MTA approves new Queens bus map
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The MTA board approved the new Queens bus network map on Wednesday. Map via the MTA
By Ryan Schwach
Six years after the MTA began redrawing Queens’ bus map, riders will finally begin seeing new routes hitting the streets as soon as June.
On Wednesday, the MTA Board voted unanimously to approve the new bus map, the result of more than half a decade of stops, starts and intense community pushback.
The plan, which reworks many of Queens’ bus lines, will be implemented in two phases beginning this June.
The final plan includes a total of 124 routes, 11 more than the current map. It features 94 local routes and 30 express routes.
Some of the new routes include; the Q74 Limited, which will connect Forest Hills to points in eastern Queens including Queens College; the Q80, which aims to bring more frequent service to Lefferts Boulevard; and the Q90 Limited, which will connect Flushing to LaGuardia Airport via Willets Point.
“Queens is the most bus reliant of the five boroughs by far, and this redesign plan will create the modern bus system its 800,000 daily riders deserve,” said MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber. “Faster, more frequent, and more reliable service – with more bus-to-rail connections – will help residents of the World’s Borough take advantage of all that New York has to offer.”
Work on modernizing the Queens bus landscape began before the pandemic, with a plan ultimately scrapped by the city following a monumental amount of backlash from the public and elected officials.
Two other attempts in the last two years saw a similar fate, ultimately resulting in this final draft which Queens Borough President Donovan Richards previously called "perfectly imperfect.”
“Today is a watershed moment for our bus network here in Queens and for the 800,000 of us in this borough who rely on our buses to get to work, school and beyond,” the BP said in a statement on Wednesday. “To the MTA, all our community partners and every Queens resident who made their voice heard throughout this exhaustive planning process, thank you for your critical work to improve mass transit in the World's Borough.”
“This victory belongs to all our borough's hard-working commuters who have long deserved a bus system that is quick, efficient and comfortable,” he added. “With the Queens Bus Network Redesign, they are finally getting exactly that.”
In order to finally get the plan before the MTA Board, the MTA held several meetings, hearings and informational sessions looking to garner as much feedback as possible on their plan.
In total, the MTA hosted around 250 events, which led to more than 18,000 comments from riders on their buses.
“It was imperative that we went about the redesign process the right way: evaluating routes and bus stops, prioritizing transit equity, analyzing ridership patterns and engaging with everyday riders and community leaders,” said NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow.
However, not all of the feedback was positive.
During several of the hearings, locals questioned the MTA’s choices to increase service frequency at the cost of eliminating stops.
On various occasions, Queens officials, including Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers and State Senator John Liu, strongly criticized the MTA’s previous attempts to redesign the bus network.
Some of those complaints from the community came up during the MTA’s final information session on the maps earlier this month, but no changes were made following that last minute feedback.
The MTA said it will continue to monitor how their new maps are operating, and will keep soliciting feedback from local riders on how their commutes are going.
Ahead of the implementation, the agency will launch a large-scale public education campaign to help inform locals on the changes.
The new routes will roll out in two phases, in alignment with regular seasonal service changes at the end of June and the end of August.
Riders can check out how their own go-to routes will be affected by looking at the full plan at https://www.mta.info/project/queens-bus-network-redesign.
