It wasn’t Jay Walder MTA chief’s best week, after sitting through hours of complaints, but for us and for millions of New Yorkers it was a great chance to be there and try to reach the MTA’s decision makers.
We’ve live covered five events this week as you can view on the blog.
And here are some follow-up reports from the NYP and DailyNews on this week’s dramatic events in the transportation arena.
The public hearings on the MTA’s proposed cuts are over for New York City (there is one more scheduled in Long Island on Monday). The Brooklyn hearing created the most news. We live blogged the event and got dozens of pictures of the altercations that led to the arrests of several audience members. Check out how the contentious evening unfolded in our slideshow:
(note: to see the captions, you have to expand to full screen, by clicking the button in the slideshow’s lower right corner)
— Simone Sebastian
Posted in News, Politics and MoneyComments Off on SLIDESHOW: Budget Cuts Outrage Brooklynites
The series of New York City MTA public meetings is coming to an end tonight with a grand finale to be held at the Fashion Institute of Technology in midtown. We were on the scene for the hearings in Queens, The Bronx and Brooklyn and we are going to cover the event tonight. The debate has been heating up (NYCtracks.com was on the scene yesterday to cover the arrests at the hearing in Brooklyn) and protesters are expected to make their voices heard.
Tonight we will have two live blogs from the hearing. Walter Smith-Randolph will be covering the proceedings from within the hearing and Christopher F. Schuetze will be out on the street, covering the protests.
MTA Public Hearing – Manhattan – Fashion Institute of Technology, Seventh Avenue at 27th Street, Manhattan
Five people were arrested tonight at the MTA public hearing at the Brooklyn Museum, according to NYC Transit and NYPD officials. They say the people are likely to be charged with misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
The incident started when a young woman tried to take the speakers podium out of turn and got into an altercation with security officials who tried to stop her.
The audience rallied to her defense, prompting intense screaming matches with security. The scene was temporarily chaotic. Order was restored within five minutes and the meeting restarted with a much smaller crowd.
A transit official said some of the people who were arrested are college students. We have no confirmation on the students’ ages. At least two people who spoke during the hearing said that they attended New York high schools.
The audience had gotten increasingly agitated during the night as politicians and their representatives took the podium. Speakers were called to the microphone in the order that they registered. But many audience members shouted out that they wanted to hear from students.
