News & Updates

Last night’s MTA public meeting on planned M14A/D service cuts was not what we were expecting, and not what this neighborhood deserves.

The MTA had no program or presentation, refused to put out more than six chairs for scores of seniors who showed up, and claimed the room was at capacity in order to keep even more people waiting outside in the cold. If we hadn’t been there to see it, we wouldn’t have believed it.

This wasn’t outreach, this was a disgrace.

What’s worse, it was clear that decisions have already been made to cut local bus service while actively discouraging any meaningful input by our affected community. This is a neighborhood that needs more bus service, not less. The MTA doesn’t want to hear it.

You can see what the MTA is planning on its website.

• We welcome the addition of Select Bus Service (SBS), which will make longer trips to Union Square and the west side quicker. All-door boarding in itself is a big plus.
• But by eliminating 40% of our local stops entirely, the MTA is creating unnecessary new challenges for seniors, people with disabilities, parents with small children, and kids who use the bus to get to and from school.

We need to make sure that the MTA and our elected officials know how we feel about these local service cuts right away if we are going to have any chance to keep the service we need. While we try to get another meeting scheduled — a real meeting this time — here are three things you can do right now:

1. Sign this petition started by the Senior Advocacy Leadership Team (SALT).
2. Leave a comment for the MTA on its website.
3. Send a tweet to our local elected officials.

We’ll let you know what happens next.

In solidarity,

Caroline Laskow
Lee Berman

Councilmember Carlina Rivera and nine other local elected officials released a statement today urging the MTA to keep local service along the M14A/D routes in addition to Select Bus Service (SBS) to speed travel times on longer trips.

We want an M14 SBS, but w such a high population of seniors and people w disabilities on the LES, we need to preserve local bus service too. That’s why I wrote a letter to @MTA/@NYC_DOT w 9 of my colleagues urging them to modify their plan to include supplemental local service. pic.twitter.com/xcSzL6RJmj

— Carlina Rivera 利華娜 (@CarlinaRivera) March 20, 2019

Save Our Bus Stops!
Rally & Press Conference with Councilmember Carlina Rivera

Friday 1:00 pm
Ave. A & East 4th St.

Last week the MTA announced plans to eliminate local stops on the M14A and M14D routes, including four in our neighborhood. Please join Councilmember Carlina Rivera on Friday to say NO to these service cuts.

I’ll give this a little more context, but it still doesn’t make much sense:

The M14 is the second-busiest route in Manhattan, and also the second-slowest in all of NYC, spending 60% of its time in delays or at bus stops. The MTA hopes to alleviate this problem by converting all M14 routes to Select Bus Service (SBS), which means you swipe your card before boarding the bus and can enter the bus at any door.

These are good changes! Pre-swiping will make boarding the bus much faster most of the time. BUT by making all M14 routes SBS, the MTA is also eliminating local stops along the way, creating a huge burden for seniors and passengers with disabilities. This would be the only route in NYC where SBS express buses completely replace local service.

(None of this, by the way, addresses traffic delays, which account for the bulk of that 60% cited above!)

So — if you can in the middle of a work day — please join Councilmember Carlina Rivera on Friday at 1pm to protest these cuts. We’ll be at the corner of Ave. A and E. 4th Street. (You can even take the bus there … for now!)