MTA New York City Transit is hosting a series of town hall-style public meetings in every borough of New York City this year to discuss the recently announced Fast Forward Plan to modernize the subway system and reimagine bus and paratransit service, with the first meeting planned for Tuesday, Aug. 21.

“The Fast Forward Plan is a massive undertaking that requires buy-in from all stakeholders — our customers, our colleagues, advocates, the business community, and elected officials at every level of government,” NYC Transit President Andy Byford said. “The future success of New York City depends upon the success of this comprehensive plan to modernize our transit system, and we’ll be out there in every borough making the case.”

In May, Byford introduced the Fast Forward Plan: The Plan to Modernize New York City Transit as a roadmap to modernizing all services offered by MTA New York City Transit, including subway service and subway stations, local, express and SBS bus routes, and paratransit options. The plan also sets out to improve accessibility across all services, and addresses how NYCT can improve its organizational structure, corporate culture, and customer service including communication with the public.

The Fast Forward Plan, which was delivered to the MTA Board, includes goals such as installing state-of-the-art new signal and track infrastructure for subways within five years, accelerating accessibility improvements across the subway system by ensuring all customers will be no more than two stops from an accessible station within five years, repairing and improving more than 150 subway stations over five years, putting a new modern fleet of thousands of subway cars and buses into service within five years, and completely redesigning the bus network to meet new ridership demands and population trends.

To track and report progress and to hold itself accountable to stakeholders and the public, MTA New York City Transit plans to issue twice-yearly reports on the progress of its Fast Forward Plan initiatives. Since the plan was announced, the agency has moved forward on accessibility improvements at three subway stations, moved forward on redesigning the entire Staten Island express bus network to improve reliability and service, increased off-peak service on bus routes with high growth potential, and launched the quarterly Customer Commitment report to set and track clear goals on customer-focused improvements.

Additionally as part of the Fast Forward Plan NYC Transit is implementing a redesign of the Staten Island Express Bus network this week and is embarking on a redesign of bus travel in the Bronx as part of a plan to redesign the bus network throughout the entire city. In June, Byford appointed the agency’s first advisor for systemwide accessibility to improve paratransit service and implement accessibility initiatives in the Fast Forward Plan.