MTA undermines and represses community and commuter's concerns at town hall meeting

The Wave 

In a setting more akin to a Cold War Soviet show-trial than a NYC Town Hall meeting, MTA officials at Feb. 6’s transit meeting in the YMCA spent time patting themselves on the back discussing their accomplishments and future plans before moving on to pre-screened questions from the audience.

A group of five transit officials sat at a table at the front of the room and began the meeting with a series of stats and charts to show how the MTA has improved service over the year before opening up to a Q&A session. Many in the audience, however, felt the bureaucrats ignored the real questions and censored the voices of those in the room – a fact which led to at least one person to call out “I thought this was America!” during the proceedings. 

 “Tonight was a sham,” said an exasperated John Cori.  Cori, a Community Board 14 executive board member who made the aforementioned “America” statement, spoke to The Wave following the meeting.

“It was censorship, it violated our constitutional rights to freedom of speech by censoring our questions. I put two in, and they both were not read. I was one of the first ten people to put questions in, and the woman went through them, picked and chose what she wanted to give, and gave them the cream-puff questions.”  

“The meeting was mind-numbing because of the way MTA chose to filter the questions, but not surprising” added local transportation advocate Rick Horan. “They like to control the conversation and so the value of this… is a little dubious.”    

 Among the hard-hitting questions that MTA rep Lucille Songhai pitched to the panel were whammies like “can everyone talk about how they got here this evening,” and even then the bureaucrats on the board failed to appease. “We came here on the A-Train of course!” was the answer many gave, an answer which left several in the audience wondering if the blatant pandering had any truth to it. 

 “I will gladly escort you to the station!” an incredulous Glenn DiResto replied from the rear of the room, echoing the doubts of many as to the “everyman” persona the officials were trying to portray for themselves. Like so many other comments of the evening, however, this too was ignored by those on the panel, and Songhai teed up yet another softball for the board.

“You talked a little bit about what you’re doing for people with disabilities beyond elevators. I was hoping that you could talk about one particular aspect that you feel most proud about,” and “who cleans up racist graffiti” were among the other thrillers the MTA decided to regale the crowd with during the Q&A session. And even when they did touch upon questions locals were interested in – questions regarding the possibility of a revitalization of the H-train from Mott Ave. to Beach 116th or the truncation of the Q22, among others, – the officials again failed to deliver.

The H-train, it seems, is nothing more than a pipe dream, as the officials stated that the inclusion of the H-train would create further reliability issues on the A-line because the new train would displace other cars in the terminal. As for the Q22, panelists said that the ridership numbers west of 116th were very low, but officials did say that they were still listening to community input and would take that input into account before rolling out any final changes.

The lack of any solid, productive answers led to more than a few outbursts from the crowd, and local Democratic District Leader Lew Simon at one point – tired of being ignored – made his way to the front of the room and tossed a letter from a local student on the panelist table, urging them to read it and see how their proposals would impact the people of the peninsula.

“This is a petition from an 8-year-old child who rides the Q53 every day,” Simon shouted, reminding the agency reps that their decision was impacting the way local children would get to school. 

 Admin note: A commenter alerted me this post was 2 years old. My fault for not checking it date since I put it up in a rush.