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Adrienne Adams celebrates victory in speaker race
TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | DEC. 24 - DEC. 30, 2021 15
BY CARLOTTA MOHAMED
After a nearly decade-long
fight for transportation equity
in transit-starved communities
of color, Councilman I.
Daneek Miller on Wednesday,
Dec. 15, lauded the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority’s
(MTA) new fare reduction,
including the expansion
of the City Ticket — a flat-fare
$5 ticket for travel within NYC
on weekends — to all weekday
off-peak trains.
The MTA also announced
that all LIRR and Metro-North
fares will remain off-peak
(including during traditional
peak travel times) through
Feb. 28, 2022, meaning that
through February, all intracity
fares will be reduced to $5.
“Our fare structure is an
important tool we have to win
back riders,” Janno Lieber,
MTA acting chair and CEO,
said. “Business logic says it
doesn’t make sense to increase
the price just as you’re trying
to rebuild your customer base.
So, we’re leaving the basic fare
alone for now and rolling out a
slate of new pilot fare promotions.”
Miller said the MTA’s announcement
is a good first
step in finally advancing transit
equity for all New Yorkers
— especially those currently
priced out from the LIRR and
Metro-North fares.
“Since we began our efforts
to address transit deserts in
2014, we’ve made incredible
progress and changed the conversation
citywide on what
transit equity looks like for
Black and brown New Yorkers,”
Miller said. “It’s especially
rewarding to be able to
inform my constituents, who
have heavily utilized the Atlantic
Ticket, that they are
now able to get anywhere in
the city for that flat $5 fare
through February during
peak times, and off-peak after
that.”
Miller says he is confident
that this development will be a
game-changer going forward,
as he thanked his colleagues
and the advocates that pushed
the MTA on this matter for the
past eight years.
“With ridership not expected
to reach pre-pandemic
levels anytime soon, capturing
that lost revenue is a huge
benefit for the MTA, and it’s
our hope that they will consider
keeping this fare structure
in effect and expanding it to
include a free transfer to subways
and buses,” Miller said.
In 2015, Miller passed a
resolution calling upon the
MTA to allow riders traveling
within the city to pay a fare
equivalent to subway and bus
rates, which was ultimately
modified and adopted as the
Atlantic Ticket, which offers
$5 one-way tickets to and from
Atlantic Terminal from stations
in southeast Queens,
with the exception of the Rockaways.
Since then, Miller has
worked to expand the successful
pilot citywide, including
the free transfer to subways
and buses.
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Queens Councilwoman
Adrienne Adams on Sunday,
Dec. 19, celebrated her all-butguaranteed
victory to be the
next Council speaker during
a Zoom conference with fellow
members of the city’s legislative
body.
“There’s a new day on us
everybody, it’s a new day. By
the time we’re done, I believe
New York will be a stronger,
fairer and safer place for everyone,”
Adams said during
the Dec. 19 virtual rally.
Adams declared victory
Dec. 17, saying she secured
support from 32 fellow City
Council members for the internal
vote in January. She
would take over as the first
Black woman to lead the Council,
the second-most powerful
post in the city.
She overcame several challengers
in the race that was
largely fought behind closed
doors, with her most notable
competition coming from fellow
Queens Council member
Francisco Moya who was
pushed by incoming Mayor
Eric Adams.
Almost-Speaker Adams
will replace outgoing Speaker
and Manhattan Council Member
Corey Johnson, and she
vowed that the 51-member
body will act as a balance of
power for Mayor-to-be Adams
come January.
“We will work with the
new mayor, but also serve as a
check on the other side of City
Hall,” she said.
Adams has represented
southeast Queens neighborhoods
since 2018 and said her
priorities are curbing the
city’s surge in gun violence,
expand affordable housing,
and ensure a fair recovery
from the pandemic as the five
boroughs face down another
surge with the omicron variant
.“
No New Yorker can be left
behind at this moment and we
will fight every single day to
make sure that that does not
happen,” she said.
After her introduction, several
of her former contenders
in the speaker’s race joined to
congratulate her.
“I’m here to make sure that
I can give you my full support
and continue to work together
on the issues that we care
about,” Moya said. “We have
a lot to do and the race is over
and I think one of the main
things is for us to continue to
really look at the issues that
we care about and how we can
get all this done to make you
the strong speaker that we
know that you are.”
The City Council will also
have its first-ever female majority,
and Council Member
Diana Ayala, who represents
uptown and South Bronx
neighborhoods and also once
vied for the speakership,
called the moment historic.
“We knew six months ago,
a year ago, we’ve been talking
about the need for the next
speaker to be a woman,” Ayala
said. “We’re witnessing history
here because, not only are
we getting what we wanted,
but we’re also getting our first
African-American, female
speaker and this is history
that we’re living through.”
Councilwoman Adrienne Adams celebrates her likely victory to be
the next Council Speaker during a virtual rally Sunday, Dec. 19.
Screenshot via Zoom
The MTA’s advertising campaign encourages riders to wear a
mask. Photo by Marc A. Hermann
Queens councilman lauds
MTA’s new fare reduction
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