MTA bus service was one of the major victims of the super storm Sandy. MTA had to stop bus services for three days in every borough in the New York City due to the storm. However, after Sandy’s terrible detriment, MTA began running buses on 31st October, Wednesday with following Sunday’s bus schedule.
One of the MTA bus supervisors in Jackson Heights terminal, Queens gave the feedback on the post Sandy situation. He said that the biggest challenge they faced after the storm was cleaning up streets. There were so many trees came down and blocked streets in Queens that made delay to begin the bus services. Another challenge MTA faced was fixing schedules for employees. Some of their employees live inNew JerseyandPennsylvania, who could not come to work afterSandydue to the transportation problem. Therefore, MTA had to arrange other drivers in a short period of time to fill out slots.
MTA showed sympathy to the post-sandy situation without taking any bus fares from 31st Oct. to 2nd Nov. However, they did not offer any reimbursement or substitute plan for the unlimited monthly cards.
Moreover, while MTA subway tunnels were flooded and damaged because of the storm, buses brought life again to people lives. People felt relief from their three days stuck lives at home, and started to go out for works, groceries and meet others. The bus services helped New Yorkers to back into the rhythm of their norm lives.
Tags: Hurricane Sandy · Recovery
Sandy is already a distant weather memory for my little corner of Bed Stuy, but the clean up has been a mammoth task for the thousands of people that were affected, and it has certainly changed the nature of my day-to-day routine.
I work for Cuny and our department is normally hard at work processing specific scholarships, and raising funds for the school. Since Sandy however, we have also been involved with helping students with their emergency post storm needs.
Have you ever noticed for example, that every metro card has a ten-digit code on it? Nor did I until I wrote up 200 of them so that we could log in and trace every free monthly card that we give out to the students who come daily through our doors, grateful for just a small bit of help amongst the chaos.
Its one of a number of straight forward but essential administrative tasks that I do which makes me feel like I am just tiny part of the Sandy recovery.
I feel privileged to play a role in the nations leading urban public university and the people I meet everyday are a constant source of inspiration for me. Despite everything, so many students are determined to get to their classes and finish up the semester the best they can.
Sometimes I am not sure we all realize just how incredibly important Cuny is an educational institution here in New York. It definitely makes me proud to know that ten campuses became emergency shelters in the aftermath of the hurricane.
Tags: Recovery
