City Council District 5, Council Member Ben Kallos

I am writing to request your assistance with an issue of child safety on Roosevelt Island. My daughter recently started kindergarten at PS/IS 217
in the Gifted and Talented program. She is one of 20 students who ride
daily from our home in Jackson Heights, Queens to the school in a van chartered and paid for by the families of the children. Despite the high numbers of enrolled students from our neighborhood at the school, the
NYC Dept of Education rejected our request for DOE-funded bus service to
PS/IS 217 - because we see promise in the Roosevelt Island school, we each
pay $65 per week for the van service to and from school each day.

We are troubled to learn that our van, which is chartered solely to bring
students to and from school on Roosevelt Island, is not allowed to park in
the bus loading area in front of the school. The Public Safety officers
are insisting that our drivers find regular parking spots in a location
remote from the school and then walk the children to the school - from
wherever they are able to find parking. Our drivers are wonderful, and we
trust their ability to drive our children safely to school - but to then
ask them to park potentially far away from the school and to walk 10
children each over to the school is too much.

It is common sense to let these two vans stand in the bus-loading area
while the drivers bring the chidren to and from their classrooms - safer
for the children, the van drivers and the other drivers in the area.
Please work with the Public Safety Department to let our chidren be dropped
off and picked up from school in a safe manner, at the loading location
where all of the other student transportation is allowed to stop.

Thank you for your help with this issue - I look forward to hearing back
from you.

Julie Nymann

the disabled and elderly are not able to take a bus to the new and much publisized South Point Park on Roosevelt Island...much of the island is disabled and cannot walk the almost mile down and back home to the new park. I have called, emailed bot the MTA/Mr. Silverman, and Mr. Fernando Martinez at RIOC also have asked at the RIRA meetings Mr. Katz and even to the RIOC office last Friday in person to request a bus stop to be placed at the entrance. I have been told many times when the park opens the buses would all be re routed down to the park. I cannot walk without horrible pain and as others on the island would love to be able to get out and enjoy the park as others are able to. What will it take for RIOC to live up to it's promise to have the buses go to the park? Ignoring the disableds request is not only harsh, rude and not polite, but it speaks volumes of the people working at RIOC .... I am shocked...I hope the colleges that are bidding for the property here heed my warning in what I am saying. They have lied, told un truths and really have not regard to the this request. I have been told that people that live in Southtown do not use the Red Bus, that more disabled people live farther north...that is also not true. South Point and Southtown has a number of disabled, a lot to be honest and this request should be honored. What will it take?

If RIOC creates a feed according to the specifications on this page (http://maps.google.com/help/maps/transit/partners/participate.html), the tramway will be included when users search for public transit directions. This could make more people aware of the tramway as a public transit option!

This morning's rush hour was even more chaotic and congested because there was only ONE DOOR to enter and exit the subway.

The garbage "cage" used by M&D Deli is a pigsty, with rotting garbage on the ground attracting vermin. It should be cleaned up and maintained.