Here is a report on Citizens for Regional Transit's activities for the year of 2021.
These are comments submitted by Citizens for Regional Transit to the NFTA on the proposed 2022 budget.
CRT President Douglas Funke presented at NY for TCI’s Teach-in on December 1st.
Learn more about TCI at https://nyfortci.org.
This is a recording of the October 24 Citizens for Regional Transit Quarterly Public Meeting.
https://youtu.be/ya8L8q5R-Qc
These were our comments provided for the NFTA's Public Hearings between August 23 and 25, 2021.
Citizens for Regional Transit submitted a letter to the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation (ECHDC) on the subject of the Buffalo Outer Harbor Civic and Land Use Improvement Project: General Project Plan. November 9, 2020. Our letter is attached here.
CRT Board Member Elizabeth Giles published an Another Voice article in the Buffalo News about the importance of extending Buffalo’s light rail to the East Side and airport.
https://buffalonews.com/opinion/another-voice-fulfill-coles-vision-with…
CRT President Doug Funke submitted an Another Voice essay to the Buffalo News, about the need of increases in rail transport to mitigate the effects of global climate change.
https://buffalonews.com/2020/04/29/increased-rail-transport-needed-to-m…
We are in uncharted waters with regard to COVID-19 virus; we don’t know how bad it will get or how wide and long its devastation will reach. We hope it will be put under control soon and pray that your friends and families are spared the worst from this illness.
Our transit systems, nation-wide, are also in uncharted waters. With the statewide orders for non-essential workers to stay at or work from home, the closing of schools and businesses, and the need for maintaining maximum social distance, transit systems are being hurt badly. Ridership is down between 40% and 90% in transit systems across the US (e.g., NYC ridership is down 67%, Bay area transit down 87%, Seattle down 45%).
The NFTA is experiencing similar ridership decreases. These losses are made worse when other taxes that support transit (e.g., the Erie County sales and mortgage recording taxes) also take a financial hit due to the virus. The $2.2T Federal CARES act just passed and signed into law by President Trump includes $25B for transit systems. This will help.
We are very pleased with the actions taken by the NFTA including:
The world is changing in ways that demand a bold new vision for mobility based on clean, reliable public transportation. The 20th century dream of a car in every driveway has become unsustainable. Our cities have been turned into parking lots, our “freeways” are clogged with stop-and-go traffic, our air is polluted with gases and particulates that cause cancer and asthma, and our climate – planet-wide – is changing in ways that increase the frequency of dangerous weather events and threaten our coastlines and economies. The largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Erie County is not electrical energy generation or industry, but rather transportation (at 40%, primarily from cars). If we expect people to drive less, alternatives must be provided.