Pols to spend 24 hours over two days traveling on NYC subways to 'connect with the riders' on unique issues
Two city and state leaders will tour the subway to hear directly from the riding public next week — and they're not Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio.
Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez and Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz — both Democrats and chairmen of committees that oversee the MTA — will spend 12 hours a day in the subway on Aug. 3 and 4.
From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. the two pols will ride the rails in all five boroughs. They expect other elected officials and transit advocates to join.
“We want to connect with the riders,” said Rodriguez, who represents northern Manhattan. “We want to hear from them directly and we want to take the opportunity to bring all the advocate groups in different places.”
The comments he and staff will collect will inform him ahead of the Council Transportation Committee’s Aug. 8 hearing on the subway crisis.
“We expect the MTA will come to the hearing with answers to so many questions that New Yorkers have,” he said.
“I think by visiting stations in various areas around the city we can hopefully highlight particularly the issues that haven’t been talked about as much,” Dinowitz said.
The two pols also weighed in on yet another round of fighting over funding mass transit between Cuomo and de Blasio: new MTA Chairman Joe Lhota asking the state and city to split the costs for funding his $836 million short-term subway rescue plan.
Cuomo agreed to the split and has been prodding de Blasio to follow suit.
Rodriguez repeated de Blasio’s main argument against ponying up the money — that the MTA should use the money it already gets from the city, taxpayers and commuter fares.
“Any money that is or was due to the MTA should be spent for the MTA to do its job,” Dinowitz said.
Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/pols-spend-24-hours-subway-connect-riders-article-1.3365576