City Councilman Walter McCaffrey (D-Woodside) told them they…
By Bryan Schwartzman
Representatives of the mayor’s office went before a city council subcommittee Tuesday asking that contracts of private bus lines be opened to competitive biding, but they were asked to leave.
City Councilman Walter McCaffrey (D-Woodside) told them they were unprepared and to “come back when you’re ready.”
McCaffrey, chairman of the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises, grilled Robert Grotell, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Transportation, and Maria Smith, the deputy commissioner of the Department of Transportation, for more than 20 minutes before asking them to leave and to “stop wasting our time.”
“We have been waiting for this for over a decade and it seems to me that not a bit of work has gone into this,” McCaffrey said at the City Hall hearing.
The 1989 City Charter calls for the establishment of a competitive bidding process for the city’s private bus lines, but the mayor and the Council have not been able to agree how to do so. The seven private bus companies under city contract run two-thirds of the express bus routes and a third of the local bus routes, Grotell said.
Several communities in Queens rely strongly on bus routes run by the Green Line, Jamaica Buses, and Triboro Bus Coach. Jamaica Buses operates a number of lines in southeast Queens, while Green Lines has a stronghold in Richmond Hill, Ozone Park and the Rockaways. Triboro Bus Coach has a major presence in western Queens.
Residents have long complained that the private bus lines often run late.
Grotell said the mayor is pushing for an Authorization Resolution which would allow the city to solicit proposals for all of the city’s private bus routes. He said the competition would force companies to improve bus service and would help reduce the $100 million the city currently spends on subsidizing the private bus lines.
He said if the resolution is passed, the city’s first requests for proposals would be for the routes operated by Command Bus lines in southeast Brooklyn.
McCaffrey questioned why RFPs on all the bus lines would not go out at the same time. He also asked why the city Department of Transportation had not looked into additional bus lines.
“We are looking to open this up to competition as soon as possible,” said Grotell.
“You have a mantra, it’s like you woke up this morning and someone asked you to say competition 5,000 times,” said McCaffrey.
“I do have a mind of my own,” Grotell responded.
McCaffrey, along with Councilman Herbert Berman (D-Brooklyn), also asked how many firms had expressed interest in bidding on Command Bus lines and whether they would be required to honor the pensions of current bus employees.
When Grotell responded that he would get that information to the subcommittee, McCaffrey ended the meeting by saying “you’re not prepared. Stop wasting our time and come back when you’re ready.”
Reach contributing writer Bryan Schwartzman by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 136.
