Live from the MTA hearings

The view from the back of the ballroom. This Board has a long night ahead of it. (Click the smaller images to enlarge.)

7:41 p.m.: After waiting outside a ballroom at the Hilton Hotel on Sixth Ave. for over an hour this evening, I’m live from the MTA hearings. It’s been a rowdy 100 minutes with a minor conflict between some antsy folks and hotel security, and the ballroom is packed. I’ll update as the hearings unfold.

7:42 p.m.: Alan Gerson is a no-show. The Board is moving on.

7:48 p.m.: Bill Perkins is now speaking. “I’m very concerned with the service cuts taking place in my district, especially the M10,” he says as the crowd erupts.

“It cannot be come a service that is unaffordable,” he says.

7:53 p.m.: Now, Alan Gerson’s here. He represents Lower Manhattan, an area he says in line to be “most devastated” by the service cutbacks. If the W gets eliminated, the peak-hour M gets cut and the N runs over the Manhattan Bridge at night, Lower Manhattan will lose a few good subway lines. The area itself would still be served by the A, C, E, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 trains.

Gerson is talking now about how these service cuts would over-burden an area still trying to recovery from the attacks of Sept. 11. “It’s clear that these cutbacks have not been designed with consultation with all of the other government officials” who work in the area, he says.

7:57 p.m.: Gerson is still going on. He’s exceeded his three minutes, and the crowd grows a little restless. it’s quite a scene around here. “We need to hear from all involved in mass transit that on a moral level, on a policy level, you cannot and will not make these cutbacks. We have a difficult situation, but we as a city, state, MTA board can and will be creative enough, decent enough to avoid these cutbacks,” he concludes with a flash of “MTA card” which I imagine is a MetroCard.

7:59 p.m.: As yet another City Council member steps to the mic — Robert Jackson this time — the crowd is growing restless. “We want the people to speak,” one person shouts. “No more politicians,” says another.

Jackson is talking about plans to cut service. “It would only exacerbate already crowded cars,” he says. Jackson was probably in favor of congestion pricing last year. Will he be willing to toll the East River bridges?

“The MTA must align itself with this vision,” Jackson said, in reference to increased attention to environmentally sound transportation, as he concluded in advance of a five-minute break.

8:07 p.m.: As the break goes on, I have to say that they’ve really made this hearing seem like we’re on a train. Only the most thin of people would be able to sit comfortably in these seats, and the coat-laden crowd is literally rubbing elbows with each other.

8:18 p.m.: As the long break stretches on and on, a few members of the public have stopped by to note my blogging. Diane Aronson just stopped by to talk about how this public hearing should be “declared null and void.” She argues that since up until around 7:45, people were barred from entering and that until the break, the backroom had no speakers, this isn’t really a public hearing. “How can you have a public hearing if the public isn’t there?” she asked. More from her later.

8:25 p.m.: And we’re back. Someone — I missed the name — is urging the MTA to open its books and wants a committee of people who ride the MTA to examine the books as an oversight.

8:28 p.m.: A little kid named Leo Erickson is up now talking about cutting the W, M and Z trains. “I don’t think they should cut those trains because I had fun riding the W, the M and the V trains,” he said. “I’m a little sad.” This is pretty cute.

8:30 p.m.: Bill from Billtron is sitting next to me. He too is liveblogging the hearing and has a much better cell phone camera than I.

8:33 p.m.: “The MTA has no ethical or legal right to balance its budget on the back of its disabled riders,” says the current speaker. This is emerging as a major theme tonight.

8:36 p.m.: We’re firmly into the public part of this hearing. The politicians have long moved on, and now it’s just the ordinary folk who are talking. A seventh grade teacher is about to talk about ideas her students had. Let’s see if a bunch of 12- and 13-year-old can figure this out.

Here we go. Can the MTA raise money without taking money out of the pockets of the people who do not have it? The seventh graders say: sell buses for scrap; less heat on the buses since we’re all wearing coats; lighten the load for the buses; raise the prices for advertisement; sell MetroCard advertisement. Not a bad bunch of suggestions there and many of them are already in place.

8:40 p.m.: Right now, there’s an interesting divide among the speeches I’ve heard. The public is criticizing the MTA Board for raising fares. The politicians seem to recognize that the solution to the MTA’s financial woes rest in their hands. At some point, someone will have to educate the public about the source of the problems. Otherwise, we’ll never find an adequate solution.

8:43 p.m.: Another rant about Access-A-Ride, and another speaker who told the MTA Board members to take a pay cut. While it sounds good, that won’t solve a $1.2-billion gap.

8:44 p.m.: Trudy Mason from New York City Transit Riders Council is speaking. She understands that the board is a bit hamstrung but says that holding disabled riders hostage is “unconscionable.”

“Thirty-minute headways overnight would make the subway system all but unusable,” she said. “Would you enter a lonely station late a night knowing that the wait for the next train could be as much as a half over? I know I wouldn’t and I ride the subways at all hours.”

Mason has now pointed out what I noted a few weeks ago. The service cuts are covering a minimal percentage of this budget gap.

“We reject a budget that raises fares dramatically only to keep a transit system on life support,” she says. “Support the Ravitch report. Go to Albany and really fight, and we will all be with you.”

8:51 p.m.: We’ve got a railfan up there. He’s urging smart solutions to express train utilization. Don’t run the A trains all run local at all hours. Don’t clog up the West Side IRT and the Bronx 2/5 spur. “In the 1970s, most of your express trains ran 24 hours. This needs to be returned,” he said.

8:55 p.m.: Robin Marion is now speaking. Earlier this week, she e-mailed me the full text of her speech, and she isn’t making friends with the TWU members and MTA employees in the crowd. She’s going after the free rides that transit workers earn. This is going to spark a riot.

“We would not be here today if transit workers paid there way, like all other New Yorkers have to do because the MTA would have a balanced budget,” she said. “We need to rethink the old ways of doing things now here in New York too. It’s time to end the free lifetime rides for transit workers. It’s time for all of us who use public transit to pay his or her share.”

I don’t think Roger Toussaint — notably absent tonight — will take too kindly to this one. Some cheers and boos are coming out of the crowd.

8:59 p.m.: Ben Morgenroth, a New York native, is up speaking. He’s a G train advocate from Astoria taking issue with the charge that the elimination of G train service will add just two to five minutes to a trip. His numbers, based on the MTA’s schedules, say 16 to 30 minutes instead.

9:09 p.m.: Gail Brewer, another politician, drew some boos, but she recognized the “tremendous financial challenge” facing the MTA Board. She was all over the map but called upon the MTA to adopt to new technologies such as a SmartCard.

9:20 p.m.: Alright, folks. At this point, I’m wrapping this thing up. Most people have left, and the rest Green Party representative is now talking about how “we’re in a fight for our lives. We’re paying more and getting less and less.”

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We know the complaints. We know the issues. It’s time for Albany to step in. I’ll do this liveblog again in Brooklyn in a few weeks, Internet access permitting. Thanks for checking in.