Monday, January 24, 2011
News F is for Fiasco: Is the MTA Full of Shit?
Posted by Henry Stewart on Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 12:39 PM
The MTA nixed the request, responding that "they do not provide shuttles for the eight to 10 projects around the city where one side of a subway platform is closed." Sounds reasonable enough: Park Slopers might feel entitled to special treatment, but they're not! Except one Sheepshead Bay blogger says that's bullshit. They had a special shuttle bus just a few months ago!
In a post called "Hey Park Slope: The MTA Is Lying To You," Sheepshead Bites blogger Allan Rosen ("former Director of MTA/NYC Transit Bus Planning (1981)") explains that life on the B/Q line has long been as screwed up as the F is now. (I experienced that first-hand while reporting this!) Just with one significant difference:
Wasn’t there a temporary B3K bus operating between Kings Highway and Avenue U during rush hours precisely [because subway service had been interrupted], so those from Marine Park and Sheepshead Bay would not have to travel to Sheepshead Bay then reverse direction to access the Avenue U Station?
Rosen hypothesizes that, in the current F train fiasco, the MTA is worried about extending a bus route that would prove so popular it would later be difficult to repeal; and, also, that it could set a dangerous precedent, inspiring other areas also to demand sensible extensions of bus routes. (He cites a recent project in Canarsie.) The MTA is all about more efficient buses these days—just fewer of them.
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