“No bureaucratic regulation can trump common sense,” Gioia said. “Senior citizens shouldn’t have to walk an extra block, especially during the winter, to get to the community center they deserve.”
While the MTA contends its cutbacks will streamline service on the congested thoroughfare, Gioia called on the MTA to reinstate the bus stop at 39th Place and Queens Boulevard — even if the transit authority calls for 750 feet between stops.
For some seniors, catching a bus now means trudging across a busy intersection, often to a cacophony of honking horns. Others must walk though ice, rain and wind to a stop at 37th Street and Queens Boulevard, more than four blocks away.
“In fact, the wind blew me over, and I almost broke my shoulder,” McDonald said. “The frail and the elderly, they can’t walk.”
Rich McGrade, an assistant director at the senior center, said he can only afford to employ one van to pick up two groups of nine elderly men and women each morning and drop them off at home in the afternoon. With hundreds of attendees at the center, according to Sunnyside Community Center staffers, that does not come close to meeting demand.
McDonald said she has written to “everybody and their uncle” about restoring the stop, but hasn’t heard back from the MTA.
Don McCallian, president of the United Forties Civic Association, flipped through a stack of letters and petitions he has written to the transit agency.
Amongst the pile of correspondences, McCallian pointed to one response, — a letter dated Dec. 15 from the MTA which said the stop removal was necessary to provide overall service improvement for transit riders, noting also that the Q60 and Q32 serving Sunnyside run from South Jamaica in eastern Queens to Midtown Manhattan.
Community Board 2 District Manager Debra Markell-Kleinert has not been satisfied by the MTA’s reasoning.
According to Markell-Kleinert, instead of viewing Queens Boulevard as one long highway, the MTA should tailor the number of stops to needs of each community.
The lack of warning from the transit agency was also a problem, according to Markell-Kleinert.
“Nobody was notified in this community,” she said. “Not the councilman’s office, not the community board, not the seniors.”
C.B. 2 plans to hold hearings about how to rally the public to get the MTA to reinstitute the lost bus stops.
McDonald has her methods, too, even if it means hanging outside a bit longer.
“The next thing we can do is block Queens Boulevard,” McDonald said. “Once you block traffic back into Manhattan, somebody will answer you.”
McDonald has already picked her target destination, Van Dam Street in Long Island City.
“We hope we don’t have to go that far,” she said.
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