Bus riders seek fare, service freeze

Nassau bus riders concerned about the county's plan to turn its bus system over to a private operator called Wednesday for a guarantee that existing fares and service levels would remain for at least five years.

The call came at a "people's hearing" in Garden City organized by several activist groups opposed to the county's privatization plan. Organizers said they put the event together rather than voice their concerns at a formal public hearing or informational meeting by the county. Nassau is set to turn over Long Island Bus to Lombard, Ill.-based Veolia Transdev on Jan. 1.

Several Democratic Nassau legislators attended the meeting; County Executive Edward Mangano did not. County officials have said they intend to hold their own public hearing.

At the beginning of the hearing, Kate Slevin, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation campaign -- a nonprofit transit advocacy group that helped organize the event -- called on those in attendance to support the five-year freeze demand. The crowd of about 150 cheered.

"Even though the plan for privatization is just three months away, we know nothing about Long Island Bus and its future, and the future of all the people in this room," said Slevin, who encouraged riders to write to their elected officials from email and letter-writing kiosks at the hearing. "We want to make sure the bus system remains a functional part of the county beyond next year."

Mangano and Veolia have guaranteed that fares and service levels will remain the same in 2012 but have made no promises beyond that.

Long Island Bus, which serves 100,000 daily riders, is owned by the county but has been operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for nearly 40 years. Mangano pulled out of the deal with the MTA earlier this year amid a funding dispute.

Mangano spokesman Brian Nevin said that "whatever the county does will be better than the MTA's plan" to deeply cut service without additional county funding. He said it was time for Slevin's group to "wake up and realize that riders and taxpayers got nothing but a black eye and empty wallet from the MTA."

But several bus riders who attended the hearing at the headquarters of the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island shared similar concerns over a privately run LI Bus. Atlanta Cockrell of Hempstead, who has traveled by LI Bus almost daily for 29 years, said she'd have to retire if Veolia increased fares considerably.

"We know what we have," said Cockrell, a nurse at the Mayfair Care Center in Hempstead, "but we don't know what we're going to get."