BrooklynBus

3 hours ago, Ex696 said:

There's probably too small of a market for a bus route to be made. You can't just make a route because it's inconvienient to travel between two places with existing public transit, there needs to be actual demand between them.

The only way to know for sure is to try it. Commuters would use it heavily if they could park in Riis Park for free and pick up the bus there, because the trip on the A train takes much longer. 

1 hour ago, NBTA said:

How many people are actually going between Sheepshead Bay and Far Rockaway?

They are not going there because it is a two hour trip, but like 45 minutes by car. The purpose of mass transit in a densely populated area is to allow you to get to places in reasonable amounts of time for employment opportunities. If you can’t get to JFK, you won’t try to get a job there for example. 

On 12/9/2023 at 12:25 PM, N6 Limited said:

Probably community board members and politicians.

The MTA’s definition includes riders. So why are they not invited to the first set of meetings? 

It takes like about eight clicks to even find it. It is very well hidden. Queens is not listed with the featured projects. How is someone supposed to find it? 

The new plan is out. https://new.mta.info/document/128301

3 hours ago, xD4nn said:

Well, the meetings are for stakeholders only. Community/customer input will be done later.

Who qualifies as a stakeholder? 

Isn’t it a little ridiculous to put something as complex as is plan on the web on Monday with the first meeting two days later? It’s as if they don’t want people to know about this. 
 

Why is this not on the MTA website when the meetings are next week?  Where is the transparency? The public needs time to study and absorb the new plan.

3 hours ago, Ex696 said:

Do you believe that having a stub as a terminal is okay in certain cases or all routes should terminate at places with demand?

Sometimes a stub is necessary. As long as you can transfer to go further in the same direction. What I don’t like are stubs like the B45 and B65 where you can’t go further or when they extended the B67 to terminate just outside Williamsburg Bridge Plaza where you could have had many transfers. They did that only to save a bus which is penny wise and pound foolish.

28 minutes ago, Ex696 said:

Why are they splitting Court and Smith Streets from the B57 after having combined them in 2010? Is there low through ridership through Downtown Brooklyn?

 

They want to extend it to Jackson Heights and didn’t want a longer route. Not good enough of a reason. They also decimated service on the route. Next they will try to eliminate Smith St service altogether claiming you can just use the F train. 

36 minutes ago, Ex696 said:

Alright, that makes sense although I don't know where the southern terminus would be.

 

What about the  truncation south of Downtown Brooklyn and extension to Jackson Heights ?  It's current terminus at Flushing and Grand Avenues is kind of a stub, and while I don't think it's bad for a bus route to have a stub terminus, I think there's at least something that can be done with it. Downtown Brooklyn is growing as a central business district, and  has terrible headways, making it an unreliable option for Maspeth commuters or commuters around the route that may need to go there. Something should be done with it to make it more satisfactory.

 

 

 

It would take Albany to Avenue H to Kings Plaza. 
 

I don’t agree with truncating the B57 to its old terminus. Combining it with the B75 was a good idea and it should stay. As far as extending it further into Queens, I haven’t really looked at the demand. But that’s the MTA’s job. If they believe Jackson Heights is a better terminus, they need to provide us with data supporting it. So far all their proposals have been based on Trust us because we are the experts and know more than you do. Judging from all their past mistakes, I find that very difficult to do. 

1 hour ago, Ex696 said:

I see...but what would happen to local service on New York or Rogers Avenues since the B49 wouldn't be there like in the draft plan?

I would have the B44 on Nostrand Rogers like the MTA plan and I would have a new route on New York (two way) south of Kings County Hospital which would switch over to Albany Avenue south of Holy Cross Cemetery. 

40 minutes ago, Ex696 said:

Then does Ocean Avenue north of Foster Avenue have enough demand south of Foster Avenue to make this a better option compared to the proposal of sending it up New York Avenue and down Nostrand instead?

 

Except for one block, the entire Ocean Ave north of Foster consists only of six story apartment buildings. All the other avenues are primarily two, three and four story buildings. Also the B41 which it parallels one block away diverges to serve other areas. I think it is a prime market that could be better served. You could argue that it it also served by the Brighton Line, but that would be for longer trips. 

12 hours ago, Ex696 said:

Then what happens to bus service along Bedford Avenue?

There would be no service on Bedford. Don’t forget prior to the mid 1960s, the B49 operated both ways on Rogers. It was moved to Bedford only because Aerojet’s was made a one way. The same is true for NY Avenue. It received bus service when Nostrand was made one way. 
 

if you want to go back a hundred years Rogers and Nostrand both had trolley lines only one block apart because two private companies competed for the same clientele. 

1 hour ago, Ex696 said:

So it terminates at Prospect Park?

No it would turn east on Empire Blvd and terminate at Utica Ave and the B43 woukd continue south to Kings County Hospital along with other changes. 

4 hours ago, Ex696 said:

Is removing  service on Bedford Avenue justified? It does lead to more service along Nostrand Avenue, but does it necessitate the removal of service along Bedford Avenue, though?

No it’s not justified. What it’s doing is making the B49 more difficult to access for existing riders, and making it easier to access for riders not currently using the route, so it’s a wash, not an improvement. It also makes transfering to the B35 westbound more indirect than it currently is. The transfer for the rerouted B16 is also indirect with riders having to double back. 
 

The goal should be to make trips more direct, not more indirect. My proposal for the B49 to go straight along Ocean Avenue is far superior, with more direct travel for all. 

4 hours ago, SubBus said:

According to mta.info,  the Brooklyn Bus Redesign was updated on October 5th,  but didn't notice any changes....

Not only aren’t there any changes, they still refer to early 2023 in the future tense. If they are so sloppy, how can we trust any of their planning? 

3 hours ago, xD4nn said:

Looking at the plan, it looks like QBR calls for a lot of extra buses than they currently have right now. Curious to see how they play this one out without cutting service.

I was promised that the proposed final will show existing and proposed route miles and hours which would be an increase in service. We will see if they keep their promise. 

1 hour ago, NewFlyer 230 said:

I’m not surprised that the plan is being delayed again. Queens is the largest borough, has the most routes and is split between NYCT Bus and MTA Bus operations. I’m sure the unions aren’t going to let any old plan go through because as far as I know the merger isn’t complete and nobody wants to lose any jobs from their depots. 
I felt Queens should have been last and given the most time to develop a good plan. 

I really think Queens is just too big for one study. It should have been three separate studies, Northeast, Southeast and the rest of Queens. That would have made it more manageable. And the proposals need to be implanted in stages once the final designs are agreed upon.There is no way it could be done overnight, unless the results are not comprehensive but only include a few changes. 

On 9/14/2023 at 10:58 AM, MysteriousBtrain said:

I'm glad Brooklyn is pressuring the MTA the same/similar to the Queens redesign. Hoping Queens will do something similar to this so we can get a somewhat accelerated timeline.

Only 12 people showed up and I knew nine of them. The weather was awful, but if passengers don’t like what is being proposed, we have to do better by letting all our elected officials know. We can’t rely on the MTA to do the right thing by themselves.

44 minutes ago, Travis Mcnonald said:

Wouldn't that happen to include the B25 as most of that route east of Downtown Brooklyn parallels the A and C trains? Hell, the B26 too to a lesser extent just to the north of Fulton.

They once tried to get rid of the B25 but there was too much opposition, so now they want a partial removal at night, hoping that will help kill the route so they can try again later to kill the route. 

My question is why since Mark Holmes left as head of the Queens Redesign, there never was any announcement who is now leading the team. Similarly with Brooklyn, we don’t know who is heading that study either. There needs to be accountability, which seems to be something the MTA is trying to avoid. If either study fails, someone needs to be accountable. 

1 hour ago, Ex696 said:

So then what convinces the MTA not to invest in a good Brooklyn-Manhattan local bus route?

As I said, they want as many to use the subway whenever there is a choice between the two, so they will never invest in better Brooklyn-Manhattan local buses. They only care about their costs, not the passengers. It doesn’t matter to them that sone may prefer buses to trains, for whatever reason. It costs them less per passenger for them to ride the subway than the bus, and that’s all that matters to them. The B39 only exists because the subway isn’t fully handicapped accessible. 
 

2 hours ago, Ex696 said:

Would bus lanes on the bridge help?

 

Would be detrimental to traffic. And 30 minute bus service does not justify a bus lane. Even 10 minute service does not justify a bus lane. 

11 hours ago, Tonyboy515 said:

I guess this makes sense given we do have a precedent with the B51 (former route over the Manhattan Bridge between City Hall and Downtown Brooklyn) getting axed in 2010. So, it totally could be a possibility but I doubt any service through the tunnel or similar would return.

It also makes sense because the MTA sabatoged the B51 when it first began. They never wanted it to succeed and always tried to get rid of it. It was suggested from the community who wanted it to run from Grand Army Plaza to City Hall, but the MTA refused stating there were subways under Flatbush Avenue and insisted it go from only Tilllary St to City Hall.