MTA officials have suggested the Staten Island Railroad should cancel promised new train service, citing the borough’s opposition to now-suspended congestion pricing.
The plan is to begin testing in August with the most advanced trains, known as the R211S, with manufacturer Kawasaki Heavy Industries set to deliver 75 of them, officials told the MTA’s Capital Committee last week.
During the debate, non-voting board member Norman Brown suggested the MTA put the cars on the city’s subways instead of in forgotten boroughs, a move in retaliation for the bitter fight by Staten Island politicians against a $15 congestion charge to get into Manhattan. Gov. Hockal suspended the plan indefinitely earlier this month.
“Can we get it done on the A-Line since our representatives in Staten Island at the state, local and federal levels don’t support or really care about the capital plan?” asked Brown, the Metro-North union representative.
MTA officials explained that because the Staten Island Railroad is entirely above ground, the cars would need some modifications to operate on subway lines in the other four boroughs, and MTA President of Construction and Development Jamie Torres-Springer was quick to dash dreams of rail revenge.
“Staten Island’s R44s are really old,” Torres-Springer said, referring to the railroad’s current fleet that dates back to the Nixon administration. “The SIR is a vital part of the region’s mass transit system, and we are working to protect safe and reliable service across the MTA system.”
Governor Brown’s proposal to force SIR passengers to continue using the old, breakdown-prone cars has infuriated Staten Islanders.
“Instead of asking how can we improve the commute for Staten Islanders, their mindset is, ‘How can we punish them and make it worse?'” Borough President Vito Fossella, who filed a lawsuit to put the brakes on the $15 toll, told the Post.
Albert, 34, one of about 7,000 SIR users each weekday, blasted Brown’s “cheap attacks” and noted that Democratic lawmakers in the commissioner’s boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens oppose the toll program.
“The subway lines that run through these areas [lawmakers’] “My neighbors… can’t even get a new car?” said the indignant lawyer, who rides the Staten Island Railroad from the St. George Ferry Terminal to his South Shore home.
Last week, MTA board members voted 10-1 to approve a delay to Hockle’s first-in-the-nation toll road program, effectively gutting the agency’s capital budget. The decision will force the MTA to postpone several major projects, including the Second Avenue subway extension and traffic light upgrades, officials said.
Brown told the Post that he wasn’t trying to punish Staten Islanders, but was simply proposing that the MTA install new cars on busier subway lines. “We’re just trying to make it more efficient,” he said. [Staten Island] “Buying a brand new car doesn’t make sense to me,” he said.
