Op-Ed Letters to the Editor
Blaz, Byford:
Speed freaks
To The Editor:
Re “Pols voice ‘concern’
on 14th St. traffi c pilot plan”
(news article, thevillager.com,
April 26):
The notion that the Department
of Transportation needs
an 18-month pilot program
to test the performance of its
14th St. bus proposal is ludicrous.
D.O.T.’s goal is to prove
that by eliminating 17 bus
stops, buses will move faster.
Of course, they will.
With every bus stop that is
removed, there will be an average
savings of several minutes.
The mayor hopes this success
will be a pattern for other bus
routes, so we can “save people
valuable time for the things
that matter.”
The mayor’s unexpected
anti-people attitude is backed
by Andy Byford, president of
the New York City Transit Authority,
who attacks community
groups for opposing the
bus stops’ removal, saying this
is an important step toward
speeding up buses. He said he
only wants to remove “just a
few stops.”
Speed is not the main function
of buses.
Both men are forgetting the
unique role buses play in New
York. First, they are needed
in neighborhoods far from
subways. Second, they serve a
growing population of people
who cannot negotiate steps to
use the subways, including the
elderly, disabled and many others
who have nonvisible conditions,
like heart problems.
These people will also fi nd
it diffi cult to walk the extra
blocks imposed by the mayor’s
plan.
Buses will move faster when
the Transit Authority modernizes
— not when city offi cials
forget who makes up the ridership.
For instance, when are
we going to install contactless
credit and debit cards to speed
boarding? These are used successfully
in London and other
places. Passengers enter via
front or back doors and simply
tap their card against a “reader.”
Voila! A time saver.
The tepid reaction of our
local elected offi cials to the
changes is very disappointing.
Now, not in 18 months, is
the time to assert their role as
PHOTO BY BOB KRASNER
e At a protest last month,
Downtowners urged the
city not to cut bus stops
on the M14 route as part
of adding Select Bus Service.
representatives of their communities:
the Lower East side,
Stuyvesant Town, Chelsea,
Greenwich Village and others.
Marguerite Martin
and Carol Greitzer
Martin and Greitzer are cochairpersons,
W. 12th St.
Block Association
‘Asleep
at the wheel’
To The Editor:
Re “Pols voice ‘concern’
on 14th St. traffi c pilot plan”
(news article, thevillager.com,
April 26):
Community Board 2 utterly
failed to make sure that Village
residents’ voices were heard,
so as to have avoided all traffi c
heading east on 14th St. being
diverted south directly onto
the Village’s streets.
C.B. 2 has once again shown
that it is, simply, asleep at the
wheel when it comes to representing
our vital interests.
Richard Klein
Way to ram
it through!
To The Editor:
Re “Pols voice ‘concern’
on 14th St. traffi c pilot plan”
(news article, thevillager.com,
April 26):
Good for de Blasio for
pushing this through over the
yowls of the car-hugging, bikeand
transit-hating NIMBYs.
I’m disappointed to see CoJo,
Hoylman et al. hedging their
bets on this to demonstrate
that they’re listening to those
loud voices of the few and not
the much greater number of
their constituents suffering for
lack of adequate bus and subway
service. Courage!
The bike lanes are an enormous
improvement for our
neighborhood. The 14th St.
busway will be, too.
Matthew Arnold
Council ignores
retail crisis
To The Editor:
Re “Freeze store evictions
until S.B.J.S.A. is O.K.’d” (oped,
by Sharon Woolums, April
25):
How can any member of our
City Council walk down almost
any street in New York City
without being stricken with
shame at this disease of abandoned
stores, growing dangerously
more numerous every
day? Nero fi ddled while Rome
burned. And our Council’s
just twittering, deceptive nonsense,
avoiding an absolutely
urgent bill — the Small Business
Jobs Survival Act — that
would enable small businesses
to fi ght off extortion level rents
at lease renewal time, which
now is so torturing our endangered
neighborhoods.
Obviously, Jim Drougas and
Marni Halasa have suffered
this fi rst-hand, Ms. Halasa
losing her Chelsea cafe to a
vicious rent increase, and Mr.
Drougas, watching the stores
around him closing down one
after another, while dreading
when his lease is up. Just down
the block from Mr. Drougas’s
bookstore was the Cornelia St.
Cafe, which closed when the
cafe’s landlord raised the rent.
Bennett Kremen
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published.
Thrown under
the bus on 14th
BY ELISSA STEIN
After the 24/7 L-train
shutdown was averted,
one might have assumed
that the extreme and
invasive aboveground mitigation
plans for 14th St. and its
surrounding neighborhoods
would have been avoided, as
well.
Without the crush of displaced
commuters, it wouldn’t
be necessary to take such drastic
measures to move people
Elissa Stein.
across town since the L train
would still be running, albeit on a revised night and weekend
schedule.
But instead of scrapping their plans, the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority and Department of Transportation
continued to push their contingency measures, proposing two
options for 14th St. — one a straight-up busway with emergency
vehicle access, the other allowing cars, as well — at
community board meetings and L-train open houses.
Despite community pressure that 14th St. be open for two
bus lanes and two lanes for other traffi c, the mayor announced
last week that the city would go with the more-restrictive
option — the one originally prepared to deal with the catastrophic
shut down that didn’t occur. He stated that they were
going to “try an experimental new transit improvement” on
14th St. His cavalier attitude was refl ected in his statement,
“We have an opportunity to try something new and really
get bus riders moving on one of our busiest streets.”
Mr. Mayor, your experiment, to ban vehicles on 14th St. except
for buses, trucks and emergency vehicles, means car traffi
c will be shunted onto side streets, some which have already
recently been narrowed to one lane to allow for bike and buffer
lanes due to the L-train shutdown that did not happen.
Has anyone spent more than a moment contemplating
the negative impact on surrounding neighborhoods? These
streets already struggle with backups caused by school buses
and Access-A-Rides, gas deliveries and garbage pickups, FedEx
and UPS trucks, move-ins/-outs and dumpsters. We’ve
recently dealt with transformer fi res, water-main breaks, and
short- and long-term construction projects.
And where have our local elected offi cials been in all this?
Last week, they banded together, issuing a statement that they
hear our concerns and will be monitoring the situation. We
need pushback and action — not waiting and seeing.
In the end, Mr. Mayor, you are choosing commuters over
community, prioritizing travel time over quality of life and
safety. We’ve often been labeled as NIMBYs, elitist, privileged
car owners concerned only with real estate value and personal
comfort. But has anyone stood on one of our corners as a truck
turns and ends up on the sidewalk because there’s not enough
room to maneuver? Have you ever pulled an elderly neighbor
to safety as an electric bike whizzes the wrong way down a
bike lane, at night, with no lights? Have you ever watched an
ambulance stuck in traffi c, sirens wailing, because a delivery
car is parked in the way, with no driver in sight?
Mr. Mayor, you said you want to “save people valuable time
for the things that matter.” News fl ash: Quality of life and
safety matter.
Stein is a member, 14th St. Coalition Steering Committee
Schneps Media TVG May 2, 2019 13
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