In the MTA-Long Island Bus proposal to cut services, Nassau County has stated that funding will fall $24 million short needed to run local and Able-Ride Buses.
Yet, I am to understand, they have a $100 Million in reserve – correct me if I am wrong.
The MTA recognizes that thousands of people depend on local buses and Able Ride, but puts the blame on Nassau County for not accepting responsibility to fund the services.
No matter who is at fault, Nassau County or the MTA, it has to be fixed and soon. Don’t just say we are going to eliminate services, without first providing and alternative plan, for the working class and the disabled.
If this morning, all county officials and MTA big wigs, were told to hand over their car keys, their first reaction would be no way, how would I function, I have to get to work.
Of course with their salaries, they could afford to take a taxi. That’s not an answer for regular working-class people.
There is a very large percentage, who do not own a car and in order to work, need public transportation. People who can’t get to work will lose their job. With that goes their health insurance (something you don’t have to worry about). They will join the long lines of unemployment.
Unlike you people, we work on Saturdays and Sundays, in restaurants and stores, especially at the hospitals and nursing homes. Relations visit families in hospitals on weekends. It will have a huge impact on North Shore Hospital and LIJ and other medical facilities, who rely on nurses and aides, to arrive for their eight-hour shifts. Aides that work in private homes, to care for the house bound sick and elderly.
I know of many Great Neck residents, whose aides take three buses each day, to wash, feed, change bedpans, care for people who otherwise could not stay in their homes but would be shuttled off to a nursing home. So much for independence. There will be a severe impact to local fire departments as more people will use their ambulance service for a ride to a hospital on treatment days.
Seniors, who no longer should be driving due to age or poor eyesight, will no longer be so willing to give up their car keys.
For the daily working commuter, to and from the train station, they will have to pay upwards of $280 extra a month using taxi service.
These are not sob stories, these are the cold hard facts.
It is obviously money that has been mishandled, maybe too many high salaries and benefits to upper management.
Self-employed and small business owners were forced to pay incredible amounts of MTA new tax. We should asking MTA’s Chairman Jay Walder and president of L IBus System what happened, where did this money disappear. Whether you ride public transportation or not, this affects us all in one way or the other.
Public hearings are on March 23 at Hostra University
Jean Pierce
Great Neck
