There may be a glimmer of hope for Upper West Side residents afraid to cross Central Park alone at night.
After the Metropolitan Transportation Authority threatened to eliminate nighttime service on several crosstown bus lines, it announced changes last week to its proposed budget cuts, though some transportation advocates deemed the revisions insufficient.
In December, the MTA proposed a sweeping slate of cuts to subway and bus service citywide, including the elimination of the M10 bus line, which runs along Central Park West, and the elimination of late-night service on the M104, which runs along Broadway, the crosstown M96, and the M79. But on Jan. 22, it announced a scaled-back set of reductions that would spare nearly all those lines, MTA spokesperson Aaron Donovan said on Monday.
While the M104 and M10 will continue to run as usual on the Upper West Side, there will be no service along 42nd Street once the M104 gets downtown, and the M10 route will end at Columbus Circle.
Public transportation advocates said they appreciated the MTA’s efforts to soften the cuts, but emphasized that even a scaled-back set of reductions would be devastating to riders.
“It looks like there might be more crosstown buses available under the plan today than the plan still withstanding as of Friday. Slightly more service would be available overnight for Upper Manhattanites,” said Cate Contino, coordinator for the Straphangers Campaign, a riders’ advocacy group. “We still think the cuts are bad and are definitely going to hurt lots of riders. … I feel like they are taking a better tack than they were before, but they are still horrible cuts.”
Straphangers Campaign staff attorney Gene Russianoff said there was little hope that the cuts could be averted altogether.
“The MTA has resigned itself to doing these. There is no rescue plan,” Russianoff said. He called on the MTA to apply federal stimulus funds to lessen the sting for riders.
While he said he appreciated the MTA’s “effort to limit the impact of the cuts,” he added, “Waiting longer or transferring to another bus—these are not minor inconveniences.
“They are not getting rid of it, but they are making it harder to use,” Russianoff said of the M10 and M104.
The MTA, which faces an unexpected financial shortfall of $400 million, has come under fire for several recent changes, including two fare hikes. Last summer, the fare for a single ride increased from $2 to $2.25, and service was simultaneously reduced, a combination that encouraged substantial public protest. On Friday, the MTA released 120 pages of documents of adjustments, but Straphangers officials said they do not address major concerns.
Contino said she and other Straphangers employees are reading through the latest documents carefully before settling on an official position, but, she added, “The judgment call is going to be whether we still want to call this doomsday, or something worse, or something slightly more friendly.”
Sam Levin contributed reporting.
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