Disabled bus riders in Nassau decry service cut

Disabled bus riders in Nassau County say they have lost their link to the world outside their homes now that a federal court ruling allows the MTA to enact devastating cuts to its Able-Ride bus service.

"No more social life," said Lynette Perez, 52, who has spina bifida and lives in the Glengariff Health Care Center in Glen Cove - one of the communities that is losing door-to-door Able-Ride service. "It's pretty much a death sentence - solitary confinement."

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's cuts to Able-Ride had been on hold for about six weeks as a federal court considered two lawsuits filed against the agency that sought to overturn the reductions.

The changes eliminate door-to-door service for any location beyond three-quarters of a mile of a fixed Long Island Bus route. The MTA said it will affect about 9 percent of the service's total rides.

Seth Stein, a Garden City attorney representing the plaintiffs in one of the suits, said he filed an emergency appeal in the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in the hope of getting an immediate stay of the cuts. There was no word Thursday on a decision.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Sandra Feuerstein dismissed the suits, and the MTA enacted its cuts immediately. Any Able-Ride trips scheduled as of Thursday are affected by the changes. Any trips reserved as of Wednesday will be honored.

The MTA has not said how many people will be affected, but has said that communities in northeastern Nassau County, including Oyster Bay, Bayville and Syosset, will lose door-to-door service. Other smaller pockets scattered about the county, such as Lido Beach, also are affected.

In a statement, Jerry Mikorenda, a spokesman for MTA Long Island Bus, said that the agency's cuts, which will save about $1.2 million, are necessary amid its current "financial crisis."

He added that the MTA's fiscal problems are worsened by Nassau County's consistent failure to properly fund its own bus system. LI Bus is operated by the MTA, but owned by Nassau, which contributes just $9.1 million of the agency's $135-million budget.

Nassau Legis. Judy Jacobs (D-Woodbury), who has led the fight against the proposed cuts, said the MTA did not allow enough time for the agency and the county to work together to find a possible solution.

"By this decision, the MTA is relegating them to be homebound and prisoners of their own body - and that is reprehensible," Jacobs said. "I don't see how anybody could live with this."

Able-Ride officials said their Garden City telephone reservation center had received about 100 calls by yesterday afternoon from customers looking not for reservations, but to find out if their usual pickup or drop-off location still would be covered under the new rules.

Reservation agents and supervisors tried to provide answers as best they could, officials said.Among the agents at the center taking reservations is a young man who uses a wheelchair and travels by Able-Ride from his home in Bayville to get to work. Officials said he, too, will lose his service.

"They're really in a situation where they need to figure out what they're going to do next," said Therese E. Brzezinski, spokeswoman for the Long Island Center for Independent Living, which fielded several panicked phone calls yesterday from disabled bus riders. "This is now, unfortunately, the reality."