Andy Byford, CEO of the New York City Transit Authority, attended CB3's Transportation, Public Safety, & Environment Committee meeting last night for an L-train update.
As transportation reporter Aaron Gordon noted at Gothamist:
Byford only attends higher profile events like town halls and dispatches underlings to small community board meetings. But he told the roughly three dozen residents of CB3, which encompasses the Lower East Side from 14th Street to the Brooklyn Bridge, that he came in person because “I owe it to the community to come out and explain to you as best I can what we know about what has changed and to go through what hasn't changed.”
He outlined what Gov. Cuomo's new plan is... then went on to other topics, such as:
On the safety front, Byford is convening an engineering team, which he promises will be independent not just of the MTA but of New York politics, to review the new plan and ensure it does not jeopardize anyone’s safety. But he has not yet determined who will be the independent reviewers or when their report — which he promises to publicly release — will be done.
At the same time, his team at Transit will review how often the MTA can run L trains on nights and weekends when one of the two tubes is closed, what alternate service should be provided, and how best to communicate those changes to riders.
He reiterating throughout his talk that he will "not be steamrolled" by Cuomo's L-train desires.
About three dozen people were in attendance (there were rumors of Byford's appearance in the hours leading up the meeting). A few people asked questions:
Most of the questions focused on what would happen to the new bike lanes and 14th Street busway that had planned to ease commutes during a full L train shutdown. The bike lanes are entirely up to the Department of Transportation, said Byford, while the future of the 14th Street Select Bus Service will be a joint decision.
Read Gordon's full post at Gothamist via this link.
2 comments:
So it turns out that Cuomo’s “experts” who have never renovated a 100 year old tunnel, or any tunnel, and who spent just one hour looking at the damage, didn’t even consider the problem of the toxic silica dust from the old concrete which needs to be controlled and removed. Cuomo never even considered worker and passenger safety before foisting his half-baked plan on the world. This new L Train plan is a total scam.
Can't wait for them to leave 14th St. It has been awful hear for the last 15 months.
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