Locals Frustrated by Planned Bus Cuts

Pedro Valdez-Rivera is upset. So are his compatriots at the Riders Alliance, a New York City-based grassroots campaign that focuses on transit issues. On Sept. 19, the group rallied at the terminal of the B38 bus, outside the Korean Veteran’s Plaza in Downtown Brooklyn, to protest the looming service reductions of numerous bus routes in the city.

The cuts are meant to aid in the growing MTA budget crisis. With the operational deficit to approach just under $1 billion in 2022, the MTA is searching for solutions. The agency claims that these reductions would save $7 million, but for many riders, these routes are priceless.

“The B38 is the bus I depend on the most,” Valdez-Rivera told gatherers at the event. His only direct route to downtown Brooklyn, Valdez-Rivera relies on the B38 to buy groceries and go to doctor’s appointments, but the bus often lets him down. “I wait over 30 minutes for a B38 to arrive,” he lamented. 

His experience echoed others from the city’s “transit deserts”, lower-income neighborhoods where the only available transportation options are scarce and unreliable. This included George Bettman, Alliance member and Canarsie resident.

“It took an hour-and-a-half for the bus to get here,” Bettman revealed. “I don’t think we have the right management at the MTA to think about this.”

Despite the decline in quality, protesters insisted that cuts were not the answer. Especially after the MTA announced a $51.5 billion investment plan that would allocate $3.5 billion to buses in the city. Jaqi Cohen, Campaign Director for the Straphangers Campaign, another advocacy group, declared that now was the time to invest.

“We need to be talking about how to add more service, how to make service more reliable,” Cohen said, “this is a terrible time to be even considering cuts.”

The alliance argued that in order to increase revenue from these routes, the buses first need to be invested in to regain the riders’ trust. Stephanie Burgos-Veras, the rally organizer, said that the decrease in reliability drove riders away and vice versa, creating a downward spiral in service.  She walked through some solutions to increase ridership. Street priority could streamline service through busy traffic lanes. Transit signal priority could help move buses through street lights. 

“[The MTA] can use technology to speed up buses, to communicate with each other better.” 

The alliance addressed the challenge of getting these initiatives past Andrew Cuomo and his appointed MTA Chairman and CEO, Pat Foye.

“Governor Cuomo and Chairman Pat Foye want to reduce service on buses and subways,” Burgos-Veras said, which she called a threat to bus and subway riders. 

However, she was still hopeful that the MTA would find a way to make do without cuts. She highlighted Mayor Bill De Blasio’s promise to speed up annual bus lane installments.

For Pedro Valdez-Rivera, hope can only go so far. These are the highest stakes have ever been for him since he joined the Riders Alliance in 2013. “This is personal for me.”