Fight Between City/TLC & Taxi Drivers Continue…
The war between NYC & many taxi drivers is still going strong. Initially the battle lines seemed to be seriously drawn when the two day strike took place. However this issue has gotten more serious as the two sides are now duking it out in court.
Many taxi drivers & their supporters rallied outside of The Manhattan Federal Court as a hearing was taking place inside. The hearing was setup to address a petition filed by The New York Taxi Workers Alliance and eight individual drivers. The petition is restating the points that they have clearly objected to over the last months. The main sticking point continues to be about the NYC & the Taxi & Limousine Commission’s mandate to install GPS units in all cabs.
This issue sure seems like it will drag out for a long time!
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MTA Expecting Few……
AMNY’s Subway Tracker Blog had a very interesting entry about the MTA’s proposed tiered fare hike. Elliot Sander said he expects “smaller digits” of straphangers to ride the subway outside of rush hour on a discounted fare. This comment was made at today’s board meeting.
According to the MTA’s preliminary estimates, the percentage of straphangers going to work on the discounted fare will be in the single digits. Mr. Sander did not release actual figures but made a statement that could not be more accurate. His statement which mentioned the busiest lines in the system, the Lexington Avenue lines was “Even in the smaller digits, it’s meaningful when you talk about the Lexington Avenue line”.
I work for myself so I ride the subway at all hours. I do find that a tiered fare would definitely work to my advantage in theory because I tend to do a lot of non rush hour commuting to places especially when I go to see friends perform. However I don’t think it will make much of a change in my wallet as I usually purchase unlimited monthly cards. Now if I could get extra discount on my card for riding during the non rush hour, I might just crack a smile!
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As If One Fare Hike Was Not Enough……
If you thought the 2008 fare hike might be avoided, wake up! The MTA is already discussing additional fare hikes for 2010! According to MTA chief Elliot Sander “that is the plan” & “Again, that’s also why we have a public participation process, to see how the public feels about every two years staying even with the cost of living, rather than taking three to four years and having a larger increase.”
>r. Sander also stated that fare hikes in 2010 might not affect “each segment of our user group”. If this turns out to be the case, it would be similar to fare hikes that took place in 2005. The 2005 fare hike saw a 5% increase in commuter railroad fares while base bus & subway fares remain unchanged.
I think some sort of government oversight needs to be put in place. Why should straphangers be forced to deal with 2 fare hikes in a span of 4 years? What happens to all the money that the MTA brings in from fares, tolls (most important funding source) , advertising, real estate, etc….? It seems that every year or so we hear about a huge surplus. This talk is then followed up with “we might need to raise fares again” propaganda.
It is a shame how this agency continues to get away with bleeding straphangers dry while getting away with their financial miscues. A change needs to be made!!!!
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MTA Honors Heroic Employees
Today’s AMNY has a nice cover story titled “Everyday Heroes”. The feature is about how the MTA’s New York City Transit branch honored 51 “everyday heroes” yesterday with medals of excellence for acts of bravery or kindness. The article features the 4 men who earned top honors which happens to be a medal for heroism. Here is the article courtesy of AMNY:
The people who keep subways running and buses moving often risk life and limb to save a straphanger or colleague in need.
New York City Transit honored 51 “everyday heroes” Tuesday with medals of excellence for acts of bravery or kindness.
Four men earned the top nod, a medal for heroism.
“I am the official leader of NYCT, but it is the unofficial leaders, and they are being recognized here today, who make the real difference,” New York City Transit President Howard Roberts said at the awards ceremony at Battery Park.
“They are the measure between success and failure as an organization.”
While the most famous subway hero in recent memory is straphanger Wesley Autrey, who jumped onto the tracks in January to cover a man having a seizure while a train ran over both of them, the following four transit workers are this year’s “subway supermen”:
Richard Kerimoglu:
A drunk man who fell onto the subway tracks escaped electrocution thanks to train service supervisor Richard Kerimoglu, 46.
The 22-year subway veteran climbed onto the tracks at the end of the No. 6 line in the Bronx on June 16 to check on an intoxicated man who was lying between two live third rails.
He waited to wake the unconscious man, hoping to keep him from touching either rail until the power was turned off several minutes later.
“I [then] woke him. He was very startled and grabbed the third rail and used it as a support to get up,” he said. “That would have killed him.”
James White:
A teacher on Staten Island walked away from a carjacking on Dec. 13 with her life and her car after bus operator James White ran to her rescue. From a nearby bus depot, White saw a woman being strangled in her car and rescued her from the attacker’s grip.
Ralph Fernandez:
Ralph Fernandez, who did not attend the awards ceremony, stayed on his bus with an elderly man too afraid to evacuate after a midtown steam pipe exploded just feet away in July. Fernandez also safely evacuated other passengers from the bus moments after the eruption.
Andres Morales:
Bus mechanic Andres Morales, 36, rescued his girlfriend and sent an armed robber to jail, all while being repeatedly stabbed in an after-work attack.
Morales had just parked his motorcycle on his way home from work to the couple’s Upper East Side apartment on April 25 when he heard his girlfriend’s screams as a robber held her at knifepoint. Morales freed his girlfriend and tried to hold onto the robber even as he lashed out, stabbing the mechanic four times.
Soft-spoken Morales appreciated his award but gave a nod to fellow employees.
Their tales included risking life and limb or just simple acts of kindness, like human resources manager Imogene Wright who helped a sick bus driver during last month’s transit-crippling floods.
“There’s a lot of good stories,” Morales said.
Reading the feature put a smile on my face & got me to thinking. I hope that the naive people who think all employees are assholes somehow get their hands on this article. Maybe just maybe it will get them to not paint all employees with one broad brush.
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Fare Hike Should Not Affect Congestion Pricing Plan….
Well that is what state commission panel Chairman Marc Shaw said yesterday. The panel was created to study ways to decrease traffic congestion in Manhattan. The main objective on their table is evaluating Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan. Mr. Shaw feels that the MTA’s proposed fare hike should not be a factor when evaluation Mayor Bloomberg & said as much yesterday:
I would ask that we don’t let the word ‘fare’ fall into this debate; I think this commission has a hard enough job as it is
Here is a brief article about the situation courtesy of AMNY:
A state commission studying ways to reduce Manhattan traffic should not consider the impact of proposed transit fare and toll hikes in evaluating Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan, the panel’s chairman told members Tuesday.
“I would ask that we don’t let the word ‘fare’ fall into this debate,” said Chairman Marc Shaw, a former deputy mayor in the Bloomberg administration and former executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
“I think this commission has a hard enough job as it is.”
The 17-member commission, meeting for the first time, is charged with studying the mayor’s plan, along with other traffic reduction proposals, and making a recommendation to the City Council and the state Legislature by Jan. 31, 2008.
The mayor wants to charge motorists $8 to drive into Manhattan below 86th street between the hours of 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. as a means to reduce traffic and improve air quality.
The controversial plan failed to win state lawmakers’ approval in the spring. The Legislature instead created a commission to study the proposal. A federal transportation grant of $354 million hinges on the city and state by next March approving either congestion pricing or an alternative that reduces traffic by at least the 6.3 percent targeted in the mayor’s plan.
At the same time, the MTA is considering its first fare and toll hike since 2005, prompting some on the commission to wonder whether the increases would affect the estimated revenue from congestion pricing.
“A decision is going to be made about raising fares in February and the Legislature is going to consider all this [congestion pricing] in March — I think we have to talk about how we deal with those two political realities,” said panel member Gene Russianoff, a staff attorney for the Straphangers campaign.
“The fare hike and what we’re doing, they’re just directly related.”
For those who are interested in my opinion of Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion plan, click here!
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