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Seen & Heard: Alec Baldwin caught in Statue ferry scam
STATUE SCAM: NOT JUST FOR TOURISTS ANYMORE
Alec Baldwin and his fam got suckered by the scammers at the Battery selling tickets to the Statue, and got a trip to New Jersey instead. Unlike him, I would not have been even able to joke about it…
AMANDA CHURCH / JOHN FRANKLIN AT HIONAS
Hionas Gallery will present a two-person exhibition of work titled BODY / object by Amanda Church and John Franklin from Oct. 12 to Nov. 2 with an opening reception this Saturday, Oct. 12, from 4 to 6p. Church has received a Guggenheim Fellowship to pursue her abstract painting and has shown here and abroad. Franklin applies precise detailing and meticulous stitch work coupled with a deft balance of color. The gallery is at 356 Broadway on the lower level.
FOUR BOROS UNITE AGAINST JAIL PLANS
Community organizations from across Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx rallied against Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Johnson’s $11 billion jail expansion plan, including a site on White Street as part of a group called Boroughs United. “The Mayor’s $11 billion plan for 4 skyscraper jails, sited for Chinatown, Kew Gardens, Boerum Hill and Mott Haven is ill-conceived, dangerous and does not address the root causes of the inhuman conditions and abuses that are prevalent across ALL New York City jails, not only Rikers Island.” Protestors demanded that the City Council and the respective City Council members — Margaret Chin, Stephen Levin, Karen Koslowitz and Diana Ayala — VOTE NO to the plan. For more info: boroughsunited2019@gmail.com.
NYC FERRY RIDE SUBSIDIES
The Citizens Budget Commission did some more number crunching on the NYC Ferry, and figures now that each ride is subsidized about $9.34 by taxpayers (compared to a dollar per ride subsidy for the subway). They blame it largely on the flat fee that does not adjust per ride (just as the subway does not adjust for distance either). Still, there are more than $5.6 million people riding annually.
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$9.34 per passenger? That’s a deal. Amtrak losses ranged from nearly $5 to $462 per passenger, depending upon the line, and averaged $32 per passenger and these are not even up to date figures!
Amtrak? Huh? What?
Even the Staten Island Ferry subsidy is only $5.46 per passenger.
The real metric is farebox recovery ratio, which is over 50% for MTA, or double that of NYC Ferry. Per CBC:
“NYC Ferry recouped just 24 percent of its operating costs through fare revenue in 2019, up just 2 percentage points from 2018; that ratio is still among the lowest of all transit systems in New York City.”
AND
“NYC Ferry is the third largest ferry system in the country by ridership, behind only the Staten Island Ferry and Washington State Ferries. Among the largest public ferry systems, NYC Ferry’s $9.34 per-trip subsidy is the second highest and its 24 percent recovery ratio is the second lowest. Only the New Orleans Ferry, with a per-trip subsidy of $9.88 and a 14 percent recovery ratio in 2017, is worse. The other five systems required subsidies of less than $5 per trip and recouped at least 61 percent of expenses through operating revenue. The two Massachusetts ferry systems even generated operating surpluses.”
The jail protest was really uplifting. Given all the problems in nyc that need money (homeless shelters, subway system, health care), why divert funds to something like new jails?