Rahm’s right to rip us: Bill
MAYOR DE BLASIO derided the MTA on Wednesday, saying fellow big-city mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago was right to slam the agency for the city’s subway woes.
The remarks followed the Twitter tirade of his press aide, Jessica Ramos, about getting stuck on a No. 7 train that was backed up due to a malfunctioning train at Grand Central Station.
“Like all of you, I was a little surprised to see an op-ed from Rahm Emanuel, but I want to be fair — the content was actually quite justified,” de Blasio said at an unrelated press conference. “He’s right that what Chicago did was smart.”
Emanuel, in an op-ed for The New York Times last week, said Chicago did what New York failed to do: “We put reliability ahead of expansion.”
De Blasio said the MTA — a state agency controlled by his political nemesis, Gov. Cuomo — needs to follow Chicago’s lead.
“The solution, to me, the first-rung solution is straightforward — shift resources onto the basics,” he said. “I think we need to now go back and investigate what we’ve done as an approach, and that starts of course with the state.”
De Blasio spokeswoman Ramos let loose on Twitter after she was caught up in a major delay on the No. 7 line.
The MTA reported just before 10 a.m. that a train had mechanical problems at 42nd St.-Grand Central. No. 7 trains were suspended between Manhattan and Queens, forcing riders to head to the E, F, Mand R lines nearby. MTA spokeswoman Amanda Kwan said the cause is under investigation.
“Stuck underneath East River for 30+ mins and the Manhattan-bound 7 is now going back to Queens. Train ahead at GC pulled emergency brake,” Ramos tweeted. She said she was at the Vernon-Jackson station in Queens, “waiting for next 7 w hundreds of working Queens residents. Summer of hell for outer boros!
“There are people sobbing because they think they are going to lose their job,” she wrote.
The Twitterverse told her to take it up with de Blasio.
“Agree agree agree. But can you please ask your boss @NYC Mayor to build out a dedicated-lane bus & bike network 10x faster than he is now,” wrote Travis R. Eby.
De Blasio, meanwhile, pushed off responsibility for his constituents’ train pain onto Cuomo.
As for de Blasio backing Emanuel’s transit trash talk, Kwan said “comparing the Chicago transit system to New York’s is pretty irrational,” citing the size and 24-7 operation of New York’s system.