Community Magazine June 2003

s ” xc New York City Parking & Sanitation Schedule Life in the Big City Date Occasion Garbage * and Recycling Alternate ** Side Parking Parking Rules June 6-7, Fri-Sat Shavuot: First/Second Day As scheduled Suspended Normal July 4, Fri Independence Day Suspended Suspended Holiday NYC Transit Intends Fare Rollback Appeal By Samuel Maull, Associated Press Writer NEW YORK - The nation’s largest public transportation system filed notice Thursday that it will appeal a judge’s order to rescind a new fare hike for subways, buses and commuter trains. The agency claims the filing halts the fare rollback, at least temporarily. But lawyers for the Straphangers’ Campaign, a commuter group that sued to stop the fare increases, disputed that the Metropolitan Transit Authority was entitled to a stay. Lawyer Thomas Shanahan said he will argue only city agencies get an automatic stay when they appeal. The MTA is a state agency. The notice of appeal filed Thursday is the MTA’s first step in try- ing to have Supreme Court Justice Louis York’s ruling reversed by an appeals court. York on Wednesday had ordered a rollback of fares for more than 7 million daily riders who began paying a 50-cent fare increase on subways and buses as of May 4 and for more than 400,000 daily com- muters on Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road suburban trains. He also directed the MTA to hold off on closing 62 subway station token booths. He gave the agency two weeks to put his orders into effect. The judge said he was ordering the MTA to rescind the fare increases because the agency had misled the public about its financial condition before adopting the fare increase. Two reports issued last month by the state and city comptrollers concluded that the agency had a $500 million surplus projected over the next two years, which it had decided to use to pay debt. “The misleading information that the MTA included in the notice had a chilling effect on the public, discouraging an open and complete discus- sion of the proposals,” York wrote. MTA attorneys argue that rolling back fare increases will cost the MTA $1.2 million a day in lost revenue and pose enormous logistical challenges, including the retrofitting of 12,000 pieces of equipment and all 4,500 city buses. Log on to Keep Cool Con Edison is offering residential electricity customer with central air-con- ditioning a $300 state-of-the-art Carrier programmable thermostat that allows you to adjust the comfort conditions in your home manually or remotely via the Internet—for free! In addition, installation is no charge and Con Ed is giving a thank you gift of $25 to customers who sign up now. Why is your local utility being so generous? During peak demand for elec- tricity, the device will enable Con Edison to initiate a power curtailment, accessing your central air-conditioning unit by using a radio signal, similar to the one used in a digital paging system and adjusting your tem- perature and that of thousands of other homes. These curtailments will typically not last longer than four hours and can be manually overridden by customers. Con Ed claims that many cus- tomers may not even notice that their air conditioner has been adjusted since the device will only cycle the compressor on and off while the fan will continue to operate circulating the air. During this time, the digital screen on the thermostat will read “curtailment.” The thermostat screen will also count backward from four hours and will display the icon “time left,” so that you will know how much time is left before your thermostat returns to its pre-set temperature. The increase in temperature in your home should not be much more than three or so degrees and overriding the curtailment is simply a matter of manually adjusting the temperature on the thermostat. In addition to the thermostat, a thin rectangular-shaped box with an anten- na is mounted to the air handler. This is the communications I/O device, a wireless two-way paging network operated by SkyTel which communi- cates with your thermostat. It does not require either a telephone or com- puter line. When you communicate with your thermostat via the Internet, your instructions are carried over this two-way paging network as well. Once logged on, you can see what the current temperature is, change the temperature set point, review your current program, or reprogram the thermostat. Internet access is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There is no monthly charge or hidden costs For more information, or to sign up, call toll-free: 1(866) 521-8600 *Garbage: Residents who are normally scheduled for collection on the day of a holiday should place their trash out at curbside on the holiday evening for collection. Some residents will experience a dis- ruption of on-time household collection service. Recycling : Residents who are normally scheduled for recycling col- lection on the day of the holiday will not receive service that week. They should place their recyclables out at curbside the following week on their regular day of service. ** For snow and other emergencies call 212 or 718 CALL DOT (225-5368) to get an update of parking rules for a particular day. 42 C OMMUNITY M AGAZINE Out With the Old-Or Else! The New York E-Z Pass Regional consortium recently sent out 139,541 new tags to replace old ones which had problems. Early versions of the device could be activated by certain types of digital cell phones thereby wearing down their batteries prematurely. Because the old devices con- tain lithium batteries that could pose an environmental hazard, the agency wants the old tags back to ensure they are disposed of properly. So far 86% of motorists turned theirs in however about 20,000 drivers could face a $23 fine this month for failing to return their worn-out tags.