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| Yankees Parade = Staten Island Transit Disaster (853342) | |
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Yankees Parade = Staten Island Transit Disaster |
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Posted by (SIR) North Shore Line on Sat Nov 7 00:48:08 2009 The tremendous SI turnout to the Yankees Parade really shown how poor and lacking the SI Transportation Network is.The DOT should have known to expect large crowds on the SI Ferry yet they only ran the same normal 30 minute schedule. It wasn't until people started getting hurt, trampled and fist-fighting around 2pm that they attempted to add extra boats but not before shutting down the entire terminal itself. Every other transit agency had sufficient trains and buses to easily get the Yankees fans home but the idiots at DOT just sit back and do nothing to accommodate. They had to suspend service to Manhattan for a few hours and rush all the boats they could get to pick up the Manhattan crowd at the last minute. And the S53 wasn't any better. There were lines stretching from 87th & Bay Ridge down to 86th and around the corner!! The same could be said for the S79 too. Waits were up to around an hour for those standing at the the end of the line because no one thought to add any extra buses. And even the SIR nearly came to a halt too. With all those spare trains you would think the SIR would get supplementary service but that didn't fly either as trains were running 5-20 minutes late and missing ferry connections. 'It was chaos,' says commuter who was stuck in overcrowded Whitehall Ferry Terminal - SI Advance LINK STATEN ISLAND, NY -- When thousands of people packed into the Whitehall Ferry Terminal once the Yankees parade was over, waiting passengers began shoving from the back, crushing people together and separating children from their families, according to witnesses who called the Advance. Three people were injured and at least on person has been charged with assault, according to authorities. One person lost his shoes in the fracas and got on the boat wearing just socks. "It was insane, it was chaos," said one Islander who is in a band that participated in the Yankees parade on Broadway. He requested anonymity "There was too many people in the ferry terminal. They [didn't] have enough boats. When the boats came and the doors opened, everybody was shoving from the back. People just started shoving and shouting. It was out of control, out of control." Click here for audio of the witness account. Empty boats were reportedly brought to Whitehall from the St. George Ferry Terminal. One passenger said the Whitehall terminal was closed for safety reasons until enough people boarded boats, emptying the waiting hall sufficiently. "It was completely packed, there was no room to stand," said Nicole Polizzi, 19, of Grant City. "Everybody just bum rushed to get on the ferry. "People from the back were pushing, you were pinned in between everybody," said Cindi Wolf of New Jersey. Her face was pushed into a support pole in the waiting room. "It was like 1,000 degrees in there," said Rory Lastella, 29, of Port Richmond. "Once they opened the doors, everybody started pushing forward." |
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