The local paper for the Upper East Side INSTRUMENTS OF REVOLUTION < P 12
WEEK OF FEBRUARY
9-15 2017
COUNTING THE HOMELESS Volunteers take to the streets to find out how many New Yorkers are without shelter. But how effective is the survey? The number of riders on the Second Avenue line has climbed every week since its Jan. 1 opening, but is still below projections. Photo: Madeleine Thompson BY MADELEINE THOMPSON
Despite the saying, New York City does sleep each night. But some residents, for reasons of poverty or mental illness, do so in subway stations or park benches because they lack a home to return to. On a cloudy Feb. 7 evening, thousands of volunteers — the exact number wasn’t available, but 2016 set a record with 3,800 — spread throughout the city to find out exactly how many New Yorkers were without shelter that night. This year marked the 12th annual Homeless Outreach Population Estimate (HOPE) count, a study mandated by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to measure the number of the homeless. In the cafeteria of P.S. 199 on West 61st Street, long after students had gone home, roughly 90 people chatted amiably while awaiting further instruction. The city’s Department of Homeless Services had requested that volunteers for the HOPE count arrive around 10 p.m. on Monday night, though the training portion didn’t begin until 11 p.m. A table with donuts, coffee and granola bars sat in the corner, as did a group of NYPD officers who would later accompany volunteer teams whose survey areas included subway stations and parks. The volunteers were remarkably energetic in the face of a night
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NEW SUBWAY RIDERSHIP SHORT OF FORECASTS Daily riders on the Second Avenue line are roughly 25 percent shy of predicted numbers BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
The MTA dubbed the Second Avenue subway an “immediate success” in a Feb. 1 press release announcing initial ridership figures, but Our Town analysis of publicly available data shows that the number of passengers using the new line has yet to
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meet projected ridership numbers long touted by the agency as justification for the $4.5 billion project. For years, MTA officials forecast an average weekday ridership of 200,000 passengers upon completion of Phase One of the Second Avenue subway, which opened Jan. 1 and includes new stations at 72nd, 86th, and 96th Streets on Second Avenue and a new Q train stop at 63rd StreetLexington Avenue. As recently as
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Historically the ridership estimates are usually a little bit more rosy or optimistic than the numbers end up being, but sometimes they beat the estimates” Larry Penner, transportation expert
December, outgoing MTA Chairman and CEO Tom Prendergast said at an agency board meeting, “On day one, we will see it serve more than 200,000 people on that line.”
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Jewish women and girls light up the world by lighting the Shabbat candles every Friday evening 18 minutes before sunset. Friday, February 10th – 5:07 pm. For more information visit www.chabaduppereastside.com
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