The submissions, which are expected to be personal stories on struggles with commuting in 100 words or less, are to be sent to the group’s Facebook page by Friday night every week.
The winners will be announced the following week, and will receive a chocolate bar with a metro card logo on it via mail.
Danny Pearlstein, the policy and communications director of The Riders Alliance, said the group will hold the competition until improvements are made towards the public transportation system.
“We are committed on doing this until we see a sustainable long-term fix in the state budget,” he said. “We hope that is the end of it when the state budget for the fiscal 2019 comes out, but that is remained to be seen.”
The group alleged during the press conference that New York’s subway system is 65 percent lower than any other system from major cities around the world, and the current service is slower than the one from 1950.
Signal problems, sick passengers, and mechanical problems are some of the main reasons subways are delayed every day, causing inconvenience to commuters.
Pearlstein said he had to ride his bike from his home to the press conference, which was by the corner of Canal Street and Sixth Avenue, because the A train was consistently delayed.
“We need a long-term plan because we have signals from the 1930s that barely get up in the morning, we have cars from the 1960s with serious door problems and other problems that break them down constantly,” he said.
The group will use media to get the message to Gov. Cuomo, as well as having legislative leaders to directly discuss about this issue in Albany.
“We had a busload of members in Albany on Monday where we met with dozens of legislators, we had a press conference in the state capital itself,” Pearlstein said.
“We are using all the avenues available to us to communicate with our government and say we need this problem solved.”
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