NYC braces for more transit cuts

June 27 saw the biggest cuts to mass transit in New York City in the last 30 years while fares remained the same.

Two subway lines, the V and W, have been eliminated, 38 bus routes are being abolished by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and dozens of bus routes are being modified, particularly express service from the outer reaches of the Queens, Bronx and Staten Island boroughs into Manhattan.

TransportAzumah, a private bus operator with June 28 plans to start some express routes being cut, said it would disregard an order from the city’s Department of Transportation to cease operations.

“The Department of Transportation doesn’t understand state regulations and we’re running tomorrow,” the company’s owner, Joel Azumah, told the Wall Street Journal. (June 27)

The city reportedly wants to replace the public mass transportation provided by MTA buses — where riders can use MetroCards or wheelchair lifts if they need access — with so-called dollar vans, which generally charge $1.50 to $2.00 and mainly run in Black and Latino/a communities.

A few hundred dollar vans currently operate semilegally, with permits and insurance that run around $14,000 per year; few reportedly follow all the rules. The New York Times estimated in 1999 that anywhere between 2,500 and 5,000 vans were operating illegally. Nothing has changed in the transit mix in New York that would affect this estimate.

While billionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg doesn’t publicly approve of illegal operators, he is calling for dollar vans on the avenues where bus service has been cut. Transport Workers Union Local 100 President John Samuelsen has pointed out, “(Dollar vans) are a backdoor way to cut bus service.” (am New York, June 22)

Dollar vans not only cut bus service, they also lead to privatization of this service.