I'm not really sure what to say about this brain-fart here, but somehow our legislators in Albany allowed a measure creating transparency and representation for passengers and riders to expire at the end of past year.
Rider and union advocates lost their combined six seats on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board Friday when state legislation authorizing the nonvoting posts expired.
"This is a real shame," said Andrew Albert, one of the affected board members. "I guess it just wasn't on the radar."
Albert sat on the board as a member of the NYC Transit Riders Council, on behalf of subway and bus riders. The Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road riders councils also had one member each on the board. "We may not vote, but we're involved in the decision-making and are consulted," another former board member, Ira Greenberg of the LIRR riders council, said.
One of New York's best transit bloggers, Benjamin Kabek, cut right to the point in his analysis :
As with most of Albany's recent transit policies, for the state to allow these key appointments to expire at a time of fiscal crisis for the MTA is simply irresponsible. To make matters worse, four State Senators earlier this year sponsored S4480, a bill to extend the the term until 2012. The bill was committed to the Rules Committee in July and has languished there ever since. It's just your typical Albany support for the MTA.
I would imagine that the general dysfunction of our State Senate is the main reason for that one. What Senator is really going to vote against non-voting seats for passengers and workers? That's about as easy a vote as you can get in Albany. And yet the provision expired without anyone noticing.
Just another daily reminder of how dysfunctional our state government is and how we desparately need to fix it . |
