A long-simmering feud over how to fund Long Island Bus in Nassau County is literally leaving riders by the side of the road, as ridership outpaces the service the agency is able to provide, Long Island Bus President Neil Yellin said.Ridership exceeds service Long Island Bus can provide
Long Island ridership has grown 16.5 percent over the past decade, from 28.2 million in 1998 to a projected ridership this year of 32.8 million, making it one of the busiest suburban bus systems in the nation. Long Island Bus serves all of Nassau County and a few spots in Queens and western Suffolk County.
Over the same period, however, the agency has expanded its fleet just 4 percent, by 13 buses.
"We're really crowding them in. We're at capacity on numerous trips every morning and afternoon," Yellin said in an interview last week. "There've been occasions where we've had to pass people up on street corners just because there is no room."
Scenario: Con tax is passed, and forces a lot more people onto public transportation. They would take LI buses to the LIRR or subway. Only problem is that they won't be able to board because the MTA and Nassau County are having a pissing contest over who pays for it. This is classic B.S. as only New York can produce. Maybe the Mayor, Janette Sadik-Khan and their number one cheerleader, Transportation Alternatives, should have provided an answer for this before proposing something so ridiculous.
15 comments:
Look, everyone knows that you don't want this because you will have to expand your transportation network (something parts of Queens have resisted for decades) and everyone konws that massive development is slated for areas with good mass transportation.
So you downzone and complain about congestion pricing hoping development will be on the backs of hapless LIC and the Brooklyn waterfront.
The fact of the matter is NYC cannot handle any more traffic. If its a choice on making the city a safer place in an emergency or letting some Bayside biddie into the city to do some shopping, guess who will lose.
It will happen and you will be forced to develop your transportation network and you will get more developement.
Unless....
you push to a cap on development for the entire city.
Your call, eastern Queens.
This is a stupid argument. Are you saying the LI masses who chose to drive into the city each day will suddenly abandon their cars and take buses en mass? A far more likely scenario is that they will drive to the nearest LIRR station. This is exactly what congestion pricing was suposed to encourage. I lived in LI. No one that has the option of driving would ever set foot on a bus.
You fail to give NYers credit. For a solid week when the subway system was on strike people found alternate ways of getting around and the city continued to function normally. Do you really think that a toll would throw the city into chaos???
Also I would hold off on dancing on the grave of this. This congestion tax is coming back in another form - most likely tolls on East River crossings
"Are you saying the LI masses who chose to drive into the city each day will suddenly abandon their cars and take buses en mass? A far more likely scenario is that they will drive to the nearest LIRR station."
Yeah, and where will they park? Are they opening up bigger lots, because they are all filled already.
"This congestion tax is coming back in another form - most likely tolls on East River crossings"
Then won't the rich people leave like they're saying will happen if the hedge fund tax is proposed? Remember, only rich people drive into Manhattan. That's what TA put in their full page ads.
For a solid week when the subway system was on strike people found alternate ways of getting around and the city continued to function normally. Do you really think that a toll would throw the city into chaos???
I had to wake up at 4am, walk 2 miles to the LIRR and then wait an hour before a train came I could board. Then I had to walk from Penn Station to 5th Avenue and 107th Street. Would I have been able to sustain this for more than a week? Hell no. The city also lost millions of dollars because of the strike. Raising tolls or instituting a congestion tax will put many small taxpaying businesses out of business. Please come up with a saner argument before you type.
"No one that has the option of driving would ever set foot on a bus."
So why was Eastern Queens expected to do so? There are no lots at most of the LIRR stations there.
So why was Eastern Queens expected to do so? There are no lots at most of the LIRR stations there.
Perhaps with the dollars from congestion pricing there would have been.
Please come up with a saner argument before you type.
The point was not to suggest that we do not need the subway, but that the city has ungone far worse than a toll and life Still goes on.
"Perhaps with the dollars from congestion pricing there would have been."
The whole damn borough is overdeveloped, especially around railroad and subway stations, so I fail to see where lots could be put at this point. They don't even have to provide adequate parking for apartment houses anymore.
RE Perhaps there would have been with congestion pricing:
When they get the 2nd Ave subway (which has been fully funded 3 times with bond issues), come talk to me
"Dedicated" taxes just mean they will give less "Non-dedicated" taxes from the general fund, If you think that Congestion prices was anything more than a tax increase on those living outside of Manhattan, you are kidding yourself
There should be tolls on the bridges. The people who use them should be the ones paying more for them. That along with different toll prices based on the time of day becomes a simpler form of congestion pricing.
those LI buses are the pits. They make ones in Queens seem like limos.
Gee - there should be tools on the bridges..
How about we use the money from the bridges that DO have tolls, to pay for the ones that do not, instead of spending something like 90% of that money on... Mass Transit..
(This from someone who wishes he could go back to mass transit)
NYC invests almost nothing on it's roads, until the roads litterally start to fall down, but spends on Mass Transit - and often not wisely. It seems almost everything they buy is a boondogle, and any increase in capital spending leads to the unions yelling "if you can afford to buy/build XX, you can afford to give us a bigger raise"
(That's NOT to say that most of the major road projects are not boondogles too)
What a novel idea... Have the people who most benefit from the bridges and tunnels pay for their upkeep. What a great idea! Where do I sign up?
This is not to change the subject, but...
The same folks who want to impose the congestion tax also want to impose something they call "universal health care".
Believers in both actually believe that a stupid dream can be bludgeoned into service with a penalty tax.
When the dream turns into a nightmare, rationing is next.
That's why I refer to Bloomberg as Commissar. He thinks like a bureaucrat from the Commissariat.
His capacity to think through problems is very limited, so he always reverts to brute force.
He cannot help himself, so we must help him by refusing to let him implement ideas that have not been discussed fully and decided by the people who pay the freight.
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