By Keith Olsen
Rita Pellicano, a lifelong resident of Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn, regularly took the B71 bus: to see her doctor, to go shopping on Smith Street, to attend social events. She only had to wait for it to come, and then get on and off at the right stops. Now, the B71 line has been cut and her everyday bus rides have become multiple-transfer affairs, often leaving Pellicano waiting in a somewhat desolate area of Park Slope for a bus transfer to get home, one that requires her to purchase another ticket, albeit at a senior discount.
For seniors like Pellicano, a regular visitor at the Eileen Dugan Senior Center in Carroll Gardens, getting around has always been difficult. Many have relied on neighborhood buses because of their inability to climb stairs in subway stations with walkers and canes, and the financial pressure of taking cabs. But due to the large-scale service cuts enacted by the Metropolitan Transit Authority on June 27, they have had to scramble to get to appointments and to complete their daily activities due to the elimination of the neighborhood buses.
The MTA first approved its transportation cuts in December 2009, a month after releasing its $11 billion annual budget. Amid an $800 million shortfall within the agency and a statewide fiscal crisis, the executive committee voted 11 to 2 in favor of abolishing several subway and bus lines and reducing the frequency of others.
Following objections by local politicians and New Yorkers, the cuts were amended. While families were spared by the decision to continue to allow students free access to mass-transit, the V and W subway lines were retired, hundreds of employees were fired, and 33 bus routes were eliminated completely. Brooklyn bus service was hit particularly hard, with 298 bus stops out of 570 curtailed.
Beverly DiCovello, a volunteer at the Eileen Dugan Senior Center in Carroll Gardens, has seen firsthand the toll these cuts have taken on the elderly regulars. Many routinely took local buses to the Botanical Gardens, Brooklyn Museum, and Smith Street for leisure, or to doctor’s appointments around the borough. Now the trips have become increasingly difficult, because of the need to maneuver unwieldy walkers, canes and carts on crowded buses, or to wait on the street for significant periods of time in extreme temperatures or unsafe areas.
“Seniors are independent,” she said. “They do not want to rely on others. So taking the buses away, they are left in a panicked state.”
Carroll Gardens resident Anna Vozzo used to wait for the B71 bus outside of her home to ride three blocks to the center on Court Street. Due to her severe asthma — controlled by a steroid-inhaler, nebulizer and a standard albuterol inhaler, and monitored by a 24-hour home aide — the one-stop ride was a safe means of getting to the center. The commute, which previously took five minutes, has been inflated to nearly a half-hour, and has become tiresome for the walker-bound Caminiti.
“Do you know how long it takes me to walk those three blocks?” she asked. “It’s very hard for me.”
DiCovello, along with other neighborhood activists, collected more than 800 signatures from Red Hook and Carroll Gardens residents and attended the MTA’s town hall meetings last spring in an attempt to stave off the cuts. She mailed those signatures to Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, emailed with Brooklyn Transportation Liaison Luke DePalma and spoke briefly with Councilwoman Joan Millman at a rally. But she knew the cuts were inevitable.
“Some would say go with the changes,” she said. “It’s the time.” But according to DiCovello, the cuts have disproportionately targeted the elderly, who rely on public transportation because of the high cost of taking cabs and private cars.
The Straphangers Campaign, a watchdog group that advocates for mass transportation passengers, has actively attempted to offset the damage of the cuts by organizing protests and information sessions, commissioning studies on public awareness and holding neighborhood meetings across the city. While the organization recognized that the MTA had to balance its massive deficit, it said that the pain for New York City residents has been real.
“No matter which way they cut, somebody is going to get hurt,” said Jason Chin-Fett, field organizer for the Straphangers.
While calls to the MTA have not been returned, a statement about the cuts on its Web site maintained that they were a necessity in order for the organization to become fiscally solvent. The MTA has been in the red for a long time: deficits can be traced back as far as the early 1990s, when then-Governor George Pataki’s administration began to use earmarked mass-transit money for other projects. But this year, because of decreased tax revenues and an almost $150 million reduction in state aid, the agency had to make its most severe cuts in decades.
Ben Kabak, a mass-transit blogger for Second Avenue Sagas, which the Village Voice has called the “transit authority,” warned against demonizing the MTA in his posts, even when the cuts affect vulnerable residents like seniors. He has pointed to the lack of political will right now in the state as the primary culprit in the cuts. “It’s a tough balancing act and a decision that I don’t wish on anyone,” Kabak said. “But it shows a lack of leadership on all fronts in New York.”
Kabak also said that New Yorkers should know that their options are limited in dealing with bureaucracies like the MTA. “We’re in a situation where the MTA has a lot of flaws, but at the same time we’re stuck with them,” he said. “We can either choose to fight against them like the politicians do, or we can fight for better transit policy.”
For the moment, seniors of the Eileen Dugan Senior Center have chosen the former. When the weather gets cooler, they plan to set up lawn chairs on the street to protest the cuts, which will certainly become a prominent community issue once again during the fall as the weather gets colder and the elderly are forced to wait on the street.
Covello hopes that the MTA and elected officials will take notice once the seniors are able to protest. “I’ve stated my plea to everyone the MTA,” she said. “This is a disgrace. What will it take to turn heads?”
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