MTA bus cuts drive safety fears

Parents of students who attend certain private schools outside of Lynbrook and East Rockaway are upset about the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s plans to cut two of their bus routes — the N65 and N66 — which would force some of their children to be rerouted through the Hempstead bus terminal to get to school.

Bill Gammel, whose son is a junior at Chaminade in Mineola, said he wouldn’t want his son transferring at the Hempstead Terminal. “It’s about safety, and that’s why we’re here speaking,” Gammel said at the April 20 Board of Education meeting. “Would you feel safe sending your kid into a known drug zone?”

The Lynbrook school district utilizes those two service lines to bus its Kellenberg Memorial, Chaminade and Sacred Heart Academy students to and from school. The MTA cuts would force some Lynbrook students to take two public buses to school — transferring at the Hempstead Bus Terminal – and in some instances, get dropped off about a quarter-mile from their school.

According to Denise Nystrom, administrator for personnel and student support services for the Lynbrook school district, students would have to transfer at the Hempstead Bus Terminal, and would be dropped off about a quarter-mile away from school on Glen Curtis Boulevard and Hempstead Turnpike. She said students would have to cross Hempstead Turnpike to catch the bus back home. Chaminade students would have to transfer at a Jericho Turnpike stop, she explained, while Sacred Heart students would still get bused directly to school, just on a route with more stops.

Currently, the N65 and N66 takes Chaminade and Kellenberg students directly to and from school. Nystrom added that the school could privately bus those 74 students who attend the three aforementioned private schools, but at an additional cost of $40,000 to the district.