12 NOVEMBER 30, 2017 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
EDITORIAL
Time to fi x Queens bus system
It’s no surprise that bus service in
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New York City is generally terrible,
but City Comptroller Scott Stringer’s
thorough breakdown of what he
calls “The Other Transit Crisis” reveals
how far it has truly fallen.
The city’s bus system has lost 100
million passengers over the last eight
years. Some point to ridesharing apps
like Uber and Lyft as contributing to
that decline, but the bus system’s
substandard performance is driving
people away from public transit and
toward private cars.
The average New York City bus
crawls along at 7.4 mph, slower than
the average speed of the nation’s 17
largest bus companies (in Queens,
buses move only a little bit faster: the
average speed was 8.1 mph).
Somewhat miraculously, the report
found that the decline in bus service
hasn’t negatively impacted the Queens
economy. Jobs have grown by 34 percent
over the last decade, despite the
fact that public transportation options
are limited in many places where
these jobs have been created. College
Point is one such example; there were
13,851 jobs reported there in the latest
Census report, but the neighborhood
is served by just seven high-frequency
bus routes.
What must be done to improve bus
service in Queens? The problem can’t
be ignored. Subway service, which is
crumbling before our eyes, is nonexistent
east of Flushing and Jamaica. Long
Island Rail Road service in eastern
Queens is more limited and expensive
than subways. Buses, for better or
worse, keep our borough moving —
and they need to be made more reliable.
The de Blasio administration plans
to expand Select Bus Service (SBS)
across the city over the next decade,
with up to eight new lines being created
in Queens. SBS, which includes
off -board fare collection and dedicated
bus lanes on major roadways, is an
improvement from limited and local
bus service, but we caution the city to
be careful not to place SBS in ways that
negatively impact local businesses.
One more immediate, and easier,
way to improve bus service in Queens
is to redraw the borough’s bus route
map. Stringer touched on this in his
report; six Queens bus routes alone
have more than 20 turns on their
routes, and each twist and turn adds
to travel time for commuters.
Many of these routes were formerly
operated by private bus companies
that the MTA took over more than a
decade ago. While the MTA upgraded
fleets and updated schedules, few
changes were made to the routes
themselves.
We urge the MTA and the city’s
Department of Transportation to
examine every Queens bus route and
streamline them without terribly inconveniencing
any community.
The city must get moving when it
comes to developing short- and longterm
solutions toward improving our
failing bus system.
