New York’s Staten Island. On January 3, representatives of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) intend to close a bus depot on Staten Island, but they anticipate that local service will not be significantly impacted.
However, detractors contend that rather than fewer services, the island’s expanding population calls for more.
According to MTA spokesman Megan Keegan, the organization intends to close Chelsea’s Meredith Avenue Depot since it is no longer required.
Due to an increase in capacity at Yukon, Castleton, and our most recent Charleston Depot, Meredith Depot is no longer required to serve bus operations in Staten Island. “Keegan said.” Bus service won’t be impacted by the lease’s termination.
The SIM3, SIM4X, SIM15, SIM30, SIM32, SIM33, SIM33C, SIM34, and SIM35 routes all use the Meredith Avenue Depot, which the agency opened in 2009.
As the MTA constructed the Charleston Depot, which opened in 2011, it was opened to relieve overflow at the Yukon and Castleton terminals.
When Meredith Avenue was opened, the MTA signed a 15-year lease for the property, paying $637,000. The lease had a 10-year termination option.
The MTA claims that closing the depot will save the agency $2.6 million, which some residents have conjectured is the true motivation.
“The Chelsea depot has some of the best driver availability and maintenance operations on Staten Island,” Daniel Cassella, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union’s Local 726 chapter, which represents Staten Island’s bus personnel, told the Advance/SILive.com in August.
“That’s not how the MTAs see it,” Cassella added. How much money can we save? is how they view it.
Service at the other depots on the Island would surely be impacted by the closing of the Meredith Avenue Depot, according to Cassella.
In a letter to MTA Chair and CEO Janno Leiber, the elected officials of the Island requested that the authority change its mind and not restrict bus service on Staten Island.
The union’s concerns regarding space at the other depots and the adjacent neighborhoods were shared by Borough President Vito Fossella in August. He said that he thinks the MTA should make life easier for travelers on the Island’s express buses rather than more difficult.
He remarked that since the population of Staten Island has increased since the construction of the bus station, we should look at the bare minimum to preserve what we have and look for methods to improve, enhance, and offer better service. I don’t believe that closing one of the depots is the best way to accomplish that.
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