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Buses passed 'em by
Express drivers never got word to help stranded during big storm
Saturday, August 11th 2007, 4:00 AM Hundreds of empty MTA express buses didn't stop to pick up subway riders stranded by Wednesday's torrential rains because no one told bus drivers to alter their routes.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's NYC Transit division has about 600 express coaches, and the MTA Bus Company, another division, has several hundred more.
Combined, they could have moved thousands who were stranded by crippled subways and unable to board jam-packed local buses.
But the MTA, which was caught offguard by the storm's severity, didn't issue an emergency directive for express bus drivers to make additional stops, even though the deluge crippled the entire underground system, union and transit officials said yesterday.
Bus drivers can't make such decisions on their own.
The sight of drivers with empty or partially empty buses breezing by did more than enrage already furious straphangers. It highlighted a stunning failure of the MTA, which was lauded for its actions on 9/11, to respond to an unexpected storm.
"Transit's planning, emergency preparedness, has to be more intensified," said Vinny Serapiglia, vice president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 726 on Staten Island.
He noted that on 9/11, NYC Transit directed all bus drivers to help evacuate lower Manhattan.
Stephan Thomas, bus vice chairman of Transport Workers Union Local 100, described the MTA's handling of the storm as "a total disaster" and a "total breakdown."
Bus drivers brought riders to the Broadway Junction subway complex in Brooklyn unaware trains were not running, Thomas said, describing a chaotic scene with thousands of riders in the streets. Bus drivers were not kept informed of the subway mess by bus managers or station personnel, he said.
Thomas said he saw no evidence of a plan or effort to increase the number of local buses on the streets.
NYC Transit spokesman Charles Seaton said the agency did manage to redeploy 90 buses from around the city to hard-hit Queens.
NYC Transit has three water-pumping trains hauled by diesel locomotives that can be used to remove water from the subways. But only one was used Wednesday because there was just one location where the water was deep enough, Seaton said.
A transit source said the pumper train didn't arrive at its target, between 65thSt. and Northern Blvd. on the G, R and V lines in Queens, until about 11a.m., hours after it had stopped raining.
Seaton said that was because the train is kept in Brooklyn and workers had to assemble it before driving it through the crippled system.
MTA CEO Elliot Sander said Thursday that a task force would review the authority's preparedness and response to the storm and make recommendations. Better use of express buses was worthy of consideration, he said, noting that MTA Inspector General Barry Kluger had already suggested it.
"I believe that I have the authority under an emergency situation to ask all employees to do different things than they normally would do," Sander said. "It's in their contract."
"Had they been directed to do it, to help out, they would have done it," Serapiglia said. "In emergency situations, our drivers always respond."
With Frank Lombardi
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