Published: November 16, 2003
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Published: November 16, 2003
If Shalinqua Fuller can avoid switching from the IRT #3 train to the BMT L train in East New York, Brooklyn, she does. But as a design student, she sometimes takes night classes, and one of them required her to switch. "I had to get off at the IRT #3 Junius Street stop, and walk through the darkness to the BMT L train side," she said. She didn't feel safe, and she didn't like the cost. "It's not fair for us to pay two times to go from one side to the other," she said.
Most of the city's converging subway lines share a stop or have connecting tunnels or bridges. But the No. 3 and the L lines cross without a nod to each other. The Junius Street stop on the No. 3 is only a block from the Livonia Avenue stop on the L, but passengers wishing to transfer must leave the system at one stop, walk to the next stop, and pay again. In a neighborhood where many people struggle to make ends meet, the situation can be costly.
Late last month, Community Board 5 voted to ask the M.T.A. for a free transfer area for the two stations. Some residents say there once was such an area, a bridge that burned down more than 50 years ago.
But Deirdre Parker, an M.T.A. spokeswoman, said a recent survey of riders found that only 3,000 people transferred between the two stops in the morning peak, not enough to warrant a free-transfer area. Two spots that qualified, she said, were the Jay Street and Lawrence Street stops in Brooklyn, with 6,000 riders switching each morning, and the Broadway-Lafayette and Bleecker Street stops in the Village, with 4,800. She could not give estimated costs for the projects, and had no information on any past bridge in East New York.
ENY City Councilman, Charles Barron, suggested that the city was ignoring the issue in favor of high-profile construction projects like the Second Avenue line in Manhattan. "When it comes to transportation and convenience with neighborhoods of color, we don't get as much attention," he said, adding that the current pedestrian route between the two stops is poorly lit and has been the scene of muggings and rapes.
Ms. Parker said the decision, which the agency may revisit in the future, was based on ridership and had nothing to do with the location.
Randy Hudson, Chairman of United Community Centers Transit Committee, the lead activist group, said residents had been calling for a free transfer point for over 50 year's. "New York is the empire city mainly because of the transportation here," he added. "otherwise N.Y, would be just like the rest of the other small U.S Cities."
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