Taking strides, literally, toward improving Downtown’s woeful bus service, Assemblymember Deborah Glick’s office recently organized a walking tour to help illustrate the transportation problems plaguing the community.
Input for the Tour to Restore was provided by Terri Cude, first vice chairperson of Community Board 2, and Shirley Secunda, chairperson of the C.B. 2 Traffic and Transportation Committee.
The tour follows numerous efforts to highlight and find solutions to the problem, including a town hall meeting held by state Senator Daniel Squadron and Glick, community petitions, two talking points in The Villager (“Bus service a bust for Downtown Community,” by Cude, Aug. 7, 2014, and “Still waiting for the buses,” by Secuda, Nov. 13, 2014), plus letters to the editor by frustrated readers, many of them seniors.
The M.T.A.’s New York City Transit agency responded to Glick’s invitation to walk the area as part of its process to determine what solutions can be provided. The tour brought together local politicians and their staff at the state, City Council and community board level, to illustrate the problems being experienced in the community, and further facilitate an open dialogue in solving these complex problems.
The walk started at the C.B. 2 office, at Washington Square Village, on Bleecker St. between La Guardia Place and Mercer St.
Stops along the way included Houston St. at LaGuardia Place, as well as Sixth Ave., to show the lack of service formerly provided by the pre-cutback M5 and M6 routes; Bleecker St. and Broadway, to demonstrate the need for more buses heading Downtown below Eighth St.; Bleecker and Lafayette Sts., to highlight where the M1 used to bring people up Centre/Lafayette St. from Downtown through Chinatown, Little Italy, Soho, the South Village and Noho; and then Fourth Ave. from 12th St. up to 14th St., where the pols and activists spoke about the now-missing buses at Union Square on Broadway, the need for the former M3 route, and generally about how the community’s most vulnerable populations have been severely affected since the cutbacks.
