Thursday, March 12, 2015

Van Bramer still complaining about 7 train

Attention hog James Van Bramer held a rally yesterday demanding that the MTA improve 7 train service, which contradicts his previous protests that called for the MTA to not shut the subway down for repairs when his constituents need to get someplace.

This MTA quote from Capital New York sums it up:

“...it is disingenuous of the Councilman to request on several occasions that we postpone work on the 7 line then hold a rally to complain about service.”

The subway is 100+ years old, the 7 is an outdoor train, and we had a really bad winter. I'm all for better service, but let's get real.

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

Van Bramer may be looking for attention but I for one don't know why we haven't had a revolt about the service levels that have become acceptable on ALL of the subway lines since DiBlasio took office. My Tues evening commute home from Lex 53rd to Richmond Hill was 2 hours. My Wed evening commute was OVER 2 hours. My colleague in Coney Island is facing the same deal, different lines. This is NOT ACCEPTABLE!

Anonymous said...

Work on the seven line? If they really wanted to work on the seven line, they'd Start replacing all those old signals. The sevens signals are always making that train late. All they do is work on the old signals and then they break down again within a couple of months.

Anonymous said...

Just saw this...can one of these guys get the trains to run on time?

http://www.wsj.com/articles/republicans-search-for-candidate-to-challenge-de-blasio-in-2017-race-for-new-york-city-mayor-1426121801?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_newyork

Anonymous said...

The entire system is over a century old. It needs constant TLC. It is evident that scotch tape and glue aren't working. It's time to reconsider building a new subway.

Anonymous said...

And what about the poor souls out in Rockaway who roll the dice every day with the notorious A train?

Anonymous said...

You always know city council is behind something when you see the mayor, the governor, or the president getting blamed.

This is squarely in the lap of people like Van Bramer that are putting 70 story buildings where 2 story buildings used to stand.

I was at that rally, actually, coming home and saw him standing there. Outside of a half dozen staffers everyone else in that picture were people coming off the train stopping in the background for a minute or two to see what was going on then with a resigned smirk moving on.

The fault is city council for turning our communities over to developers and giving the same tax breaks taking away the resources to repair the system, and, even worse, expecting no investment by the developers in infrastructure.

The final straw is to put a big neon sign on the city for every Jaun, Prick, and Han-Lee to come here.

Van Bramer is a big disappointment. Remember his standing next to Chrissy Queen and now this Melissa Mark-Devivo? Assholes.

Anonymous said...

Maybe if Cuomo stopped looting money from the MTA subways would be in better shape. The blame for this fiasco lies squarely at the door of the governor.

We're talking about a man who rather fund a park study than reopen a badly needed transit route (lirr rockaway branch). So... good luck getting him to even consider not stealing MTA money and helping us poor serfs get to and from work in a timely manner.

Anonymous said...

Van Bramer took $10,500 from the Wolkoff family. Jerry Wolkoff is building two 40 story buildings on the former 5 Pointz site thanks to Van Bramer's vote to approve the local zoning variance . Van Bramer getts his campaign $$$$$$$$$ developers who are packing the area with mega structures. To say that this is a strain on the transportation system and infrastructure is an understatement. Councilman Jimmy, you can't squeeze 20 pounds of fertilizer into a 5 pound bang without it spilling out and stinking up your district. "Capeesh....goombah"?

Jerry Rotondi said...

Yes, previous poster, I was present at the city council hearing regarding 5 Pointz. When I asked councilman Van Bramer to recuse himself from voting for Wolkoff's variance, since he took campaign contributions from the Wolkoffs amounting to about ten thousand dollars. He voted in favor of it anyway...after his face turned a bright scarlet. Outing his corruption in full view of the city council did not seem to embarrass this self serving shady politician. Look out voters...this media hog pol has his eyes on a higher office after he's term limited out of his council seat.

Anonymous said...

Jimmy always likes to be on stage. Try the Lido in Paris , France. Can you see the councilman in the chorus line, feathers and all...."Les Cage Aux Folles"?

Benito Mussolini said...

Anybody miss me?

Anonymous said...

Anon No. 2: That's the work that Van Beamer keeps bitching about.

Anonymously Grey Gardens said...

Ah, yes, the cookie cutter ways of self-advancement and preservation---and the public constituents be damned! That's Jimmy Van Bramer's concern in a very small nutshell---a little shady pine nut like himself! But, seriously, folks, why is a rogue, dishonest, dishonorable, disloyal, derelict, dysfunctional, and untrustworthy politician in Queens still news? Why, if it weren't for the entrenched levels of corrupt and dishonest politicians on the take in Queens County (like everywhere else), then there wouldn't be any faux representation at all! I found out about Van Bramer (the hard way), when I spent months in contact with his office regarding a request for his support for the return of the priceless statue, Triumph of Civic Virtue to Kew Gardens, where it was prominently displayed at the foot of the Criminal Courthouse on Queens Boulevard since 1941, the year that it was gifted to Queens by Mayor Fiorello (Van Bramer chairs the Arts Committee, and that’s why I contacted him). Enter new BP Melinda Katz, who has maintained a stranglehold on plans for the statue's fountain-based plaza to be converted into a 'planted ruin,' that would double as a tribute to the recognition of female Queens politicians and leadership (please stop laughing)---that no one ever said that they wanted, and where more than $100,000 of taxpayer money was allocated to repair and clean the statue (without due process, and a vote by Community Board 9 for approval), that should have simply permitted the statue to be cleaned on site, instead of a costly, unnecessary and unapproved eviction of Civic Virtue to Green-Wood Cemetery (where it remains on temporary loan, for more than two years). (Continued to Part II.)

Anonymously Grey Gardens said...

(Part II, Continued.)
Yes, Jimmy, your leadership and voice was needed here to banish wasteful spending that condoned a statue (that was urgently delivered to Brooklyn faster than the speed of light), and Good Sheep Van Bramer offered no democratic opposition to ‘Queen Bee’ Melinda Katz's monarchy plan of her own wishes, that buttressed the maniacal demands of former BP Helen Marshall, whose own ignorance and defiance engineered this debacle, against the majority of residents who were in visible support of the statue remaining exactly where it's always been. So, why do we need a city council and councilpersons to ignore our rights to freedom and democracy at all, when they've made it abundantly clear that they are serving their own fascist interests, instead of the public good? We can collectively disarm them by abolishing this reductive lot of do nothing, know nothing, bottom feeding scavengers by appointing a new order of elders that require community approval in all matters of public service (and I'm not talking community boards, because they continue to prove themselves to be an exercise in futility, cronyism, nepotism and a giant rubber stamp for political demands and mandates that reject public disapproval, and give Carte Blanch to the politicians, to whom they are beholden). In conclusion, all of these positions are bastions of privilege and hypocrisy, as they continue to personify vacuous, personal greed and extremely biased and poor judgment---and the public be damned. That's why voter turnout is at its lowest in voting history in New York---and predatory operators like Jimmy Van Bramer, Eric Ulrich, Ruben Willis (who'll soon be in a jail cell of his own), and Julissa Ferreras (whose personal ignorance of Civic Virtue reinforced and influenced a small minority group of yet even more ignorant women, whose strong arm tactics pushed Helen Marshall to take swift action to remove the statue's vigilant presence from Queens and Kew Gardens altogether). Until all Queens residents gather for a public meeting that demands the city council be abolished, then here is where your tax dollars are involuntarily spent---on a vile, vapid and vacuous swarm of carcass-cleaning buzzards who are drunk with self-appointed power for whom profligate, wanton waste is their only apparent achievement. Jimmy Van Bramer and his pack are a firm testament to this raw sewage plant of intense incompetence, waste, greed and mismanagement!

Anonymous said...

Some of the civic minded people in Sunnyside don't mind Van Bramer. In fact one of them told me that he supported Van Bramer because he found Amanda Nasner, his staffer, painfully attractive.

Anonymous said...

Work on the seven line? If they really wanted to work on the seven line, they'd Start replacing all those old signals. The sevens signals are always making that train late. All they do is work on the old signals and then they break down again within a couple of months.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Well my friend, I guess the question is fairly straight forward.

Who do you believe, an agency that has been doing this for 120 years or a politician?

Remember Con Ed? The pols stirred the community up so much they began to abuse the workers in asbestos suits in 100 degree heat in manholes trying to restore the juice.

I know. I know, that was Vallonia in Astoria.

But then ...

I have a question for the people of Queens.

If its pretty common currency these days that the public considers their electeds, as a class, to be pretty worthless and self-serving.

Why do the people to Queens act like big eyed children every time one of those same politicians walk into a room?

Anonymous said...

Apparently, the solution is to build more housing in Flushing (where the 7 line begins), without regard to the impacts on the infrastructure. GENIUS!!!

Anonymous said...

The 7 is bad? Not as bad as the 6. I'll trade with you.

Anonymous said...

Want to fix the signal problem real fast? Sure, but then the 7 has to be shutdown completely for a few months.

Want a new relief line subway to flushing to lighten the load on the 7? Sure, a subway under northern is a good idea. But first you have to finish the second avenue subway so you have somewhere to send it after it goes through the 63rd street tunnel. To do that you need a governor to hold the line on labor and capital costs at the MTA, and properly fund the agency.

Anonymous said...

Richard,
If you want us to read your inputs, please keep them short and concise. No one wants to read a whole megilla as a comment.

nzuss said...

How could the trains not running well possibly be De Blasio's fault (that's how his name is spelled Anon #1).

Anonymous said...

Half the MTA board is appointed by him.

Anonymous said...

From the MTA website:
"All Board members are appointed by the Governor, some on the recommendation of City and County officials in the MTA service region."

Anonymous said...

Yes, but 4 of the members count as one vote, 4 are non-voting members and the rest are split between the governor, NYC mayor and the other local governments. This means that the NYC mayor has a big part in how the system works.

Anonymous said...

Maybe if Richard Iritano had a thing for Amanda Nasner, a Van Bramer stafer like some Sunnyside area civic activists, the anon complaining about his rambling wouldn't get to hear his rambling as he would be bought and sold. Just food for thought.

Anonymous said...

"Raw sewage plant of intense incompetence, waste, greed and mismanagement!"
This should be on the Queens Crap top ten list !
Thank you Richard Iritano.

ron s said...

1) The incessant whining about the 7 train is typical of people who on the one hand demand that repairs be done, and on the other, cannot tolerate being inconvenienced by the same repairs.
2) We must outlaw those dopey portable podiums--they make all of these "events" look moronic. Why not include an attached set of walls and a window with painted blue sky and clouds?

JQ said...

Welcome To New York,featuring the worst fucking transit system in the world

It's been waiting for you

Unknown said...

I will say it again why do you people HAVE to work m-f 9 to 5??????

We will all be dead before they dig another tunnel under the east river for a new subway line.

All those thousands of luxury apartments being built in LIC....do you think there will be thousands OF NEW JOBS CREATED SO NO ONE WILL HAVE TO JUMP ON THE 7???

Time to think outside the box.....move close to your JOB, downsize live in a smaller space...offer to work for LESS if your job is waling biking distance....find jobs on 2nd 3rd shift, work weekends and take 2 days off during the week.......

NYC is the most congested 9-5 place i have ever lived..yet go to LIC and its dead after 6pm and weekends holidays and tons of FREE parking

Anonymous said...

I have the unfortunate pleasure of having to commute from Flushing Main St 7 to 28st on the 6 line...a commute that used to take 40 minutes using an express 7 now takes me about an hour to an hour and 30 minutes.
Ive been late to class so many times that my professor is about to drop me from his course.
Last week I left my house an hour and 40 minutes before class started and I arrived 5 minutes late to class (even though I ran) because the 7 traveled slowcal and the 6 was overcrowded with people pouring off of the platforms into the mezzanine because it was late.
The situation is so absurd and surreal that I have no doubt my professor will drop me by Monday over a situation I cant control.

georgetheatheist said...

Who needs subways when we have bicycles?

Anonymous said...

http://queens.brownstoner.com/2015/03/jimmy-van-bramer-queens-riders-are-fed-up-regarding-7-train-service/

Someone is looking to get funding from the politicians by writing stuff like this.

Even when you read a toady piece like this, you can see there are more news crew than the entourage that Jimmy brought.

Anonymous said...

Richard Iritano...a word of advice...BREVITY! Long windedness makes your audience lose the good points you are trying to make.

Anonymous said...

http://www.timesledger.com/stories/2015/11/7trainrally
_tl_2015_03_13_q.html

"No.7 riders protest bad service."

The photo show 5 people with a conference positioned across the street from his office and blocking an exit from the train in an attempt to dress the picture with people.

Despite Jimmy positioning the conference at that exit, in the background are dozens of people voting with their feet, pushing by ignoring him and his antics ,,, and trying to get home.

Now this is from one of the better papers. A politicians rant for their developer friends are NOT the opinion of a community.

Get it?

Thanks to Crap for keeping it real.

Jerry Rotondi said...

I'm still complaining about Van Bramer being tied to the NYC real estate development industry. Yet, he still holds office. It must be something in the water that makes Queens' voters get foggy when November rolls around.

Anonymous said...

Right on about those dumb Queens voters. Fill the swimming pool with piss , and you will have to learn to like swimming in it!