Roosevelt Island Transportation Town Hall Meeting On June 16 - RIRA Planning Committee Chair Objects To RIOC's Lack Of Coordination With RIRA and Says Town Hall Meeting Will Be Waste Of Time

You Tube Video of Roosevelt Island Red Bus

Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) President Leslie Torres June 3 Report To The Community reviewed the current status of Red Bus operations and noted:

... If you are interested in hearing more about the Red Bus operations, or other Island transportation issues, please join us on Thursday, June 16th for a community meeting on island transportation issues. The meeting will be held at the Good Shepherd Community Center at 7pm....

Unfortunately, neither Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) President Matt Katz nor Planning Committee Chair Frank Farance are able to attend the Transportation Town Hall Meeting. Mr. Farance sent the following email to RIOC which he is sharing with the Roosevelt Island community.

Ms. Torres, Mr. Martinez, Ms. Wilder-

Like Mr. Katz, I won't be attending either.  Considering that Mr. Katz, Mr. Hamburger, and I have been working on this topic for a year now, I expected that RIOC would have coordinated with us RIRA representatives, but we haven't been involved.

The problem with these flawed RIOC initiatives include RIOC ignoring the community and putting on this public display of PRETENDING to listen.  We, the residents, have spent much time over the past several years understanding the transportation issues ... understanding them much better than RIOC.  The point of keeping these meetings small was to retain the knowledge (Knowledge Management as the management practice is known) so there would be continuity and completeness, NOT CALLING ENDLESS TOWN MEETINGS WHERE NOTHING GETS DONE.  The residents have been through these kinds of useless meetings ... they'll be asking "What is RIRA doing on this?" and the answer is "RIRA is engaged, but RIOC is not doing follow-up or doing its tasks".

The main problems in the past several months have been RIOC's inaction (we been promised meetings and completed actions for many items), but it is RIOC that is unable to respond to and manage this one-mile bus route and roadway in this one-horse town.  For example, there are problems with the signage at the intersections, crosswalks, etc. -- safety issues that you (Ms. Torres, Mr. Martinez, Director Guerra) have not responded to.  As another example, we were supposed to try a no-parking lane at 7-9AM in the morning to speed red buses, but no response from you.

I suggest you cancel the meeting since: (1) it will show RIOC's ineptness, (2) little will be accomplished.  I also suggest that you spend time working on the actual tasks and action items that we've put together, and call the working meetings that you promised to do.  The residents should not have their time wasted.

Frank Farance
RIRA Planning Committee Chair

Ms. Torres latest report on Red Bus issues is here and RIRA's Island Services Committee Reports including Red Bus information are here and here.

UPDATE 2:50 PM - RIOC Community Relations Specialist Erica Wilder replies:

Dear Frank,

 

I am sorry to hear you will not be able to make it to the community transportation meeting. Please be advised that the meeting is designed to be an informational presentation for the entire community, not just for RIRA or any other sub-committee who have been kind enough to work with us on our transportation issues.