Transit Authority
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Q: After I spent several fitful nights sleeping to the tune of jackhammers grinding my road to shreds, crews came and repaved it. The results are beautiful, except for one part: They did not pave the bus stop lanes. They left them as a concrete slab, rather than asphalt. Why?
A: Every bus lane in the city has a concrete bus pad extending from the street corner to the bus stop that is long enough for a bus to come to a halt in. The pads are constructed to withstand the wear of the heavy buses, according to a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, Craig Chin. Asphalt is much softer (and cheaper) than concrete. If the pad were paved over, depressions would form more quickly than in the rest of the street. Only when streets are completely renovated – when a new sewer or gas line is installed, for example – are the bus pads replaced. Such renovations are planned at least two years in advance, after the department rates each street in the city on a scale of 1 to 10. The worst of the deteriorated streets, those rated 7 or worse, are ranked within each community board district, which is allotted a certain number of miles to be repaved.
I lost my one-week unlimited MetroCard a day after I bought it. Is there any way I can salvage my expense?
In 2003, New York City Transit began offering “insurance” on unlimited MetroCards after customers complained that the cards should be given the same protection against theft or loss as debit or credit cards. And New York City Transit is able to offer refunds to any unlimited monthly MetroCard purchased at a MetroCard vending machine with a debit or credit card. After all, the card is a $76 investment stored on a piece of plastic so light it would practically float away were it not tucked into a wallet. The same level of service, however, is not extended to other unlimited ride MetroCards, the $24 weekly pass, or the one-day, $7 “fun pass.” New York City Transit may soon make the insurance available for those cards, according to a spokesman, James Anyansi, who could not say why weekly and daily unlimited-ride MetroCards are not insured. It might be that the administrative cost, associated with refunding the customer – deactivating the lost or stolen card, prorating the amount left on it, and cutting the consumer a check – are prohibitive, Mr. Anyansi said.
