Unfortunately for Staten Islanders, the S74 still hasn't veered off Arthur Kill Road and onto Veteran's Road West.The Transit Authority notified the officials a month after their request that it would be conducting a Staten Island Local Bus Study in 2008 and that the extension would be reviewed at that time.
No official word has come regarding this study, and MTA officials were unable to confirm yesterday when the results would be in. Or if the study had begun.
Bus route still short-circuits shopping centers on Staten Island's South Shore
The S74 runs from St. George to Tottenville but it bypasses by a half-mile both the Bricktown Center and the South Shore Commons, which house a host of commercial outlets from Home Depot and Bed, Bath & Beyond, to Target and Panera Bread.
What makes the issue more compelling is the fact that MTA chairman Dale Hemmerdinger is the owner of ATCO Properties. The company developed The Shops at Atlas Park in Glendale, Queens, where Hemmerdinger's son, Damon, is the development director.
That remote shopping plaza was already serviced by the Q29, but days after Hemmerdinger's confirmation last year, a study of the Q54 was commissioned. Shortly thereafter, both that line and yet another line, the Q45, added service to the mall.
Faced with questions over the validity of the Queens studies, the necessity of having three lines service one mall and the outcry of some Queens residents, Transit Authority planning chief Peter Cafiero told a Council hearing that requests for the enhanced service had been in the works since 2005.
2 comments:
The site they are bypassing should be referred to as a "trip generator." That is the term the MTA used for Atlass Mall to justify the extension of the Q45. In that case, the MTA rep said they were "always" looking for "trip generators"--let's see if they were telling the truth (the lying bastards!).
I was one of the people who testified at the John Liu oversight hearing. Keeping feelings about Liu aside, he was nice enough to invite me to the hearing.
What I said was that the MTA did not say directly who requested the bus line for the mall. To this day, they still have not said it. We all know it was someone in the Hemmerdinger family.
I also said that the MTA has not done the proper community outreach as it should have. It should get the mailing address of EVERYONE in the affected rerouteing area, mail them the proposals and why THEY, the MTA, feel is it the right thing to do. The right thing to do would not have been the rerouting of the Q45, but instead the rerouting of the S74; a place that needs the line, not fucking Atlas Mall that is too overpriced anyway.
Look up the tape for June 19th, 2008 through the NYCTV channel 74. It is on occasionally.
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