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April 8, 2022 • Schneps Media
LOCAL NEWS OPED
Making NYC’s transit
system more equitable
BY JANNO LIEBER
My mission as the MTA’s
Chair and CEO is to
make sure that we’re leveraging
every part of the system
to make public transportation
more accessible and equitable
for New Yorkers. While subways
and buses tend to be the modes
of choice for most city residents,
some could see a greater benefi t
from the commuter railroads.
Riders living in southeast
Queens for example could save
up to an hour of travel time if
they opted for the Long Island
Rail Road instead of taking a bus
and subway. That’s precious time
back to spend with friends and
family. So why don’t more people
try it?
We know that historically
price has been the deciding factor
in choosing a subway and
bus commute over the LIRR
and Metro-North. That’s why it
was so important for us at the
MTA to consider intracity rail
discounts when developing our
package of new fare promotions,
which were introduced
last month.
We landed on an expansion of
the existing CityTicket to weekdays
off-peak. The CityTicket
program provides a $5 fl at fare
for one-way trips taken wholly
within the fi ve boroughs – like
from Woodlawn in the Bronxto
Grand Central Terminal or from
Bayside to Penn Station. The
deal was previously available on
weekends only.
Demand for the new ticket is
off to a good start – more than
100,000 weekday CityTickets
have been sold since the launch
– but I know we can do better.
We’re going to continue highlighting
the benefi ts of CityTicket,
our new 20-trip ticket (perfect
for hybrid workers!) and monthly
ticket discounts (saves 10 percent!),
TWITTER
A utility leak caused clouds of steam to burst at 7th Avenue and W. 10th Street in the West Village on
the night of April 2.
West Village blast
Steam pipe burst releases plumes of vapor
north and south of W. 10th
street, and the utility and the city
Department of Environmental Protection
remained at the scene, according
to the Fire Department rep.
Three steam customers lost service
due to the rupture and two of
them were hooked up again by 3:30
a.m. as Con Ed works to restore the
remaining outage, according to utility
spokesperson Alfonso Quiroz.
Crews are in the area to determine
the cause of the incident and
work on repairs, Quiroz added.
Steam had been emanating from
the grates on that street all day,
said Avanessians.
Her husband Russell Murphy
caught the incident on camera and
posted it on social media, showing
rows of fi refi ghters watching the
steam from halfway down the block.
Other footage from the scene
posted on the Citizen App shows
onlookers watching the steam surge
from the cracked street, as more
than a dozen emergency vehicles
line the avenue.
The Manhattan couple, both of
whom work in communications, decided
to leave the area to stay with
Avanessians’s parents in another
part of the borough due to concerns
about harmful particles in the air as
a result of the incident.
“We left at about 11:30 p.m. and
it was still going,” Murphy said. “We
did not hang out to fi nd out when it
would be turned off.”
Murphy cited a 2018 case when a
steam pipe ruptured in the Flatiron
district and sent white smoke and
debris containing asbestos into the
air. The city at the time evacuated
49 buildings and closed off three
blocks of Fifth Avenue.
DEP found asbestos in so-called
bulk samples the agency collected
from the ground, but Con Ed’s
air monitoring tests have so far
come up negative for the mineral,
said Quiroz.
The Villager, Villager Express, Chelsea Now, Downtown Express and Manhattan Express
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East Side Access is
going to bring LIRR
service to Grand
Central for the rst
time ever when
completed later
this year.
especially as major service
improvements come online for
both LIRR and Metro-North.
East Side Access, our marquee
megaproject, is going to bring
LIRR service to Grand Central
for the fi rst time ever when
completed later this year. This
will allow us to increase service
frequency by up to 30 percent at
some stations.
Meantime, the Third Track
project is adding some muchneeded
LIRR capacity on the
Mainline, which serves Queens
communities from Woodside to
Queens Village, and will provide
reverse commuters more options
given the ability to run additional
two-way service during rush
hours.
And we’re not forgetting about
Bronx residents who live in
Metro-North territory. MTA just
awarded a contract for Penn Station
Access, the project to build
four new MNR stations in the
East Bronx – a noted transit desert.
The new rail options at Hunts
Point, Morris Park, Co-op City
and Parkchester/Van Nest will
help cut travel times to Manhattan
by as much as 50 minutes.
It all comes back to our commitment
to transit equity – the
driving force behind everything
we do at MTA.
Janno Lieber is chair and CEO
of the MTA.
Member of the National
Newspaper Association
Member of the
New York Press Association
Member of the Minority
Women Business Enterprise
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Con Edison crews are investigating
a massive steam pipe
rupture in West Village on
Saturday night that sent clouds of
white vapor into the sky for hours.
The plumes shot out of the
ground at 7th Avenue and W.
10th Street around 9:45 p.m. on
April 2, leading to nearby businesses
and residents to evacuate,
according to a Fire Department
spokesperson. There were no
reported injuries.
A couple living right across the
street watched the dramatic scene
unfold outside.
“The apartment kept shaking
every couple of minutes and then
we looked outside and just a big
cloud, a billow of steam — we could
hardly see out our window,” said
Natasha Avanessians.
FDNY and Con Edison shut
down two steam valves on 7th Avenue
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