[00:00:11] Speaker A: Welcome to Uptown Chats, a podcast where we share stories about environmental justice by and for everyday people. I'm your co host, Jaron.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: And I'm your other co host, Lonnie.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: Lonnie, can you tell the folks we acts mission statement.
[00:00:23] Speaker B: With pleasure. We act mission is to build healthy communities by ensuring that people of color and or low income residents participate meaningfully in the creation of sound and fair environmental health and protection policies and practices.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Nailed it. Gets better every time, doesn't it?
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Every single time.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Yeah. This episode was originally just going to be about transportation in general. Right. We had originally just wanted to talk about transportation and maybe even talk about bikes and bike infrastructure, partly because I was in a non fatal, clearly, bike accident earlier this year, about a month ago as a result of poorly designed bike infrastructure, aka non protected bike lanes. But I'm here and alive. And as much as we would love to talk about bike infrastructure, we're actually going to talk about equitable transit. Hence the title of the episode.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Transportation overall is a really large topic with a lot going on. So we could be talking anything about bike infrastructure, like you mentioned, all the way to the electrification of school buses and everything in between. But we really want to focus on equitable transit because when you think of New York and you think of New York City, what do you think of? You think of buses, subways, cabs, all of these different ways that New Yorkers uniquely get around. And so we wanted to focus on the fact that this is what people think about when they think about transit in New York City.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is great. I remember first kind of starting to learn that experience that when I moved to New York about four and a half years ago, I'd moved to New York City with my car and very quickly realized it's a terrible city to have a car in. I know some people do still keep their car in the city, but I think within two weeks of being in the city, got my first parking ticket and struggled to find parking multiple times. And I was like, why do people do this? This sounds. I, you know, quickly came to appreciate transit buses and trains in the city.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: And you also probably realized that most New Yorkers don't actually own a car or a vehicle.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Yeah, you don't need it.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: You don't. You shouldn't need it.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: Yeah, you don't need it. But even more excitingly, another reason that we're excited to be talking about equitable transit in New York is because congestion pricing, which a lot of folks have been paying attention to over the last several months, probably longer than that, however long it's been around as an idea. Finally got approval, federal approval, and is going to become a reality. Right.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Lots of excitement. Sorry, you cannot hear that in my tone.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: I see it in your face, but the people can't see your face, Lonnie. I mean, I actually have an article here right in front of me. This is our first little bit of EJ in the news, a new bit that we just started to put into practice, but it's from the Gothamas. The title of this article is NYC congestion pricing gets key federal approval, possibly in place by April 2024. That's exciting news because people have been talking about it for a long time. And April 2024, that's not that far away. Yeah.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: And we actually been doing a lot of work around congestion pricing and kind of really understanding the importance of this for riders and those who do use our transit system. One of the biggest pieces about congestion pricing is that it's going to bring money into our transit system to improve the system that we use every day.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: To your point about. I feel like, again, a lot of people have mixed feelings about congestion pricing. But like you said, the real win when it comes to congestion pricing is that it means there's money for upgrades, much needed upgrades to the transit system. As much as we love and hate sometimes, the transit system in New York, one of the biggest challenges, it needs more money. It's often, like so many challenges in the city, it's underfunded.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: Right.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: There's more money that needs to be there.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Another great thing about the congestion pricing being implemented is that that money that is raised through congestion pricing also is going to go towards projects that can help with air quality, particularly in communities of color and low income, communities that have been disproportionately impacted by all of the polluting facilities that are in their neighborhood as well. So this goes to tree planting, asthma clinics.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: In other words, it's a great thing both for the transit system and just the city in general.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: Also, another great thing that came up in the news recently is that Governor Hokel announces free fare bus routes included in an MTA pilot. So there's going to be a pilot program that adds one free bus route in each borough.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: Yeah. All the more reason for us to be talking about equitable transit. Buses, subways, all the things to talk a little bit more about equitable transit in the city. We actually have two special guests on our show today that we're going to roll those interviews here in just a second, one with Flor Hwang. Who is an original member of Wex transportation working group or track, and Louis Bailey, or goes by Bailey, who is our manager of membership and organizing here, but has done a lot of work around transportation and transit here in the city. And during our interview with Bailey, I think it is, we came up with the four A's of transportation that you'll hear about, but we'll tease you here a little bit with them now. And these are the four A's that really speak to how you design a good transit system. And four A's are accessibility, affordability, availability and air quality. So we won't say too much more about them now. We're going to circle back to them later when we're talking to Bailey. So sit tight, relax, and enjoy these two great interviews with two great community members here from we act. Enjoy.
[00:06:02] Speaker C: Hi, my name is Flora Huang and I have been a member of we act for environmental justice for. Wow. How long ago?
I think about at least twelve years. And I was actively involved in the transit Riders action committee or track for sure.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you. You jumped right into our first question. How long you've been here at weact? And for those who don't know what track is, can you tell us a little bit about it and what your experience was being involved with that?
[00:06:35] Speaker C: Yeah, sure. So track is the group that focused on issues of transit justice. And so transit justice is based on the idea that the service in midtown or downtown Manhattan should be the same service up here. That if whatever service they have up over there in the more affluent neighborhoods, we should get the same kind of service. We know that's not true. We know it's far from the truth. And that's why we get involved in this work with transit justice. And we focus mainly on, of course, transportation issues that affect upper Manhattan.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: Can you say a little bit about how you got involved and what brought you into this work and why you were so passionate about it?
[00:07:24] Speaker C: Yeah, so I have been. In addition to being a member of track, I'm also actively involved in working families party, the Washington Heights Club. And one of the local issues the Washington Heights club took on was the really horrible elevator service along the one line, 160 eigth, 181st, 191st. But 180 1st was probably the worst out of all of them because it was just common for someone to wait 1020, sometimes even 30 minutes just to exit the stations because it was so crowded, the minute one of those elevators broke down, forget it. It was a hazard. It's amazing nothing actually did happen because when you would see people crowded on that platform. And it just took one incident. You could see just.
I don't even want to shudder to think about things that could have gone wrong. And I think I heard a story about one time when the elevator got stuck for 45 minutes and someone who had asthma was ready to have an asthma attack and someone else had to lend her her ventilant inhaler.
That should not be happening. And so we actively would fly riders, telling them to call three one one every time something like that happened.
We met with the community board, we met with elected officials, we met with the MTA to discuss the need to improve services. And finally, we have seen that complete new upgrade of those elevators, although one of them is not working right now.
But yeah, it was a huge improvement compared to what we saw 1020 years ago. And then I got involved with commute, which was put together by the Pratt center. And they also worked on issues of transit equity, too, in fact. Yes. Well, at that point, we were pushing for bus rapid transit, which we got the modified version, select bus service. And yeah, it was advocating for neighborhood transit deserts, so neighborhoods that are densely populated but do not have adequate services.
So I was involved in that. And then one of my friends, she told me about the track meetings at weak for environmental justice. I was familiar with weak as an organization, mainly in the Columbia development that was happening at that time. And that's how I got actively involved. And I brought up the one train. A lot of people agreed with me on the one train issue, as well as the 125th street corridor and why those buses are so slow.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that's great to hear that. And there's a couple of things that I wanted to circle back to, was one, I don't know if anyone has been in that train station, the one and 181 street, but it is a very scary thought to think of if you are trapped in that station for lots of different reasons. And I'm just thinking about someone who just came from outside and is extremely hot out. Not only is it extremely hot in that station, you also talked about someone who may have asthma or breathing issues.
I didn't really think about something like that as well. So that's just a great point about the need for elevated service and the quality that's needed for stations like that. And I also wanted to ask you if you could explain very quickly the difference between the two types of bus services that you mentioned you said you were looking, aiming for.
[00:11:08] Speaker C: Was it rapid bus rapid transit?
[00:11:10] Speaker B: Bus rapid transit. But you got select bus service. Can you just kind of slightly explain difference between the two.
[00:11:15] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. So this was actually something I learned about through commute and the work that Pratt center did with commute. And so bus rapid transit, my understanding is it originated in Latin America, mainly in.
Because I remember reading about this, too. I think I remember reading about how Brasilia was created, where they created a whole bunch of highways, but no actual streets.
So, yeah, you can imagine how it was not a pedestrian. So Brazilia is not a pedestrian friendly city. And I think Boca Ta had something similar, too, where they had a lot of these highways but not actual streets. So buses were a way for many everyday residents to commute to and from. And so it was set up so that the buses kind of ran almost like a subway station. I guess the closest, what you could think of is probably the light rails. Like if you've ever been to Jersey City, they have the. Or. Yeah, Hudson county, they have the light rails, where it's basically like an above ground station where the bus has its own dedicated bus lane, similar to select bus service.
Like select bus service, you pay before you get on. So that reduces the time to actually pay your fare.
Usually there's someone actually working at that station to make sure that you pay your fare. That's one of the things that select bus service doesn't have.
It's easily wheelchair accessible so that you can easily get onto the bus. The lights are timed properly so that the bus doesn't hit too many red lights. And that's the idea. And of course, it only stops at major stops. So it's almost like it's the closest thing you can get to a railway. And it's a very cost effective way of commuting or of transportation, because it costs a lot of money to build rails. Let's look at the second Avenue subway line that we just saw being built. It was $6 billion for three stations. Now, some of that, of course, was because the stations itself probably didn't need to be as elaborate as they are. But, yeah, the rail itself didn't cost that much money. If I remember, it was the actual stations that ran into the billions, and then now they're going to build three more into 125th, and that's also going to run into the billions.
So this was a way for the buses to run almost as quickly as the rails, but much more cost effective at a fraction of the cost. So select bus service is kind of like that. You do have the dedicated bus lane, you have less stop, so it runs more quickly. You do pay your fare before you get there. But there's no one there to kind of regulate it. In fact, you think about it, sometimes they have to stop the bus just to make sure that everybody has paid their fare, because we know some people aren't paid their fares. They're just willing to take that risk for that ticket. And the lights are not timed properly in the way that bus rapid transit is.
So, yes, it's a very modified version. And I saw on, I think on the M 14 because I commute to the lower east side and I'm all the way on Avenue D, which is another transit desert. But I noticed one day when I was trying to get on the M 14 D SBS from Union Square that they didn't have that. I think it's called neck down, if I remember. It's like an extension of the platform that makes it easier for you if you are trying to, if you were, let's say, using a cane or a walker or a wheelchair. And right across the street is Mount Sinai, and there's a whole bunch of elderly that use that particular medical office. And I'm watching them struggle to get onto this.
You know, I had to tweet at the MTA. It said, why do you have it on one side going west, but you don't have the other side going east? As I'm watching all these poor seniors trying to get onto the.
Yeah, that's some of the differences between select bus service and bus rapid transit. So we wanted bus rapid transit. We got select bus service.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: Thanks for that.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And we're actually going to circle back and ask some more specifics about that in a second. But you're kind of touching on a lot of things that relate to, I think, really paint the picture for how transportation can be seen as an environmental justice issue. And a couple of things that you said that I want to circle back to, you can maybe incorporate it into your answer for this question.
Those were transit desert, the idea of a transit desert and the idea of accessibility versus availability of transit. So just keeping those things in mind, how do you see transportation as an environmental justice issue?
[00:16:45] Speaker C: Well, first of all, it takes cars off of the road. So that's the first thing is that the more cars we get off the road, the less fuel we have to use, the less exhaust we are releasing into the air. We just talked about asthma, and all of those things do infect in quality of life, health.
So that itself is enough of an environmental justice issue. As a justice issue, people need transportation is when you think about what makes a city going, transportation is like the circulatory system, like our body, we have a circulatory system that moves blood from vessel to heart and gives us everything that we need. It's the same thing. That transportation system is what we need to get to work, to get to our doctor's appointments, to go to school, to drop off our kids, to this program, to everything.
You don't have an adequate transportation system. You really don't have a well functioning city. That's just plain and simple. And the idea that just because you make much less money than, let's say, a Wall street investment banker doesn't mean you should get less service. It doesn't mean your commute should be longer.
And so that's how I see this as an environmental justice issue, is that we're talking about air quality, we're talking about health, we're talking about improved quality of life that we shouldn't have to travel an hour or more to work or to school every day while some people don't have to travel 30 minutes. So that's how I see it as an environmental justice issue.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you for that. And just to quickly define it, I think people kind of get the picture by this point. But in a couple of words, how would you describe a transit desert? What does that in your mind's eye look like?
[00:19:06] Speaker C: So a transit desert is any area that does not have easy availability and access to public transportation. So I think I just brought up, yeah, Alphabet City is probably an example of a transit desert here in Manhattan. You would think here in Manhattan you shouldn't have to walk any more than five minutes to your train station.
That doesn't exist in Alphabet City, where anywhere they go, they just have to travel a long distance to get to any kind of appointment. I work in the child welfare field, and so I work with families who already have a lot of appointments to go to. And sometimes when I wonder why they're not able to go, it's like, well, they got to get on that bus and that bus takes them to, and then from there they have to travel to a train, wherever they're going, or they have to walk twelve blocks to the closest train station.
And so, yeah, that's a transit desert where you don't have enough alternatives in terms of buses and trains to get to your appointments, to get to work, to get to school.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: Thank you. And to maybe emphasize your point, I think I maybe once have ever been to Alphabet City, and maybe that's because there's not a lot of transportation options to get there and back so I think that maybe emphasizes your point.
[00:20:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I like the analogy of the circulatory system and our thinking about our transit on our own transit system as well, and kind of thinking things moving. Especially. I feel like it's also a slightly. And I don't know if you agree with is it's like a very New York, New Yorker thing to think about transportation in this wide array of, like, there are buses, there's trains, there's cars, there's cabs, there's just a wide range of ways to get around. But when you think about New York City, you think about the train, you think about that system.
So, you know, out of all different modes of transportation throughout the city, and kind of thinking about transportation as an EJ issue, what made you get involved with the select bus service campaign?
[00:21:15] Speaker C: So this was actually something that track members agreed upon when we were still organizing. I still remember when Cecil had his talks and bless his know, we were deciding on three issues we wanted a campaign around. And so I pushed the one train. That was my thing. I was definitely pushing the one train and the elevator issues.
A lot of people also brought up the 125th street corridor and how you can basically walk faster from Eigth Avenue to Third Avenue.
And then I think the third issue we focused on was a more kind of statewide, citywide issue, where we wanted to have the MTA board member to be an actual real, so a riding member of the public, to actually have vote and not just have an advisory role. And so that's how we decided to focus on the 125th street station. Because, I mean, the 125th street bus corridor, because it is.
It shouldn't have to take you 45 minutes just to get from First Avenue to Eigth Avenue.
And so at 125th street, again, going back to the circulatory system, I used to teach biology. That's why I thought about that analogy. It's a very important artery. And so that's how we decided to focus. And around that same time, I think there was a push to make the m 60, because it not only plays a role in getting across 125th street, but takes you to the airport. And so that's how we decided to focus on 125th street and making that a select bus service. And yes, we have seen a huge improvement, too.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: Yeah, keeping up with that analogy, as someone who takes the 101 bus all the time across 125th street, that artery is very clogged all the time. And so there is a need. There's still improvements that can be made, but the times where I do go to LaGuardia Airport and I do have to take the m 60, it is relatively quick. Like, you get there pretty quickly to get across that corridor and to the airport as well. And I've also noticed one thing, too, that's really helpful for anyone who's employed at LaGuardia airport as well. It really helps with a lot of the employees that work there who may live uptown or get off the train and can get on that bus, and they can actually get to work quickly and on time. I can't imagine, if that didn't exist, how long it took them to get to work beforehand.
[00:24:03] Speaker C: So my older son went to tag young scholars in east Harlem on 109th and second, and I remember actually taking the entire m 101 route from tag young scholars back to our home. I think it took like 2 hours.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it shouldn't take that long at.
[00:24:23] Speaker C: All to go from 109th and second to up here and to Washington Heights.
[00:24:32] Speaker A: And I think that's the image that a lot of people have in the city. When I talk to a lot of people, I know about taking the bus, like, oh, you take the bus. It's going to take forever to get places. I mean, it can sometimes, but this is the image that we're working against to try to get people to invest and care more about the buses as a potential option. Because this vision that you painted for us earlier about really streamlined service, it running terribly fast as the subway, that would be great. Me just being able to walk out. I'd literally have a bus stop right in front of my apartment. Me being able to step out and just hop on that and get where I'm going as fast as I would on the subway, that would be great. So many people have this image of buses in the city just being so slow because in a lot of places they are. And that's really detracting from what it could be.
[00:25:20] Speaker B: Do you or anyone, when you were part of the track or the transportation working group, ever discuss a vision for the 125th street corridor? Like what it could look like to make it the most kind of transportation justice forward?
[00:25:37] Speaker C: Well, I remember us having that walk through with the Department of Transportation and the MTA because they were asking us like, okay, so if we're only going to stop at certain stops, where should we stop? And so it was like, obviously the St. Nicholas because the a train is there, and Lennox Avenue because the two train is there, and Lexington Avenue because the four, five, six is there.
There was, I think, even a debate because you have Metro north is nearby, so it stopped in between.
And then we focus on Second Avenue because this anticipated Second Avenue, which I just found out it's not even going to stop at 25th and second. They're going to have it stop near the metro north.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that will be the terminal point.
[00:26:32] Speaker C: Yeah. And I'm like, but what about the people living near Second Avenue who need that?
When we do have select bus service, you can just take, if you really needed to take Metro north. Yeah. So that was one of our. We showed them those were the main points.
The other issue, of course, is when people clog the bus lanes, I guess, clearly, so the lights actually timing properly, and when cars actually clog all the bus lane. I think I noticed this is something I've seen with all select bus service, because I remember being able to take the M 15 from lower east side to East Harlem in 40 minutes like that.
[00:27:17] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:27:18] Speaker C: I remember a time when you could take that BX twelve from Inwood all the way to the botanical gardens within, like, I think, yeah, 25 minutes, you could just, like you were there. But because of congestion, I'm sure this got worse with all the ride hail apps, because there's way too many cars on the road right now that it's just slowed down more.
Whenever I would see a car blocking on the bus lane, it would be nice to actually see that bus way where, like, 125th street would just be completely transportation free. Now. I could see a lot of pushback. Like, I know right now they're talking about making Main street, flushing a bus way, too. And there is a huge pushback from a lot of the drivers. But having to use the select bus service now on 14th street, which is now a bus way. Yeah, that 14 D is running much more quickly than when it used to be this really slow crawl.
And, yeah, something like a bus way would be nice, and actually timed lights so that the buses would run much more efficiently. So those are kind of some of my vision for how we can get to run much more quickly.
[00:28:48] Speaker A: On that same vein, and just thinking about beyond 125th street, there's probably some challenges throughout northern Manhattan that, and we've, I think, touched on a couple of them at this point. What are some of the most pressing issues that you see related to transportation uptown? And I think that maybe the sea train, if anything, related to the sea train, might be folded into that. As someone who's taken the sea train plenty, I could think of some things. So what are your perspective on just generally transportation related challenges uptown? And if you want to rope the sea train into that as well.
[00:29:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I have plenty to talk about before I even get into the sea train because I can do talk a lot about that one. The one thing I see is also the inconsistency of buses. I know they've done a lot of rerouting of these buses. Like, I know they eliminated some stops on the M 100 so that it can run more quickly and then it doesn't run the 125th street corridor anymore.
So, yeah, that's one thing where I could see there's a need. Obviously, I brought up the elevator issues, although ever since they overhauled those elevators on 181st street, it's definitely much better.
And yes, the sea train. So, yeah, it's definitely one of the most infrequent, I think I checked on, I'm sorry. Strap hangers campaign. Strap hangers campaign. You know how they rate all the train lines every year? And the sea train is like one of those trains that it's bad, but it's never bad enough that it doesn't get its attention. Because I remember the five train got some attention, the n and R, when they used to call it never and rarely. Yes. That was the name for it.
[00:30:35] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:30:35] Speaker C: Yes, the five. Yeah. Everyone forgets the five because everyone ignores the five because all the focus is on the four. Same thing with the three. Right. The three is, like, completely forgotten because all the focus is on the two and the c is the other one. The c is like one of those train lines where all the focus is on the a and the e, and everyone just forgets the c train.
And I'm looking at it when we go talk about this as an environmental racism, environmental justice issue. So when you look at the stops where the c only stops, like, only sea train, like, no b and c. Just the c or just the c or AC and E. Only all black and brown neighborhoods. 155th, 163rd, up here. Then you go to Brooklyn, all the Fort Green, Clinton Hill, Lafayette Avenue, Ralph Avenue, Bedstyle East New York, Clinton Hill. Well, Fort Green's gentrifying, so I don't know if I can bring Fort Green into that mix, but it always seems to affect black and brown neighborhoods. And it makes you wonder why this is not a priority sometimes. But again, it's the lack of frequency that if I miss a train, I have to wait at least ten, sometimes 15, and sometimes even 20 minutes for a train. Whereas if I miss that one train, the most I have to wait is four minutes, the most every once in a while, one, five minutes. I know, riders alliance right now is doing six minute service even during off peak hours. And I'm looking at them like I'm lucky if I get six minute service during peak hours.
And so now I understand why the one train runs that often, because if you do have to wait more than five minutes for that one train, it is packed. So I get it. But I almost feels that sometimes that it's packed because the city train runs so infrequently. So more people are packing themselves onto one train. At least that's the feeling I get when less people run the sea trade. And it's like that vicious cycle. Like, less people ride the c trade, so therefore, it runs more infrequently, and so therefore, you're stuck with infrequent service. So therefore, even less people ride the sea trade. It's just this vicious cycle that kind of repeats itself. And I remember asking someone that worked in the MTA, why is it that this happens, that if I miss a sea train, I have to wait at least ten minutes, whereas if I miss the one train, the most I have to wait is four minutes, usually two or three minutes? And they explained to me, it's like, well, the c shares the line with the A from Canal street to Hoyt Scammerhorn, the B from 130 fifth to 59th, and the e from 50th to really 42nd from 42nd to canal. And therefore, there's no need to run the sea that frequently. I said, okay, except if you live in one of those stations where only the sea runs. And guess what? Those happen to be, once again, black and brown neighborhoods.
He, of course, didn't get that. I mean, one of my solutions, like, at least for up here, and I actually wrote a blog about it with, well, your colleague and fellow track member, Louis Bailey. And it was his solution, maybe the sea could kind of run similarly to the way the four, five, six, you know, how they have the circle and the diamond when they go into the Bronx. Or the seven has the circle and the diamond. Well, the seven already has a circle and diamond, but. Yeah, and it's something very similar like that where you have a diamond a and a circle a, depending on whether it's going to far Rockaway or whether it's going to Ozone park. And that. That a would stop at 155th and 163rd. And then we can figure out a plan for the Brooklyn side. Because I don't want to ignore the people in Brooklyn.
If you take Ralph Avenue, I feel your pain, too. We're going through the same.
That's. That was one of the solutions that I've proposed that maybe the MTA look at. But, yeah, if you rely on the sea, it's also no surprise that this is the, quote, unquote, last affordable part of the neighborhood, although that's slowly changing, too.
And I'm just getting the feeling that the minute this neighborhood gentrifies even more, that maybe they'll start stepping up.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: Yeah, that sounds about accurate.
[00:35:54] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:35:54] Speaker B: And that's also something that we look at as well in the environmental justice space and any of these justice spaces, too, is like, as we make these improvements to these neighborhoods, we also want to make sure we're not displacing people so that the people who have been living here and who have been suffering all these different issues actually get to see the benefits and not pushed out into a neighborhood that has the same problems. And then the cycle kind of continues going from there. So that's great that you brought that up, too, of just the need to make sure that we're not displacing people as we try to make improvements in their own neighborhoods and communities.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So we're near the end of our time together. So I want to pose it to you to mention anything else that is on your mind that you think is important for the listeners to know about transportation or about other work that you're doing that you want to share.
[00:36:42] Speaker C: Yeah, sure. So actually, somewhat related to transportation, I've actually been doing a lot of work on school bus safety, too, and school bus rights. So I got to give a special plug to the people at parents to improve school transportation. Or pissed NYC to Sarah Catalinato and Miragros cancel. They're really huge powerhouses over there.
Sarah is actually a retired sets teacher whose children were also school bus riders. Like, my kids know that's what she does is school bus advocacy. And yeah, we actually featured her. I happen to have my own podcast called New Normal and parenting that I recorded mainly for parents during the pandemic. And yeah, one of the issues we did bring on was school bus, like school bus safety once when the schools were beginning to reopen. And what were schools doing and making sure that you are having bus drivers that were a adequately paid, adequately trained and were given job security. So employment, the EPP employment protection plan and the same thing with the bus attendants. Like, I want someone who is driving my children to school to be very qualified.
And that's not asking for much.
[00:38:26] Speaker A: Well, thank you so much for joining us. And we'll make sure to include information in the show notes for your podcast so folks can check that out. And we'll be joined by Bailey to talk more about transportation shortly after this. So talk a little bit more about anything we might have missed. But thanks again and hope to have you back soon.
[00:38:45] Speaker C: Sure. Yeah. And I'll definitely share some of the blogs that I've written on this, including the one that Bailey and I wrote together.
[00:38:51] Speaker A: All right. All right. Thank you. Thank you.
All right. We are joined now by Wex very own Lewis Bailey. He goes by Bailey. But Bailey, do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself and give folks a little bit of background about how long you've been at we act, what you work on, all that sort of stuff?
[00:39:19] Speaker D: My name is Lewis Bailey, and again, as Jaren said, I go by the name Bailey. Been at we act since 2012 when I came on as a volunteer working on the select bus service on 125th Street. I chair also the planning committee and I'm the manager of membership and organizing here at the organization.
[00:39:38] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you. Bailey, do you want to say a little bit about your experience with the 125th Street select bus service? We talked about that a little bit with Flora, but it'd be great to hear what your experience was. It sounds like that was your first real campaign that you worked on, right?
[00:39:54] Speaker D: That is correct. It was pretty contentious. As people know, at one time there was four bus routes going along 125th street, and it took forever just to get across. You could walk faster across 125th street. So the idea was prompted through we act to have a bus that could kind of get you across a little faster in a special lane which eventually came out to be called select bus service. A lot of the shop owners along 25th street didn't want it. They didn't want buses skipping their particular offices going down 125th street. So we had some pushback originally, but we was trying to get them to understand we just wanted faster service along 125th street.
[00:40:41] Speaker B: And at what stage in the campaign did you come on?
[00:40:44] Speaker D: At the very beginning, I came in in the middle of it when we were just really doing more outreach. We were having these community charrettes with the community boards because the bus traverses community boards 910 and eleven. So we had to get buy in, which was really tough because everybody had a different lens of what they wanted for the bus to come across. They didn't want the bus skipping their stops in their community. So it took a while to get everybody on board. And even some of the elected officials had pushback and questions. But we kept, as always, in organizing, you just keep making the ask, keep making the ask. And eventually everybody came around, and it turned in what we now call select bus service, the M 60.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: And besides the 125th Street select bus service campaign, what are some of the other projects that you've worked on that are important to react and are important projects that you feel like people should know about?
[00:41:43] Speaker D: I think people should know that accessibility is important for the subways. People take buses and trains, but our subways here in north and Manhattan, we have 42 subway stations, but only seven are accessible via an elevator. And that shouldn't be. That should be an environmental justice issue. So currently I'm working on 125th street and Broadway train station, where the number one, we want to get an elevator. At that train station, they have an escalator, but the escalator only takes you to the mezzanine, where the token booth is. And then you still have to traverse another ten steps to get to the platform. So we're working on that with the elevator lobby, a local organization, and we're just trying to bring Columbia on board to say, hey, let's make this a priority for our area residents in northern Manhattan.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: So can you kind of walk us through a little bit about what does that process look like from the organizing perspective? When you're kind of getting together and you're building that power with the community for these kind of campaigns, what are some of the things that you have to think about?
[00:42:49] Speaker D: I think with any campaign, you have to look at it from the perspective of the community resident.
What do people want? People want access to good jobs and good food, but also with transportation, you want trains that are on time, stations that are clean, and you want to be able to access this train station without having to navigate 2030 and sometimes 40 sets of stairs to get to the platform. So when you talk to members or you talk to community residents, you want to hit them right in the heart. You want to get what is it that they want to see? And residents, if you ask them the right questions, they'll tell you what they desire, what they want, and what do they consider lacking?
[00:43:31] Speaker A: So you mentioned this already a little bit in one of your previous answers, talking about transportation as an environmental justice issue. And a couple of things came up when we were talking to Flora, things that you mentioned as well, thinking about accessibility and availability. And she used the term transit deserts. And just because I think it's interesting to really try to put in precise words, how do you see transportation as an environmental justice issue? And why is that such a driving force for the work that you do here at Weyang.
[00:44:02] Speaker D: I think when I look at transportation, I look at it from, I'm looking at it. A lot of our highways run through environmental justice communities. We have the cross ponce is a classic example of environmental racism. Robert Moses bulldozed over 3000 homes to build across Bronx Expressway. And our train systems are kind of built also the same way. They come through communities. But the communities that need the most have to take a bus to get to the train station and that impacts people's quality of life. If you have to take a bus to a train just to get to work or even to take your kid to school, that is impeding on people's quality of life. And I just think accessibility, affordability are key components. We have an upcoming transit fair height coming up and people can't afford another. Whether it's fifteen cents, twenty cents, that adds up throughout the year. It could be an extra dinner, it could be an extra movie out with the family and it could be a vacation if you add it all up. So the people that reside in these communities need this type of service to serve them and serve all of their needs.
[00:45:16] Speaker B: I have a quick question really for you. Do you know now, because I don't even check anymore, because I'm grateful and have that privilege to not have to worry about it too much. How much is a monthly unlimited metro card?
[00:45:25] Speaker D: It's now up to $130 and it's going to rise again. $130 is a lot to ask a person who is a limited means to pay that amount. The median income for the Bronx is $28,000. So people have to kind of juggle. Am I going to miss a meal here or I'm not going to go out and do something. So that's a big problem for communities. We have families that I know that share a metro card. The parents use it during the week and they give it to the kid and the kid can use it on the weekend. So it shouldn't be, you should be able to have access to be able to go in and out around the city. New York is unique. We depend more on our transit system than any other one in the country. So it's important that the fares stay where it is or give people a reduced fare card to make sure that they're able to get around the city.
[00:46:22] Speaker A: Yeah, so I'm hearing a couple of things now, like thinking about trying to define transportation and really talk about some of the dimensions of it as it relates to environmental justice. We talked about accessibility, like making stations actually accessible for people, elevators, working elevators and talking about availability, are they actually in the communities that need them? Affordability. Besides those three things, I'll happen to start with an a. What are some other things that you feel like are important to build good transportation system that serves environmental justice communities or that serves low income communities, that serves communities of color in ways that it's not doing now?
[00:47:03] Speaker D: I just know when New York City transit first came about, it was meant for people coming from the suburbs, the other borough, outer boroughs, coming into the city to work and going back. And that's when people worked at an eight to four, nine to five.
It has drastically changed since then. Now people are working ten to 611 to 712. People are working around the clock. But the subway system and the service doesn't match that. So you could be coming home at 08:00, 09:00 at night, and the train is coming every 1520 minutes. That's a lot as compared to during the rush hour, which is considered six in the morning to like 930 in the morning. You don't have the regular subway service that you need. So I think the MTA needs to expand service to meet the needs of the people. They always saying, oh, they want people to come back, but you have to give them something to come back to. So I think the MTA needs to rethink this. Rush hour is only 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening. Rush hour is 24 hours in New York City.
[00:48:07] Speaker B: That's a really good point. I guess I don't think about it that way until we're in this very nine to five centric view of the world when a lot of people, especially in a lot of communities that are underserved, don't work traditional nine to five jobs and don't necessarily travel into downtown Fidae area to do their work. And so I think that's a really interesting point of like, there is no real rush hour in New York City. It's always rush hour, technically.
[00:48:35] Speaker D: And we saw that happen during the pandemic. What happened if you worked overnight? They shut down the subways from 12:00 p.m. To six in the morning.
How are speed people supposed to get around? If I can't afford the subway, I definitely can't afford to take an Uber or a lyft. So how are people expected to go around? So you penalized the people that serve the service and you just made them get into a position where it was even worse than they already imagined.
[00:49:04] Speaker A: So something that I think that a lot of people related to transportation, I think this is related to what we're talking about and covering all the dimensions of transportation. During the pandemic, one of the most impacted groups were folks working on the transit system, subway operators who couldn't avoid being exposed because there were people who were still taking the subway, trying to go to work, trying to do things in person. And there was a huge impact of COVID on transit workers. How do you feel like this whole discussion around environmental justice and transportation includes them in the conversation and thinking about folks who are working for the transit system?
[00:49:42] Speaker D: I think it was an injustice to force people, even though I know they had to work, to force them into a situation of potentially contracting Covid and then that reducing service even further because you don't have enough operators to operate the trains and open up the doors and clean the subways and maintain the subway cars in the subway yards. It was a whole lot to unpack, but those are the cascading effects of having a pandemic when we had it and the way it just blossomed all over the dog on city, it was just unreal.
[00:50:17] Speaker A: But in the general work that the transportation working group does, do transit workers factor into, is that like something that, is there any issues with having enough transit workers to operate the system or a good pay for those jobs? Is that a part of the conversation at all or is that kind of outside of what you all focus on as part of the working group?
[00:50:36] Speaker D: I think right now it's out, but it's a good topic to bring up in terms of these workers. Yes, they deserve rights. They're in a union. They deserve the rights. But the group mainly focuses on the average New Yorker that has to get up and maybe take a bus to a train or the person knows if they don't catch that 07:00 a train that they're going to be late for work. So if that train is five minutes late, then that means they're going to be late for work. So there's a lot of the working group discuss during the meetings that we have.
[00:51:10] Speaker B: Transportation itself, as we're talking, is such a wide topic when it comes to environment and climate justice and transit justice, as Flora talked about when we were talking to her. It's such a wide topic. Can you kind of maybe briefly walk through some of the transit related campaigns that we act has done, or kind of just talk through some of them and how they kind of relate to the work that we do?
[00:51:33] Speaker D: Well, the first was when I came on board in 2012, was the select bus service, but we've been kind of working on the outskirts. Not directly working on issues, but we've been supporting other groups like the Riders alliance and Transportation alternatives and some of their initiatives. But we're always concerned that we want New Yorkers, the average New Yorkers, to be able to live, work, play, pray and go to school. But how do you get there? New York City transit, there's just no way around it. And we're a 24 hours city, so people are moving all about. But we continue to advocate to make sure that, again, these trains are accessible, the system is affordable, and that people's commutes are not one or 2 hours, depending on the line you're on. If you're in far Rockaway and you're coming to the city, your commute is about an hour and 45 minutes to get into the city. And that should not be.
[00:52:29] Speaker A: Thank you. And thanks for bringing up the a's again, because I thought of one more a to add to the list, and I think this is also related to brace yourself, and no surprise here, it's air quality, because obviously I'm the air quality person. Another thing I think a lot of people think about when they think about transportation is what is the impact of our transportation system on our local air quality. And I know that there's some of our historic campaigns that I think we've maybe mentioned before, but we can recap them here as well, that have been related to transportation and air quality. Do you want to speak to some of those? I know they may not be directly related to the work that the transportation working group is doing now, but I think they're relevant and maybe helpful.
[00:53:07] Speaker D: I do think the air quality in the system is substandard because you have to think about how below grade, below the street level you are. And there's a limited amount of space as the train comes in. The train comes out of different tunnels going to different boroughs, so the air quality is poor. And when you take a good 3 million people in the morning that are traveling, going to work, school, going wherever they're going, there's a potential for a real issue regarding health and people spreading bacteria or any type of other respiratory illness to another person that's sitting right next to them. So I know the air quality is bad down there, but you got to get to work. You got to get to work.
[00:53:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's related to air quality in the subway itself, right? Metal on metal, those brakes grinding, you can hear it when you're on the subway platform. Like, it hurts my ears. It's probably best friend of lungs and we'll circle back. I think that's interesting for us to talk about in terms of folks who are less familiar with some of our other campaigns around transportation and air quality. Could you briefly mention some of those? And then I want to make sure we circle back to the subway station air quality thing. So, like things maybe, for example, briefly talking about our dirty diesel campaign again, I know you didn't work on it directly, but maybe just mentioning that. And like the mother Clara Hale bus depot, because those are really big campaigns that folks might have heard of.
[00:54:33] Speaker B: And the bus electrification.
[00:54:34] Speaker D: Yeah. So the dirty diesel campaign was early on, and we asked when it's in its infancy, New York City has seven bus depots in Manhattan, but five of them are located in northern Manhattan. So all the buses that go downtown were coming uptown, but they were diesel. And our kids, our seniors, this exasperated asthma and other respiratory illness. So we fought to make sure the MTA starts transitioning from those dirty diesel buses to what we now have as hybrid electric buses. The mother, Clara Hale, was another example of a depot that just was not meeting the air quality standards for the area around it, which is the mother Clarao task force that worked on it. But basically we tore that building down to the ground to make sure that when it was rebuilt that it was going to be the meanest, cleanest depot in the country. And it reached that potential. So I was glad to work on that as well.
[00:55:38] Speaker B: And just for some people who may not really understand that visual because of the work that we act has done, it's the bus that spews out that black smoke at the top. Like, you don't see that anymore or you don't see it as much. But imagine hundreds of buses throughout multiple depots and concentrated in one area, all revving up, all starting throughout the day, all going through these neighborhoods at one time.
I just think the image is really powerful to really think about how if you were to see that now or today, how we'd be like, that's kind of crazy to see. But that part is because that's what we act, worked for, right? To make sure that that doesn't exist.
[00:56:23] Speaker D: And you make a great point if you add that along with a lot of the northern Manhattan streets are truck routes. So Amsterdam is a truck route, 7th Avenue is a truck route, 125th street is a truck route. So if you combine all of that, the air quality is poor, and you wonder why people have asthma and other respiratory illnesses that develop over years. It doesn't happen overnight, happens over years of breathing this dirty dust and this particulate matter on a regular basis. And communities of color have been harmed throughout the centuries.
[00:57:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And I had a conversation with someone recently about this transition to hybrid buses and the air quality impact that that had. And I think something that's interesting is that the original focus because of the air quality uptown was poor because of these bus depots, there was this fight for switching the buses, and that led to essentially improved air quality throughout the city. Right. We have switching out these buses throughout the whole city. So it's interesting that when you have these fights to improve the infrastructure, improve the conditions in communities of color, there's benefits for other parts of the city as well. And there's all the more reason for us to be doing these campaigns and for pushing for these improvements, because at the end of the day, everyone wins. It benefits everyone. But I think this is helpful to have this conversation about the air quality piece because that's, I feel like what a lot of people think of who are maybe a little bit less New York City centric when they think about transportation, they think about pollution, they think about air quality, and maybe not some of these other key pieces that you're talking about with transit specifically. So with that, maybe we can circle back now to your comment you made earlier about the air quality in the subway. If you had other thoughts about that.
[00:58:18] Speaker D: I just think as it's tied to people's commutes, the average commute is about 40 minutes. So if you're down underground for 40 minutes from the time you enter, waiting on the platform, you're on a train and you get off, what are you breathing? Or what's the air quality that's being exchanged from one passenger to another? Whether you're in the subway car or on the platform, it has to take a toll on the effect. And you may not feel it today or maybe in six months, but a couple of years down the line, you're wondering, why is this cough that I'm not able to get rid of? So I just think we need to look at that as another environmental justice issue. The people that have to ride it are the ones that are going to bear the brunt of these environmental injustices.
[00:59:05] Speaker B: I think it's part of our ongoing campaigns to improve transit accessibility and access. And we can also think about that other a, that Jaren mentioned, air quality is that I think we should be thinking about ventilation and ways to mitigate those issues when we're talking about improving transit and service as.
[00:59:23] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
[00:59:24] Speaker A: Especially because so much of the work that we're doing is trying to make sure that folks have access to transit, but encouraging more people to take transit as an alternative to cars and trying to reduce our emissions in that way. But then if we're encouraging people to take transit, we need it to be clean so that we're not impacting their health and that they can breathe clean air when they're down there on the subway. That folks have worked so hard to make it affordable, accessible, available, and clean air. Yes. All the four a's. I'm going to put those in the.
[00:59:58] Speaker D: Show notes while we're talking. I want to make one other point. As we try, the MTA tries to transition to this electric fleet. They're going to need the infrastructure to do that. And I think communities of color, again, as Manhattan has five bus depots in northern Manhattan, I think one of the depots in this area should be made an all electric depot. There's only one depot that has the ability to charge buses, and they only have ten, and that's downtown. At the Michael J. Quill depot, they only have the ability to do ten, but that's downtown where they only have one bus depot, which is below 96th street. We have the others, and I think we should get an electric depot as a way of showing the MTA and the community that they're really serious about air quality.
[01:00:55] Speaker A: Yeah, and Charles will like that. I say this, that those jobs at that bus depot go to people in the community, right? Yes.
[01:01:03] Speaker D: So when people think about transportation, there's a whole lot of other sectors that integrate into transportation, and we need to think holistically about how that the communities that are being served or underserved get the resources, get the jobs, get the accessibility that they need to lead productive lives.
[01:01:24] Speaker A: What a great note to end on. Before we wrap up, any last thoughts, comments, or things that you wanted to share with folks, either about the transportation working group or any of the other work that you're doing, just in terms of ways that they can get involved.
[01:01:36] Speaker D: Okay? So if anybody wants to get involved, our next meeting will be on August via Zoom. All are welcome to come and bring your transportation issues. The more that we talk about it as a group, I think we'll elevate the voices of people that have not been heard, that have been understood about how transportation affects them and their families and their loved ones.
[01:02:00] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Bailey. We'll make sure to include that information in the show notes for folks that want to join the transportation working group. And hopefully we'll have you back on the show again soon.
[01:02:10] Speaker D: Thank you so much.
[01:02:12] Speaker A: So I hope you enjoyed those interviews. And for anyone who is still thinking about us teasing the idea of an episode about biking and bike infrastructure in the city, feel free to let us know if you're interested in hearing an episode about biking and biking infrastructure in New York City. We'd love to do an episode about that at some point. And you can let us know by emailing us at
[email protected] and Lonnie, where else can the folks find us?
[01:02:39] Speaker B: You could check out weact on Facebook at weactford. That's W-E-A-C-T-F-O-R-E-J. Instagram, Twitter and YouTube at weactfordj. That's W-E-A-C-T number four, E J. And check out our website, weact.org, for more information about environmental justice.
[01:02:59] Speaker A: That's it. Until next time, ride safe.
