Transit advocates push Brooklyn ‘busway’
One likely candidate for a busway in Brooklyn would be an extension of Fulton Mall’s existing dedicated bus lanes further east beyond Flatbush Avenue. John Napoli
A map featuring proposed Brooklyn busways. John Napoli
COURIER LIFE, OCT. 18-24, 2019 3
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
As transit buffs hail a new
dedicated “busway” installed
on Manhattan’s 14th Street
as both a resounding success
and — perhaps too enthusiastically
— as “sexy,” advocates
are now looking to clear
private vehicles off of Kings
County streets to pave the way
for a bus-only thoroughfare in
Brooklyn.
“The busway is exciting,
it’s sexy, and it’s improving
bus performance, but there’s
a lot of ways to do that and we
should do everything in our
toolbox to clear cars out of the
way of buses,” said Ben Fried, a
spokesman for Transit Center.
The Department of Transportation
launched the 14th
Street busway as an 18-month
pilot project, which saw six
blocks of the bustling crosstown
boulevard closed to all
traffi c except buses, deliveries,
drop-offs, and emergency
vehicles.
The city’s radical transit
scheme didn’t make everyone
happy — the move spawned
protests and legal challenges
by angry residents — but DOT
Commissioner Polly Trottenberg
claimed the busway increased
bus speeds by up to 30
percent, and transit advocates
and progressive pols have
lauded it as the “Miracle on
14th Street.”
And that miracle comes
amid the Oct. 2nd launch of
a borough-wide revamp of
Brooklyn’s bus network —
where buses crawl at a sluggish
average speed of 7.7 mph
— and Trottenberg has already
hinted that city transit
offi cials are scheming to slap
down some of the busway’s distinctive
burgundy paint on an
outer-borough roadway.
“Where might we go next?
Stay tuned,” Trottenberg told
Streetsblog . “We’re thinking
about that next. People’s worst
fears did not come to pass and
I hope it’ll be a template for
other parts of the city.”
So the question becomes,
where will Brooklyn’s fi rst busway
go? Here are a few likely
test subjects for the city’s latest
progressive transit scheme.
Utica and Nostrand
avenues
Utica and Nostrand avenues
host some of the busiest
bus routes in Brooklyn,
the B46 and B44 respectively,
which provide a crucial connection
from Williamsburg to
transit-starved neighborhoods
in southern Brooklyn via local
and Select Bus Service shuttles.
And with both Kings
County and Brookdale hospitals
located there, retrofi tting
Utica Avenue in particular for
use as a dedicated bus route
would improve commutes for
both patients and staff, according
to one transit buff.
“Areas close to Utica Avenue
have the highest concentration
of healthcare workers
who live there and if there’s any
group of commuters we want
to have reliable commutes it’s
that group,” said Transportation
Alternatives spokesman
Marco Conner.
Fulton Street
Already host to a dedicated
bus route between Flatbush
Avenue Extension and Boerum
Place, extending the Fulton
Mall’s bus-only regulations
further east to Greene Avenue
in Fort Greene would improve
transit times for four buses —
the B25, B26, B38, and B52.
The city proposed extending
a bus lane all the way to
Grand Avenue in Clinton Hill
in 2017, but walked back the
scheme to only take effect during
a limited time on weekdays
after residents, business owners,
and Councilwoman Laurie
Cumbo (D–Clinton Hill) threw
a fi t.
“They had to water down
the hours because a small but
vocal opposition,” said Connor.
Church Avenue
This crosstown artery services
the B35, where the city
recently tried to expand a dedicated
bus lane at the expense of
parking along a narrow stretch
of the route between Ocean
Parkway and E. 16th Street.
But transit honchos caved
to protests by congregants at a
local synagogue by scrapping
the no-parking zone along the
block of their house of worship,
because members worried they
wouldn’t be able to park there
on the Sabbath, according to a
Brooklyn Eagle report .
Myrtle and Dekalb
avenues
Getting from Bushwick
to Downtown Brooklyn is a
real hassle best exemplifi ed
by subway commutes along
the J, Z, and M trains, which
take commuters from the
borough’s northern frontier
to America’s Downtown by
way of Manhattan!
The route was formerly
serviced by the Myrtle Avenue
elevated train , but that
line carried its last passenger
more than 50 years ago,
and — while the G train offers
some cross town service
— the only contemporary
substitute to the alfresco
train line are a slate of slow
buses including Myrtle Avenue’s
B54, Dekalb Avenue’s
B38, Gates Avenue’s B52, and
Halsey Street’s B25.
Although the design of
the city’s streets would have
to be changed on a city level,
local state Sen. Julia Salazar
(D–Bushwick) recently came
out in favor of a local busway
along this stretch on Twitter
.