{"id":3565,"date":"2008-06-20T08:34:48","date_gmt":"2008-06-20T13:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/?p=3565"},"modified":"2008-06-20T08:34:48","modified_gmt":"2008-06-20T13:34:48","slug":"kick_them_when_theyre_down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/06\/kick_them_when_theyre_down.html","title":{"rendered":"Kick Them When They&#8217;re Down"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/06\/but_do_you_really_want_to_be_the_one_to_defen_for_it_in_the_papers_and_on_tv.html\">A bad week for the MTA<\/a> means a good time to pull <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/09\/the_way_the_q54.html\">this<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/06\/maybe_he_drives.html\">one<\/a> out of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nypost.com\/seven\/06202008\/news\/regionalnews\/mta_bus_routes_keep_it_mall_in_the_famil_116367.htm\">your back pocket<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>A city lawmaker yesterday blasted the MTA for rerouting two bus lines to serve a Queens shopping mall developed by the agency chairman&#8217;s son. <\/p>\n<p>Councilman John Liu said the MTA should formulate a new procedure for public input to determine bus routes, citing the controversial effort to extend lines to The Shops at Atlas Park. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In the case of expanding bus service to Atlas Park, people have every reason to suspect favoritism and nepotism,&#8221; Liu said after a City Council hearing. <\/p>\n<p>The Shops at Atlas Park is owned by Damon Hemmerdinger, son of MTA Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger. <\/p>\n<p>But the younger Hemmerdinger and MTA officials countered that they began working on one of the proposed routes years before the father was appointed board chairman in 2007. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Discussions about rerouting the bus began about five years ago,&#8221; Damon Hemmerdinger said. <\/p>\n<p>Atlas Park was served by the Q29, but officials moved the Q54 from a lightly used terminus to the mall.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A bad week for the MTA means a good time to pull this one out of your back pocket: A city lawmaker yesterday blasted the MTA for rerouting two bus lines to serve a Queens shopping mall developed by the agency chairman&#8217;s son. Councilman John Liu said the MTA should formulate a new procedure for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grandstanding","category-queens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}