Freeporters struggle to get around after NICE bus cuts

Adjusting her pursue strap and glancing at her watch, Alicia Degames was growing impatient standing at the stop for the N43 bus off North Main Street and Randall Avenue in Freeport last Thursday. She had been there for 20 minutes already. Leaning on the stop’s post, the 31-year Freeport resident suddenly smiled when she spotted a friend approaching.

“Hey, how are you doing today?” she said in her native Spanish as she hugged Graciela Alesio, a 24-year Freeport resident.

“How long have you been waiting?” asked Alesio in Spanish.

Too long.

Many Freeporters like Degames depend on Nassau Inter-County Express buses to get around Nassau County. Wait times for buses have, however, grown increasingly longer, and bus riders’ nerves more and more frayed, since service cuts took effect on April 9 because of NICE budget woes.

“These buses run so late now,” Degames said. “Bus 43 runs so late, and I use that route frequently. Before they changed the services, the buses ran, at most, maybe 15 minutes late. Now I’m out here waiting 40 minutes for a single bus.”

“I can’t ride a bike. I’d never get there and I don’t drive. I use these buses for everything,” Alesio added.

In February, NICE CEO Mike Setzer wrote a to letter riders highlighting the reasons for the cuts, saying Nassau County’s ongoing fiscal crisis was to blame for a $6.8 million reduction in funding for public buses.

As of press time, a NICE representative had not returned the Herald’s phone calls. On its website, NICE said that bus routes would be restored if funding could be found, but as of Wednesday, no new funding was available.

“We would not be implementing these service reductions if we were not forced to do so by the difficult economic realities the county faces,” said Setzer in the letter to riders. “We know that these route reductions and service modifications impact your livelihood, access to jobs, school and mobility. We are extremely disappointed to have impose these cuts in service.”

Freeport NICE bus routes include the N4, Freeport to Jamaica; N19, Freeport to Babylon; N36, Lynbrook to Freeport; N40/41, Freeport to Mineola; N43, Freeport to Roosevelt Field-Hempstead.

But a number of other routes have been eliminated, including:

The N19, which went to the Sunrise Mall.

The N36, which connected south Freeport to the Lynbrook harbor community.

The N62 community shuttle.

According to Janice Johnson, 70, a disabled retiree, the bus cuts are affecting the quality of life for Freeporters like her. Johnson moved to the village in the 1950s and now lives off Guy Lombardo Boulevard, near the Nautical Mile.

The public bus was part of the reason that she stayed in the community for so long, she said. It gave her independence, allowing her to perform her daily errands. Without the community shuttle, however, she has trouble getting to the grocery store and the pharmacy.

She can take AbleRide, for people who are disabled. She preferred taking the N62, though, because it used to pick her up and drop her off on her block.

“I know people who have had to take two buses and [pay] two bus fares just to get to the other side of the canal. Some are paying $12 cab fares, and naturally you want to give a tip because you want to keep the driver happy, to get to work,” Johnson said with a sigh.

She, too, has had to take a taxi or walk for at least a couple of miles to get to where she needs to go. “This is coming out of their paycheck every day, and some of them are paying that six days a week,” she said, speaking of Freeporters who must take cabs to work. “They need that bus to get in and out. Some people in this neighborhood are suffering. Do you see anything wrong with that?”

“Seriously, there is no quality of life,” Johnson said. “That is the most important thing. When people can’t participate in anything — we can’t get food, we can’t get medicine, when we can’t go eat in our own restaurants or get to another bus that will take us to where we need to go — what are we supposed to do?”

Eyeing the N43 waiting at the stoplight two blocks away, Degames dug into her pocket and pulled out a bus pass last Thursday, while Alesio stepped closer to the curb.

“I’m glad I didn’t have to wait so long this time,” Alesio said. “But it’s the ride back home that will be interesting.”