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That’s not too hard to fix though. Just have the expresses say Electchester 164 St-H Harding and the Q64 can say 164 St-Jewel Ave, since technically the last stop is on Jewel and 164 even though drivers go out of service on 71 Ave. Another thing that has always bother me is is on the Queens Bus Map. The Q42 has the square symbol instead of the weekday only symbol. Also they made changes to the Queens map in August and couldn’t add in either the Q70 SBS new routing via Woodside Ave or the fact that the Q47 serves Bulova part time, but felt the need to make the M60 SBS orange, when I thought SBS were only supposed to be dark blue.

The LIRR must request that NICE cross honor and on what routes if so. During the recent storm NICE was asked about cross honoring. Their response was along the lines of the fact it is up to the LIRR to request it, and since they didn’t request that NICE cross honor, they aren’t under any obligation to.

Even with all of those points, express bus routes weren’t cut as badly as Queens. Let me comment on the proposed Bronx Express Bus changes (which the MTA is holding off on because of opposition) and the Queens Express Bus proposal: Bronx: BxM1, BxM2, BxM3: Riverdale is already better of than most of the Bronx with three Midtown express buses, plus Metro North. I think it was good that the MTA eliminated BxM3 service on Sundays, as riders could take one of the two other routes. Both routes are a short local bus ride away from the 231 St with is accessible. I agree with reduction in frequency of all 3 routes, but not with span reduction. All three should run a few hours more than they are proposed, but less than what the currently have. And if the MTA wants to be cheap run service every 90 minutes on the BxM1 & BxM2 on Sunday reverse peak so that Riverdale still gets service better than hourly combined. BxM4: Duplicates the Concourse Line. People can take the Bx2 to 3 Ave-149 St for ADA service. Agree with elimination outside of peak service. BxM5: People can take the Bx31 to 233 St for ADA service. BxM6 & BxM10: Much more efficient to combine off-peak service. BxM7: Not really any complaints about frequency reductions. The span reductions are HORRENDOUS however. BxM8: Same as BxM7. Do think the CIty Island trips skipping Westchester Ave is a great idea. BxM9: Same as BXM7. BxM11: Agree with reroute away from subway. Should definitely help out with reducing any delays due to el traffic being avoided. Fine with span reduction and frequency reduction. Maybe span should have been a bit longer NB on weekdays and SB daily. BxM18: Fine Queens: Downtown service (QMT100-107): Having buses use the Williamsburg Bridge? TERRIBLE. For the QMT104: should be every 20 minutes instead of 30 minutes. Hudson Yards service (QMT112, 115-117): Since when has Hudson Yards been a ridership destination for Queens express buses. I don’t picture this going well. 3 Ave service (QMT130-135): QMT134 should be every 20 minutes not every 30-37 minutes. Madison Ave service (QMT155-157): It’s pretty good. 6 Ave service (QMT160-170): Service on routes that operates less than every 30 minutes in the PM should be 30 minutes at a minimum. Great routing of the QMT165-167. There is no reason Union Tpke should have had as many service variants as it does currently. Good rerouting of the QMT170 in Rockaway. Summary: Just because an area has sometimes unreliable subway service doesn’t mean an express bus should be guaranteed to serve a nearby neighborhood. If one does the ridership needs to warrant it. Just because an area doesn’t have ADA subway access at every nearby station doesn’t warrant express bus service. Metrocards have transfers for a reason. Even if someone has to take three buses, paying a second time after using their first transfer to get to their destination, it is still cheaper than the express bus fare. The MTA runs a bus service not door to door car service. The Bronx and Queens redesigns were different. Queens in my opinion is the type of redesign the city needs. Streamlining routes and speeding up service. The Bronx Express redesign was easier as well. The routes are basically fine. What the MTA needed to do was “trim the fat” By reducing frequency and make the service more efficient by getting more riders onto each bus. Instead, for some reason they also cut service spans dramatically, which just strands the riders in general. That is their flaw IMO. In Queens at a minimum there should be weekend service on Sundays on the redesigned routes for the QM1, QM2, and QM5. Elimination of service for the QM4 and QM6 are fine. The QM4, which is my personal express bus route which I take, is an absolute waste of money outside of rush hours. The QM6, aside from North Shore Towers, is covered by a interborough express in the QT32, so I can see why the MTA cut it. Then with the service patterns for Hudson Yards and Downtown, I honestly don’t even know what the MTA is doing. The Bronx they were too safe, and for Queens express buses it was almost like throwing ideas out and seeing what sticks.

Maybe it has to do with internal designations. On the MTA website you can find the summary of planned changes from the 2010 service cuts and the S42 route designation was supposed to be fully eliminated. It was supposed to originally be replaced by S52 trips, meaning the S52 would operate between St. George Ferry Terminal and South Beach or New Brighton (Weekdays only). Maybe they internally consider the S42 to be a branch of the S52.

I do find it odd that the Bronx seemed to be rather unscathed compared to Queens with the cuts. The Bronx has way more access to subway service than Queens, yet Queens express buses were destroyed way more in the draft plan. While I disagree with cuts decimating the system in general, one would have assumed that the Bronx would be easier to cut express service since the subway is a closer alternative. Just struck me as odd.

Probably would have ended up pretty similar to what NICE is now. Remember the MTA was planning on cutting service in 2011. The only difference between NICE today and the MTA’s proposed cuts is that the MTA would have left more areas without service, including: All of Eastern Nassau south of Hempstead Tpke (would have eliminated N19, N54, N55, N80) Western Long Beach Island (eliminated N33) Great Neck and Kings Point (eliminated both N57, N58) No Hicksville-Suffolk service (eliminated N78, N79) No North/South service in Western Nassau (eliminated N1, N2, N8) Plus I would go even further. The MTA cuts would have been drastic in 2011, but if they kept serving the county through 2020, they probably would have had cuts like NICE has had, plus some that NICE managed to avoid due to last minute funding.

It’s kind of strange. To my knowledge the school is closed during the summer. The purpose the trip serves is like a school tripper, since it starts right at the school and roughly at dismissal time, but it operates even when school isn’t in session. If I had to guess, it probably has decent ridership and they just haven’t cut it.

It isn’t a new trip. While on the schedule current as of June 28, 2020, it is the 2:45 PM trip, on older schedules, such as the pdf one from January, it was the 2:36 PM to Flushing. It is a school tripper designed to serve St. Mary’s high school just west of Plandome Rd. I remember it being on the schedule as a N20L Limited trip before NICE split the N20 into the N20G and N20H. It being a former limited trip is why it skips Great Neck Plaza and LIRR Station.

Even if the MTA doesn’t eliminated one of the two outright, they may do what they did in Queens. A problem the MTA made clear was the number of different routes serving Downtown Brooklyn. You have the B38, B54, B52, and B26 all operating from Downtown Brooklyn to Ridgewood. There is no way these routes will remain unscathed. Something will be cut or rerouted so that it either doesn’t serve Ridgewood and/or Downtown Brooklyn. Similar to how the Q65 duplicates the Q25/34 between Jamaica and Flushing, so now the QT65 won’t serve Flushing. All for the name of improved access to communities I wouldn’t be surprised if one bus is cut from Downtown and instead covers some part of Queens that lost service in the Queens Bus Redesign. It may not be where people want to go, but the MTA will say now they can get there.

Even though all these routes play slightly different roles in the neighborhoods they serve, I have a feeling that they, alone with some other routes that are close together will be cut due to “duplication.” From Flushing Ave to St. John’s Place, a lot of the routes are close together. This is what I predict the MTA is going to do: B57 replaced by QT4 in Queens Bus Redesign B54 kept the same B38 Stanhope St branch eliminated and Seneca Ave branch rerouted to Ridgewood Terminal B52 eliminated with the portion east of Broadway replaced by a rerouted B47 since Broadway service duplicates the B46, B26 kept B25 I feel they will attempt to cut it again like 2010, plus since it is duplicated by the B26, B45 kept only if B25 is eliminated (B65 cut instead) B65 kept only if B25 is not eliminated (B45 cut instead) Plus in other areas: I have a feeling that one of the B37 and B63 will get cut Plus in the area between Fulton St and Prospect Park, I cannot imagine that the draft will have the B48, B49, B44, and B43 all within a block from each other. Just like Queens, I think their will be a lot of condensed corridors where a super bus runs on one block instead of four buses on different blocks. But I also believe that that super bus won’t have a frequency matching what the four routes once had combine. It will amount to a service cut. As for what I bolded in your post: That’s exactly what the MTA will not be doing.

2023 would be when the Metrocard would retire. The extra time is to give people enough time to switch over. No clue about the overnight service, but since the governor said that the intention is to bring back 24/7 service once they don’t need to fully clean the subway cars each day, I would imagine any new routes like the B99 that cover subway lines would but cut once that happens. If it keeps the subways clean, I would like the MTA to use overnight buses like the B99 to replace the subways. They wouldn’t mirror the subways entirely, and some subway lines may have several overnight lines covering portions, but I would have them be $2.75 instead of free like the subway shuttles, but with an additional free transfer to another subway shuttle overnight bus. But I cannot imagine that happening.

Yep. If I remember correctly the timeline should be: December 2020 Subway and Buses are expected to be done throughout the city, except for the SIM23/24 February 2021 Physical OMNY Card expected to begin sales at places like Walgreens, supermarkets (basically non-subway places you can buy a Metrocard now) which I think was supposed to coincide with the expansion of OMNY to Long Island Railroad and Metro North. Don’t know exactly how that would work. I would assume similar to London’s Oyster card system for their commuter railroads with the city

I don’t think 164 St would need it. Outside of the road south of Grand Central Pkwy, traffic flows well. And south of there its issue is road width in general, not just for buses. The Q65, while it is frequently bunched, is usually smooth sailing on 164 St. Main St and Parsons Blvd are its two trouble areas. From personal observation, the bike lanes on the street don’t receive too much usage. Probably would have been fine with a shared lane, but there is enough room for a full one, so no problems there. On a similar note, I really hope the city is able to make their proposed Flushing Busway permanent, as I’ve seen that apparently the City Council Member Peter Koo is already opposed to it, and I don’t even know when it’s supposed to be implemented. I heard it was supposed to be the first one the city makes this year, but not much else. I always thought that Flushing to have a bus terminal similar to either Jamaica 165 St or Mineola Intermodal, but since neither of those are really possible, a busway is a very good alternative.

B99 schedule is online. Listed on the Brooklyn Bus Schedules page, but only the Enhanced Overnight Bus Service heading.

NICE has changed the look of the schedules for the summer. Not all have changed but some that I have noticed include the N15, N16, N19, and N25. They are putting crowding estimates with how full they expect each trip to be on the schedules. Maps are redone as well.

*"The main routes that are north south corridors east of Kissena Blvd should not be required to serve any subway stations. Only LIRR Stations." The purple and red routes in the area should do enough to get people to the subway that these corridors should not need to divert to far away subway stations In the draft plan it was said that a second free transfer would be given if needed. The second transfer could be used on these routes if a person who takes any of them now doesn’t have easy access to a purple or red line. Alternatives to all 4 routes already exist, the only areas that lose out are near Kissena Park away from the QT16, and the Whitestone area near the Q16 and Q34 are today, which currently have some of the lowest ridership in Queens, which is why the MTA does have every route in the area with weekend service in the plan. **"I propose that the QT64 and QT65 do serve only the 169 St as they both run down streets close to it." I’m not changing anything with these two routes. They currently serve the 169 St and I would keep it that way. ***"The QT73 should not serve Main St but instead operate the full length of Francis Lewis Blvd." The problem I have with the current Q76 and Q77 is that they turn off to serve Jamaica and on the other ends of their routes have a turn that brings them back past the turn off (Ex: Q76 heads all the way east from 165 St to FL Blvd, but heads back west past 165 St to 132 St on the northern end) Having the new Francis Lewis Blvd route turn off on Northern Blvd splits the FL Corridor just like Hillside does today. I feel that the new FL bus should serve the entire corridor, or just keep the Q76 and Q77. Hillside is a much better place to split than Northern is. If you need to get to Main St just take a purple or red line using the second free transfer. The green routes are neighborhood connectors that focus on reliable service. If you have them serve Jamaica and Flushing, they fail on that part of their purpose.

The crosstown service point is the key. There are several ideas that I think the MTA should have gone with regarding service. The main routes that are north south corridors east of Kissena Blvd should not be required to serve any subway stations. Only LIRR Stations. These routes include the QT65 (164 St), QT64 (Utopia Pkwy), QT73 (Francis Lewis Blvd) and QT71 (Springfield Blvd). They are too far east from Flushing or Jamaica and for the most part serve too large of a corridor to warrant a large diversion to a subway station. Though I say these routes shouldn’t be required to serve any subway stations, I propose that the QT64 and QT65 do serve only the 169 St as they both run down streets close to it. The QT73 should not serve Main St but instead operate the full length of Francis Lewis Blvd. I would reroute it to operate via Francis Lewis to the Cross Island, then follow the current Q15 route to Beechurst. On the southern end I would have it operate the full length of Francis Lewis to Rosedale. There it could either terminate with the QT45 or operate via the Q111 part time rout to Mill Rd, then head north towards Green Acres Mall. Nothing will replace the QT73 on Sanford Ave. I would recommend the MTA allow the N20G be open door since it will no longer duplicate the Q12 to Little Neck and Sanford is within walking distance to the QT81 on Roosevelt or QT17 on Northern. As a general point: an infrequent bus that is on time is much better to me than a frequent bus that is always late. Because of Flushing and Jamaica, the Q65 is extremely unreliable. During the Spring semester of 2019, because the bus was so unreliable I Kept track of how many times it was on time. Out of the 65 days of class I had, the Q65 was on time, or less than 10 minutes late, only SEVEN TIMES. This meant I would walk over 3/4 of a mile to my second bus so I wouldn’t be stuck waiting, and almost always would be on the second bus before the Q65 showed up. The amount of times that I would get downstairs to my stop and check BusTime to see three or four southbound buses north of Northern Blvd, and the nearest southbound bus almost at Hillside Ave, was way too many. The QT65 would fix that. As a Q65 rider currently, this is how I feel about the QT65. The current proposed QT65 will not come anywhere close to retaining the same ridership the current Q65 has. Therefore, if implemented exactly like they proposed with the same frequencies, it would be a massive failure. Ignoring the MTA’s requirements of a bus stop roughly every 0.25 miles, if I were to run a bus from Beechurst to St. Alban’s via 164 St, I would have it be weekdays only. Even with all the current ridership on the Q65, the QT65 would carry far less people to warrant frequent service at any time. However, implementing the QT65 how the MTA proposes with weekend service, would still give some areas the short end of the stick. These would be places like 164 St north of Booth Memorial Ave and south of 46 Ave, closer to Kissena Park, as well as areas east of 164 St that are south of Horace Harding Expwy that are too far from Kissena Blvd. While I agree with the elimination of the Q17 on Horace Harding and Kissena, the area still needs a bus to Flushing. To deal with this i propose an alternative to the current plan. Create a QT29 from Electchester-164 St/Jewel Ave to Flushing-Main St. It will run daily. Service would operate slightly less frequent than the proposed QT65, in order to keep some service on the crosstown, to keep the QT65 as a coverage route that avoids the traffic in Downtown Flushing. QT29 would operate anywhere from every 15 to every 30 minutes depending on day and time of day. QT65 would run every every 30 minutes during the rush hour and every 60 minutes during weekday middays, evenings, and weekends, with late evening service only operating between Beechurst and Jamaica Bus Terminal. By having low frequency, it would match the low ridership with providing good coverage where needed, and complementing areas that are already well served, such as Queens Hospital, which already will have frequency service via the QT16. I also propose some route changes for the QT65 for better connections and better road width: Northern terminal: Beechurst-166 St/Powells Cove Blvd Route via: Powells Cove Blvd to 154 St instead of 160 St Cross Island Pkwy/Francis Lewis Blvd to 160 St 160 St to Clintonville St Clintonville St to 163 St 163 St to 32 Ave 32 Ave to 162 St Follow QT65 route via 162 St/Pidegon Meadow Rd/164 St to Grand Central Pkwy Grand Central Parkway to Homelawn St (provides connection to St. John’s University) Homelawn St to Hillside Ave (provides better connection to 169 St Follows QT65 route to 174 St and 111 Ave Southbound route changed to operate via 111 Ave/Sayres Ave/178 St/112 Ave/177 St to Linden Blvd Northbound from Linden to 111 Ave changed to via 176 St/Murdock Ave/178 St/112 Ave/177 St/111 Ave Instead of heading west on Linden back to Merrick, the bus should head east to the St. Albans LIRR Station. The bus would turn around via Everett Pl/Baisley Blvd/Farmers Blvd/Linden Blvd. This plan would give people on areas of 164 St that would lose easy access to the Flushing via the QT16 with access, plus providing the 164 St corridor with a more reliable route up and down the corridor. Time spent in traffic prone areas like Jamaica would be minimized even with these reroutes. And better and new connections would be available. Southbound riders would have a direct connection to the and the southern terminal change would give connections to the Babylon Branch and West Hempstead Branch, since the LIRR connection at Jamaica was lost. Yes, 164 St south of Jewel Ave would suffer a massive service reduction, but there is easy access to both the QT16 and QT64. Service on these crosstown routes, unless the corridors can be expected to have significant ridership or have no alternatives at all, should be reduced to coverage levels. Not MTA/NYCTA coverage levels of half hourly, but to 45 to 60 minutes if that is what ridership warrants. Trips should be run on purple route that serve the subway and connect to the routes, as the MTA did say that second transfers would be given to trips that require it. Therefore there should be a problem that the QT71 and QT73 don’t serve the subway, or that the QT64 and QT65 only serve it near one end of the route. With this, service would be added to routes like they QT48 (weekdays only instead of just rush hours), QT49 (weekdays only instead of just rush hours), and QT51 (weekdays and Saturdays only, instead of just rush hours).

On some levels it is kind of surprising how little some know about the other. I was on a Q65 heading towards Jamaica before the pandemic and there were two train operators heading towards the subway. One was heading to Jamaica Center and the other Jamaica-179 St. Guy heading to 179 St gets off at Parsons Blvd and asks the bus driver what bus can get him to 179 St, and the driver said he didn’t know. I know that the Q65 is MTA Bus Company and the Q43 is NYCT, but to not even be aware of what bus goes down Hillside Ave?

With the Queens Bus Redesign plan having a bus from Jamaica go to LIJ Hospital (QT36) and North Shore Hospital (QT34), and since both are more frequent than the current N26, maybe if those routes get implemented, NICE should change the N26 routing to this old N59 routing. Most of the streets the N59 covered except for Marcus Ave have no bus service now, so I think reviving it might be a good idea. It’ll give people coming from Mineola a one seat trip to LIJ and Great Neck. It could either run AM to Great Neck and PM to Mineola, or both directions, just a little less frequent than the current N26.

I don’t know. they did hold one in February. I would assume not since if I remember correctly, before the pandemic, it was decided that the the plan was to implement the local bus changes in Fall 2020 and the second version of the Express Bus Changes would be released around then for implementation later at some point. I would guess if one was held it would be a virtual one. Still don’t like the way they treated the Queens and Bronx Redesigns with completely different approaches to how they were conducted. They all should either be slight changes or wholesale redesigns, not whatever they feel like for each borough.

I have no idea where it says it stops by the Navy Yard. I would imagine it since it would be a limited route that it would stop on Park Ave maybe near the Clinton Ave gate since its also close to any potential connections to a Vanderbilt Ave bus route in the Brooklyn redesign.

Where did you hear that they are closing the 165th Street Bus Terminal?

The people who currently drive and take the train, will do the exact same thing under your plan. They are against bus service because the poor use it, so why would they themselves start to use it. Why else do you think the LIRR is so expensive within Queens? Nassau and Suffolk residents view it as THEIR railroad, while the city has the subway. The price acts a way to keep it for them and not city dwellers (not that I agree with that). Also, do you not know how territorial parking is near Long Island Rail Road downtowns? Towns already only want parking for their residents, and they don’t want less parking, they want more, since they will not do anything but drive, probably even if you paid them to take the bus. If someone has ZERO intention of using a service currently, why would you design a system around getting them to use the service?

I going to response from the perspective of a Queens resident who both takes buses in Nassau and knows a lot of people who live in Nassau. Aside from the routes around Nassau Hub/Roosevelt Field, the N25/26 near LIJ and North Shore, not many Nassau routes are circuitous. Yes, the N22 and N24 are very long routes and they could be improved, it should not be done by chopping up the corridors. The N25 is another long route that mostly serves one long north-south corridor. While there is not a lot of ridership between Great Neck and Lynbrook, the amount of intermediate ridershipthe route gets is enough that a corridor like New Hyde Park Rd should not be split up like you did. You also completely missed the reason why there is bus stigma. It is not because the routes are poorly designed and slow. The majority of people who take the bus in Nassau are poorer than their counterparts who take the LIRR. You putting a u-shaped route in the North Hills or buses to Old Westbury Gardens will not get people in those areas to take the bus. They will still drive to where they catch the train. There is a decent chance that they moved there to be away from the bus, specifically the “types of people” the bus would bring to their areas. Your plan has 5 routes terminating at the Floral Park LIRR Station. Combined these 5 routes would have almost 20 buses an hour serving Floral Park. Do you know why there are ZERO now? Because they don’t want any bus service bringing people who “don’t belong” into their neighborhood. They were against the MTA extending the N2 to the LIRR station and it ran once every 45-60 minutes.

I have to agree with @N6 Limited and @BM5 via Woodhaven on this one. Even if the LIRR was cheaper, which would be amazing, the purpose of the routes are to connect across county lines and within the counties themselves. Honestly, this makes inter county commuting so much worse. This map makes it easier to take the LIRR to Flushing, bus to Jamaica, and LIRR to Lynbrook, than taking a bus like the N25. Just looking at this, that current one bus trip looks to become the: N53 from Great Neck to LIJ N88 from LIJ to NHP LIRR since it doesn’t go north of Northern Blvd/Macy’s N81 from NHP to Herricks Rd Searingtown Light Rail to Mineola Franklin Light Rail to Hempstead H80 from HTC to Lynbrook I might as well walk.