KILL THE B37 BUS?  Crazy.  Can the Metropolitan Transit Authority be serious when it suggests that this vital lifeline between the southernmost corner of Bay Ridge and downtown Court Street be eliminated?

 

LET’S HOPE NOT.  The “Third Avenue Bus”, as it’s known locally, might run irregularly, it may lurch along often at snail-like speed, but there is no way that the MTA should be permitted to shut it down.

 

HOW will the thousands of current riders–with senior citizens making up the largest group–get around and downtown if the Third Ave. route is discontinued?

 

STATE SENATOR MARTY GOLDEN cites another complication: “There are 400 businesses on this stretch of the Avenue alone, and thousands of people are employed here.  The impact on them would be tremendous.”

 

OUTGOING Congressman Vito Fossella expressed his shock that the so-called “Doomsday” MTA budget would end the Third Avenue service.  “The MTA shouldn’t take (any such action)…until they’ve cut every ounce of fat out of their bloated budges,” said Fossella.

 

CONG.FOSSELLA agreed with Sen. Golden that loss of the Third Avenue route would disproportionately hurt older Bay Ridgeites.  “The elimination of this route would also hit our local seniors especially hard as they would have no other accessible means of public transportation in this part of Bay Ridge” he said.

 

DEMONSTRATING bi-partisan unity on this critical issue was Dem. Councilman Vinnie Gentile, who said that “Either the MTA is overlooking the needs of seniors and the disabled…or they’re ignoring them.”

 

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