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MTA Nears 'Doomsday;' Still No Albany Action

NEW YORK CITY-The city that never sleeps may see a complete shutdown of its mass transit during late-night hours.

By Cody Lyon | Updated on April 30, 2009

NEW YORK CITY-If Albany fails to reach a workable solution to close the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s budget gap over the next few days, the daily commutes for eight million New Yorkers will become more expensive, and the time it takes to get from point A to B, will increase markedly. In addition to decreased rail service, several bus routes will disappear on weekends and evenings while others disappear entirely. In fact, if a new funding mechanism does not see consensus at the state capital, the city that never sleeps may eventually see a complete shutdown of the transit system during late evening hours, under a “beyond doomsday” scenario MTA outlined on Wednesday after revealing that its deficit is even wider than originally forecast.

Fallout from what the MTA calls its “doomsday” plan has begun to spur outrage among city residents. On Tuesday afternoon, transit advocates came together with concerned citizens in Manhattan’s Union Square, raising their voices against the proposed cuts. One speaker, 76-year-old resident Carl Van Putten of Hunts Point, shouted “where I live, we’re not talking about inconvenience, we’re talking about survival.” Speakers at the event, largely organized on social networking site Facebook, sought to persuade attendees that New York City’s economic backbone is its transit system and without it, the entire city suffers unimaginable trauma.

“I think it’s a big myth that’s been around for around 50 years that New York is somehow not a mass transit town,” Wiley Norvell, communications director for the group Transportation Alternatives, told GlobeSt.com as trains rumbled underneath during another rush hour at the Union Square subway hub.

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