Background info: I was contacting politicians in order to get the QM22 service reinstated since the MTA cut the service and although a private company TransportAzumah assumed the service as well as the X90 which Penny Lee rode to work. Since we are about 50 people and I decided to try to work with Congresswoman Maloney's office in order to get the bus back I thought that since the X90 and the QM22's service area is in the same congressional district and that the X90 riders have 620 riders compared to the QM22's 50 that it would be a good idea to help each other out in getting our buses back. Federal elected officials could do things such as adding a rider to Federal Legislation to mandate the MTA Bus Company to operate the buses without any Federal money spent since the MTA Bus Company is wholly subsidized by the City of New York. As a precedent to doing such Congressman Molinari from Staten Island mandated the MTA to institute one way tolls on the Verrazano Bridge with no Federal money spent on implementing such. Penny Lee started questioning my ideas and my knowledge of the situation.
As proof that the City of New York subsidizes the MTA Bus Company one could view Table 4 of the attached PDF document which shows a mid year forecast of 216.7 million dollars that the City of New York is supposed to pay.
Email exchange with Penny Lee:
Penny Lee: Hi, what do you mean when you say that the MTA bus company is wholly subsidized by the City of New York? Are you saying the city, not the MTA pays the difference between the operating costs and the fare box revenues?
Me: Yes, that is what I meant.
Penny Lee: Thanks. But the city is out of the bus business, so how would it run
just these two busses?
Me: The rider (edit: if a rider would be added, such rider) would mandate the MTA Bus Company to operate the service; (edit: the MTA Bus Company is) the agency that took over the Private Lines. But the City of New York (edit: only) SUBSIDIZES the MTA Bus Company and that is all the City of New York does with the MTA Bus Company.
Penny Lee: The x90 was never an MTA Bus Company bus. It was always a NYCT bus. I
want these busses to run as much as you do, but I also don't want Carolyn out on a limb.
Me: (edit: in the case where I have to collaborate with the X90 riders and work with Federal elected officials) There is no other way to do it because NYCT's money comes from the MTA and they have financial problems. MTA Bus Company has money from the City. If this goes through, the X90 would be an MTA Bus Company route, there is not really another way that I know about where this could go through (edit: without using state or MTA money to get the service reinstated, the X90 riders could have worked with state elected officials to do the same thing, but Astoria and the Upper East Side where the X90 runs is in the same congressional district and not in any state or city district together and the QM22 in Astoria and Jackson Heights folks need any help that they could get).
Penny Lee: Unfortunately I don't see this working at all. Did Carolyn's office tell you they'd do it?
Me: Why do you say that, this seems very simple, look at what Congressman Molinari did in Staten Island with regards to one way tolls on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge; and not to insult anybody, you are the only one that seems dazed and confused about this. Is there anything specific that you want me to address, or since you work for City Planning, is there something wrong with doing such that I do not know about.
Penny Lee: You're pretty rude, and it's not simple from a public policy point of view. I work on these issues for a living, including working with Carolyn's office. That's why I asked you if you had a commitment from her to submit the bill. It's my understanding that you don't.
Me: I am not trying to be rude and I do not have any commitments because I just started this a few days ago,(edit: I cannot go to elected officials office as a one man army, I need to get people together and once I get people together, then I would start pressuring elected officials because there is strength in numbers), then if you do this for a living, I am sure you know that this takes a lot of work and I have only started to take baby steps. From my work in the Azumah lawsuit, even people who work for the City of New York have no understanding of what is to be done and policies. I am not saying that you don't, but there are a lot of things that go on that many, including myself and you do not know. (edit: Question, how was Congressman Molinari able to get one way tolls instituted at the MTA's expense using the same technique that I would like to see the X90 and QM22 get reinstated by?)
Penny Lee: I wish you luck. All I know is that I won't help you on this particular effort to restart the X90.
Note: After this exchange and other nasty exchanges with X90 riders I stopped working with them since I felt that it was a waste of my time.
Here are some more rave reviews about X90 riders, the people that Penny Lee rides with to and from work.
http://www.nyctransitforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=363583&postcount=152
http://www.nyctransitforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=363590&postcount=157
http://www.nyctransitforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=363590&postcount=159
http://www.nyctransitforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=365705&postcount=264
http://www.nyctransitforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=366001&postcount=277
http://www.nyctransitforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=366230&postcount=283
http://www.nyctransitforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=366734&postcount=300
Here is some MTA Bus Company information (more proof of the City wholly subsidizing the MTA Bus Company)
http://www.nyctransitforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=365701&postcount=262 - anonymous
13 comments:
Maybe if you weren't "pretty rude" you'd get more accomplished.
We're cutting education, police and firefighters and upper eastsiders are still trying to get their precious heavily subsidized express bus ride to wall street.
The bus is from Astoria. Express buses do not pick up passengers in Manhattan in the AM or discharge them in the PM.
I'm talking about the x-90, which operated exclusively to bring upper east siders to wall street.
The X90 is not the bus that the writer is trying to get restarted. He just thought he could get backing from those riders. He failed.
The point of this post is to show how unknowledgeable our City Planners are. Yet they are the ones shaping the city. They care little about the problems of every day people but they make decisions that affect us greatly and usually, detrimentally.
Manhattanite Penny Lee has more influence over Queens than the people that live here.
I simply fail to understand how shoehorning another million people on floodplains, brownfields, and my back yard is making my life better.
This system is on automatic pilot. At the helm are our mindless elected officials - who are only exceeded by our mindless electorate that returns them to office year in and year out.
At the same time, City Planning turns our communities over to the developers, the campaign donors that continously fund those officials term after term.
The really neat thing is that sooner or later the people will finally get wise, wake up, and discover that all their tax money is not going for things like hospitals and schools and local cultural institutions and senior programs, and yes, snow removal ...
but to sustain the developer's projects, and by extention, their lofty lifesytle.
As our lives stagnate and slowly decline, the top 1% get 95% of the gains over the past decades.
And people like Penny Lee is front and center making that happen - on our dime.
We, not the developers, pay for her salary.
Many believe that if a public officall cannot use their office to benefit the public, they should step down and work for the private sector.
IMHO, for all intents and purposes, she does already.
She called you rude, I love it. They are incompetent and refuse to get anything done. You, keep bringing them back to focus, which they can't do or refuse. When you respond, they call you rude, it's an amaziing boring tactic that they all use to put you on the defensive. When you are persistent, and demand that they do their job, then you know the answers they pretend to not know, they begin to call you names and label you rude.
Dennis Ring of CM Halloran did the same thing to one of our members when we obtained a decision against CB7, and he kept bringing Mr. Ring back to the topic. Our member was called Rude and Undemocratic. We got a decision from the STATE! CB 7 still refused to comply! and our member was UNDEMOCRATIC AND RUDE!!!
When we brought this to the attention of Halloran, HE DID NOT RESPOND. You know, Ignore the problem and it goes away. Well guess what it hasn't.
GOOD FOR YOU,STICK TO YOUR GUNS AND CONTINUE THE FIGHT. THE NAME CALLING JUST SHOWS YOU THEIR INABILITY.
LET US NOT FORGET THEY WORK FOR US, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. IF THEY CAN'T HANDLE UPSET PEOPLE, THEY NEED TO FIND ANOTHER LINE OF WORK. PLAIN AN SIMPLE.
WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF PUTTING SOMETHING TOGETHER NOW THAT WILL BE VERY JUICY, CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT NAMES THEY WILL BE CALLING US SOON.
KEEP UP THE FIGHT.
MALBA GARDENS CIVIC ASSOCIATION
JAMES
She called you rude, I love it. They are incompetent and refuse to get anything done. You, keep bringing them back to focus, which they can't do or refuse. When you respond, they call you rude, it's an amaziing boring tactic that they all use to put you on the defensive. When you are persistent, and demand that they do their job, then you know the answers they pretend to not know, they begin to call you names and label you rude.
Dennis Ring of CM Halloran did the same thing to one of our members when we obtained a decision against CB7, and he kept bringing Mr. Ring back to the topic. Our member was called Rude and Undemocratic. We got a decision from the STATE! CB 7 still refused to comply! and our member was UNDEMOCRATIC AND RUDE!!!
When we brought this to the attention of Halloran, HE DID NOT RESPOND. You know, Ignore the problem and it goes away. Well guess what it hasn't.
GOOD FOR YOU,STICK TO YOUR GUNS AND CONTINUE THE FIGHT. THE NAME CALLING JUST SHOWS YOU THEIR INABILITY.
LET US NOT FORGET THEY WORK FOR US, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. IF THEY CAN'T HANDLE UPSET PEOPLE, THEY NEED TO FIND ANOTHER LINE OF WORK. PLAIN AN SIMPLE.
WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF PUTTING SOMETHING TOGETHER NOW THAT WILL BE VERY JUICY, CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT NAMES THEY WILL BE CALLING US SOON.
KEEP UP THE FIGHT.
MALBA GARDENS CIVIC ASSOCIATION
JAMES
Her behavior towards the community with Queens Plaza and Dutch Kills is inexcusable.
She for all intents and purposes misled us on the millstones, then had the audacity to pose proudly next to them in the library.
Making a big mistake as a city official.
Making herself, rather than the project, the subject of discussion and controversy.
Time for her to go.
If she protected communities the way she protects pols we would all be better off.
Bringing back the X90 will never work because it is a "NYCB" route. Unions won't allow for a NYCB route to be transferred to MTA Bus and vice versa.
But if you used a Federal rider which has Federal legal powers the question of the X90 being a TA route would not have to be raised plus drivers at Quill Depot did not like that route and stayed away from that bus.
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