Teenage Rider Helps Save The QM22
In a story that shows that anything is possible if you believe & try your best, a teenage rider is being celebrated for the role he played in helping save the QM22 which was one of many express bus routes that was either discontinued or saw a reduction in service.
16-year-old Ali Fadil contacted multiple city & state officials to no avail. In a last ditch effort, he contacted a private bus company & helped get the ball rolling on the improbable saving of a bus route. Sarah Armaghan & Barry Paddock of the New York Daily News has more in this report:
The long-running QM22 bus route to Manhattan has been saved by a private bus company – thanks to the efforts of one teenage rider.
Many straphangers have been taking the express bus from Jackson Heights, Queens, for more than 20 years. But it was 16-year-old Ali Fadil of Little Neck, Queens, who found a way to save the line, one of dozens discontinued by the MTA on Sunday.
“I’ve been taking this route off and on for the last 10 years, since I was very little,” said Ali, who just completed his junior year at the Academy of American Studies in Long Island City, Queens. “This whole situation really got me going. I felt like it would be a good opportunity for me to serve the community.”
After writing to local and state legislators with no success, he turned to Joel Azumah, the owner of a private bus company featured in the Daily News yesterday.
His company, TransportAzumah, took over four city bus lines axed over the weekend.
Click here for the complete report.
I would like to offer a huge congratulations to Ali Fadil for believing in something & doing all that he could to help make it happen. His efforts should serve as a lesson to many young people & adults especially to step up & act if you believe in something.
He could have done like many others & just complain to anyone & everyone who would listen about the MTA inconveniencing him & other riders. Instead, he took matters into his own hands & tried to save the route & ended up doing just that.
I would love a list of the elected officials he contacted to be revealed so they could be called out on the carpet for their typical actions of doing nothing for their riding constituents. It would not surprise me one bit if some of the people in question are the same ones blasting the MTA for free “CBP” aka “Constituent Brownie Points” & when the doors are closed, doing nothing to help come up with logical solutions. Pathetic!
xoxo Transit Blogger
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[…] I wrote about 16-year-old Ali Fadil of Little Neck, Queens. He was the starting force behind the QM22 being saved after it was one of the numerous routes to be cut by the MTA due to their financial […]