Jitney Jeremiad

Bumptious Bumpkins Make for Bus Bumpy Ride for Locals

The free Downtown Connection shuttle has been skipping stops around Battery Park in the wake of concerns that it is being used by fraudulent ticket hawkers, as a prop in swindling tourists to purchase fake passes to the Statue of Liberty.

Lower Manhattan community leaders are grappling with concerns about crowding, safety, and possible criminal activity surrounding the Connection shuttle bus, operated by the Downtown Alliance, which ferries riders around Lower Manhattan, free of charge.

For several years, apprehension about spurious ticket sellers hawking fake boarding passes to boats that purport to bring tourists to the State of Liberty have overlapped with concerns about the Connection bus. The boats usually turn out to be ferries that pass within visual distance of Liberty Island, but do not stop there — such as the Staten Island Ferry, which is free, or the NY Waterway’s fleet of vessels that ply the Hudson, which charge a fare. More recently, these swindlers have begun using the Connection bus as a prop in their scheme, by directing victims who have paid inflated prices for worthless tickets to board the bus, which the sellers claim will take them to a pier for embarkation.

	Maryanne Braverman

At the April 23 meeting of the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) board, longtime resident Maryanne Braverman rose during the public comment session to observe, “ticket hawkers try to snag tourists before they get in the Park to buy a legitimate ticket, so they’re selling them in some cases $40 tickets,” which are effectively valueless. “The people who are selling the tickets are desperate people. And I think it was two summers ago there was actually a shooting, because one vendor got on the turf of another vendor.” This was a reference to an April, 2017 incident in which a dispute between rival ticket sellers erupted into gunfire on Battery Place, which resulted in two people being shot — one of them a party to the dispute, while another was an innocent bystander.

Ms. Braverman continued, “the police go chasing after them, and they’re not allowed to sell in Battery Park, so they sell on other streets and then they load up the buses. Last year, the solution that the Alliance took was to eliminate stops. Five stops were removed from the route, which causes some problems for [residents] as well, to just have stops taken out.”

In May, the Downtown Alliance announced that the Connection Shuttle would once again bypass five stops near Battery Park (three when headed toward Battery Park City and two when headed toward the South Street Seaport) through the end of the summer. These are the stops at State and Bridge Streets, Battery Place at Washington Street, and Battery Place at West Street when moving toward Battery Park City, as well as those at Battery Place at West Street and Battery Place at Greenwich Street when driving toward the South Street Seaport.

“Unfortunately, the behavior of the aggressive ticket sellers near the Battery is leading us to make this seasonal service change,” said Downtown Alliance President Jessica Lappin. “The Alliance will continue to work with our local leaders in government to ban and further restrict these sellers. Until that time, we will take steps like this one to mitigate their impact on residents, workers and tourists in Lower Manhattan and hope this will help improve summer service for our regular local riders.”

Ms. Braverman, who serves on the Steering Committee of the Battery Park City Seniors group, noted that, “there are seniors with heart and lung conditions who simply cannot walk distances. There are people with neurological or other situations [who] can’t walk. And anybody can break a leg or an ankle and suddenly need to rely on that kind of transport to get around and do their everyday business.”

She continued, “what I had hoped for when I brought this up last year was that there could be some comprehensive effort to pull together all the parties who are involved. I would just so appreciate it if it were possible for somebody with more authority, and more context than I have, to get the Alliance together, Consumer Affairs, and Margaret Chin’s office, if it’s a legislative issue.”

BPCA chairman George Tsunis reflected that, “it’s absolutely a legislative issue. We can’t enforce things that are A, not on our property, and B, it’s not like we have an enforcement mechanism. I feel horrible here, but clearly I think some people are taking advantage of a service that wasn’t meant for them.”

“Last summer,” Ms. Braverman recalled, “there was a problem with tourists crowding the buses making it impossible for seniors to get onboard, and also, once they were on board, they were extremely disruptive, pushing, shoving. It became a hazardous situation for ordinary residents to ride those buses.” And this year, she added, “they’re jamming up the bus and making it unsafe inside the bus.”

Eric Munson, the BPCA’s chief operating officer, noted that, “the Downtown Connection is a free service. It’s open to the general public. And so we can’t restrict ridership in any way. At the same time, what we can do is continue to work with the Downtown Alliance, and we’ve been in close partnership with them as a collaborator to ensure that the operator of the bus provides high-level customer service, and ensure that folks like the elderly and those with mobility impairments are offered seats.”

He added, “we’ve been reaching out to Council member Margaret Chin’s office about local legislation to change the penalty schedule, and we’ll keep Battery Park Seniors and the rest of you apprised of our efforts to change the regulatory framework.”

	Martha Gallo

BPCA board member Martha Gallo then asked, “whether we can, in fact, limit the ridership to employees of the companies that pay the budget of the Downtown Alliance, and people with Downtown residences. And, in fact, not have it be a tourist service. I go back to first principles here and say, ‘hey, we’ve had such an explosion of businesses and residents, that’s all we can handle.’ And I know that the Downtown Alliance is all about the retail businesses doing well, but I don’t know why we wouldn’t just eliminate the tourists in some way.”

She continued, “I take that bus periodically and it seems as if between the parents trying to shuttle their kids all over the place, people who need it from a disability point of view and the employees trying to run to catch different buses and ferries, it’s pretty busy. So I would look at eliminating it as an option all together for [tourists].”

These concerns were echoed a few weeks later by Maria Smith, a public member of Community Board 1, who recalled a recent ride during which, “I got on at the South Street Seaport, and the bus was fine until we got to South Ferry. At that point, ticket vendors in red jackets steered more than dozen people onto bus at a single stop.”

“There were 25 people waiting at Seton Church,” near the corner of Water and State Streets, she remembered. “By the time we got to the Jewish Museum, there was no room for anybody else, because these people are heading to the Port Authority ferry terminal,” at Vesey Street and the Hudson River. “They had been scammed into believing they are getting on a ferry to Statue of Liberty.”

“These ‘vendors’ have caught on to the fact that Connection shuttles are skipping stops, so now they are steering their victims to stops that are still being served, like the one in front of Seton Church,” she said. “This is not just unpleasant, but unsafe. Inconvenience is one thing, but I draw the line at safety. There are too many people on those buses. They are rated for six people standing, but more than a dozen people were packed in and standing.”

Ms. Smith also echoed Ms. Gallo’s proposal to restrict the service to local residents and employees, by saying, “tourists should have to pay some kind of admission. I think Martha’s idea about passes for residents or workers makes a lot of sense. People who live or work here are suffering. And tourists are suffering, because they don’t know where they are going, and so are preyed upon by thieves.”

She added that, “even if this were not being used to commit a crime and victimize people, it was never meant for tourists. They were always a bonus, but there are now too many of them.”

Ms. Smith concluded by observing that, “I can’t believe the City’s Department of Consumer Affairs can’t do something about this. You could balance the City’s budget by writing tickets to these people.”