "It has become abundantly clear that the solution to this crisis is congestion pricing, which is the only fair and realistic way to fix the crumbling transit system and address the city's chronic gridlock."
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Our subway and buses are in full-blown crisis, and riders want solutions. Funding the Fast Forward plan is the way out of this mess. Although Governor Cuomo is ultimately responsible for the fate of New York's transit, both the city and state must come to the table with new revenue for the MTA and oversight to hold it accountable to riders," said Colin Wright, TransitCenter and Access Denied Campaign.
"Proposed fare hikes unfairly target people with disabilities who use Access-A-Ride. We are already left behind by inaccessible subways. We want to see a binding, enforceable, and detailed commitment to full accessibility in subways. We call for improvements to Access-A-Ride and expansion of the popular on-demand and e-hail programs," said
Dustin Jones, Board Member Center for Independence of the Disabled NY.
