THREATENING AGAIN

MTA Plan Will Cut Buses, Subways and AAR

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By Emily Keller

People with disabilities and their advocates are voicing their opposition to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) latest plan to cut service on Access-A-Ride, buses and subways.

The MTA said it will modify Access-A-Ride service by bringing customers to the nearest accessible subway or bus station rather than going all the way to their destination. The MTA also plans to tighten eligibility standards and increase the use of taxi vouchers.

The MTA board announced the plan at its December meeting following a string of bad financial news that reduced the transportation budget by $383 million.

On Jan. 5, advocates for the disabled held a rally at 125th St. and St. Nicholas Ave. to express their opposition to the cuts.

Julie Maury, an activist with ADAPT and an intake coordinator at the Harlem Independent Living Center, said she was shocked to learn about the changes. “When they say they are going to take us to the nearest accessible station, it kind of defeats the purpose of Access-ARide. What happens if we slip and fall going down the subway?” said Maury, a wheelchair user who uses Access-A-Ride four to five times a month.

“Once they drop you off at the bus or train station, how am I going to know when to tell them to pick me up? It just doesn’t make any sense to me,” Maury said. Chris Noel, peer outreach co- ordinator for the Independence Care System, warned that the decreased mobility that would result from the cuts would have physical and mental health impacts for people with disabilities. He also pointed out that the modified Access-A-Ride service could be complicated by subway elevator outages.

“Is someone going to come down and carry the rider out of the station? Is the paratransit driver going to go to the next ADA compliant station to pick the rider up? Just how is this going to work in real life?” Noel said.

City Councilmember Robert Jackson also expressed his disapproval of the plan saying, “I do not believe that picking a person up, dropping that individual at the closest accessible stop for public transit and then completing the trip by paratransit will produce greater efficiencies or significant savings for the MTA, and it will certainly produce quite the opposite for the riders.”

The MTA said the Access-ARide cuts will save $40 million this year and $80 million annually for the next three years. Public hearings will take place this winter and the changes will take effect in April unless new funding sources are found.

Advocates have suggested that the MTA could save the same amount of money with increased use of taxi vouchers alone.

MTA board member Doreen Frasca voted in favor of the plan but criticized the Access- A-Ride changes, saying the authority cannot ask paratransit customers to go to the nearest accessible mass transit stations to wait for another vehicle. “That’s just not going to work. I agree that we should be looking at yellow cabs,” she said.

The MTA also plans to eliminate weekend service on more than 40 bus routes and weekday service on 18 routes, saying they mirror subway lines.

Edith Prentiss, a member of the New York City Transit Riders Council - an independent advisory board to the MTA – disagrees. “While multiple buses may run through the narrow Upper East and West side corridors, they fan out north of 110th St. and have totally different routes. Add in the steep geographic features of northern Manhattan – they don’t call it the ‘Heights’ for nothing – and you have a real need for these distinct routes,” she said.

MTA board members expressed regret over the plan and said they will work to find additional funding sources. MTA chairman Jay Walder said, “This is the start of the process. It is not the conclusion of the process.”

Many of the planned cuts are similar to those that were approved and then rescinded earlier this year when the state government provided a $2.3 billion annual funding package to the MTA. However, those funds were reduced by $129 million in December following a lower than expected collection of the payroll mobility tax.

The MTA’s budget was also reduced in December by a $143 million cut in state funding and a $91 million payment to the Transport Workers Union for pay raises following a Supreme Court decision in their favor.

Plans to double the Access- A-Ride fare, which drew protests last year, do not appear in the current plan.