Reported on: June 25, 2010

Brooklyn residents rally in support of the B71 bus, which is facing elimination by the MTA, in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn on June 23. Photo: Will Holloway

Eighty-year-old Rioghan Karchman routinely takes the B71 bus from her home in Crown Heights to doctors’ visits on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope. Her neighbor, Veronica Armenti, 71, uses the B71 every weekend. Starting Sunday, Karchman and Armenti – and the estimated 1,080 daily riders who utilize the Brooklyn bus – will have to find alternative transportation.

The B71 runs between the Columbia Street Waterfront District and Crown Heights, connecting those neighborhoods with Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Gowanus, Park Slope and Prospect Heights. On Sunday, the line is being discontinued as part of a broader restructuring of bus service in what the Metropolitan Transportation Authority calls Brownstone Brooklyn, which encompasses Kensington, Park Slope, Red Hook, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Windsor Terrace and Downtown Brooklyn. The restructuring is necessary, according to MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan, because the agency is facing an $800 million budget deficit for 2010. The largest culprit, Donovan says, is a shortfall in the revenue generated by the payroll mobility tax, which the state Legislature enacted in May 2009.

James Anyansi, spokesman for New York City Transit, said the B71 was discontinued because of the proximity of other bus lines – the B61, B63 and B65 – and low ridership. According to the MTA’s 2010 Service Reductions Book, average weekday ridership of the B71 is about 8 percent of the average weekday ridership citywide.

Anyansi said that the restructuring of bus service in Brownstone Brooklyn is expected to save $3 million annually.

But opponents of the plan argue that the discontinuation will effectively cut off a vital link between Brooklyn neighborhoods. On Wednesday, bus riders and local residents rallied in support of the B71 at the intersection of Union and Smith streets in Carroll Gardens.

“It’s awful,” said Joe Nardiello, 48, a resident of Carroll Gardens. “It’s a lifeline from Columbia Street to Crown Heights – the MTA doesn’t have any understanding of the interaction between communities.”

Carroll Gardens resident Marta Heilborn, who organized the rally, says the impact would be particularly severe on seniors and people with disabilities, many of whom can’t navigate subway stairs and are unable to walk the extra blocks to alternative buses.

“Seniors are really angry,” she said. “They use the bus a lot – and they only take buses.”

Judy and Nino Pantano, a retired couple who live in the Columbia Street Waterfront District, have been riding the B71 for 32 years, often to cultural institutions like the Brooklyn Museum.

“It’s a vital link,” said Nino Pantano. “It’s an artery – take it away and you cut us off.”

Gene Russianoff, attorney and spokesman for the New York Public Interest Group’s Straphangers Campaign, says that while the MTA is indeed in a financial predicament, and B71 ridership is well below the system average, some lines are crucial because of the unique connections they provide between neighborhoods.

“The alternatives that the MTA offers are not realistic for a lot of people, and they don’t take them where they want to go,” he said. “There is a large and loyal contingent of folks who rely on the B71.”

With cuts looming across the city’s transit system, Russianoff estimates that 3.5 million riders are going to be affected in terms of longer waiting times, more crowding, extra transfers and longer trips. But he said the situation is not unique to New York City.

“We’re not alone,” he said. “Eighty-four percent of the country’s transit systems have raised fares or made cuts to service – or done both – in the last year.” Expect an MTA fare increase of about 25 cents in January, he added.

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