By Joseph Morales
Queens is the largest borough in New York City by land area; and is estimated to be the second most populous borough, according to 2021 data from the U.S Census Bureau. Population and employment density in the borough varies substantially, from the hustle and bustle of Long Island City to the cosmopolitan streets of Jackson Heights and Corona to the suburban-style areas of Bayside and everything in between.
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By Joseph Morales
East Gun Hill Rd in The Bronx is one of the busiest streets in the northern section of the borough. The bustling roadway is home to many businesses. It connects several other major Bronx streets such as Eastchester Rd, Bronxwood Ave, and Webster Ave. Motorists can also connect to the Bronx River Pkwy, Hutchinson River Pkwy, and Interstate 95(New England Thruway). Multiple schools, such as JHS 144 Michaelangelo and the Evander Childs High School Campus, are along the corridor. The Montefiore Moses Hospital Campus and North Central Hospital are also near E Gun Hill Rd.
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By Joseph Morales
42nd Street is by far one of the busiest and most famous streets in New York City. Its streets are regularly lined with tourists, office workers, and others daily. 42nd Street also connects Times Square and Bryant Park, both world-renowned attractions that draw millions of visitors annually. The street is also filled with theaters, offices, retail, and almost everything else one can imagine. Almost every line in the subway system, minus the L, G, and certain shuttles, all stop on 42nd Street along with many express buses, connecting the heart of Midtown Manhattan to almost every corner of New York City and beyond. 42nd Street is also home to the world-famous Grand Central Terminal, which serves both the Metro-North and Long Island Railroads, connecting riders to destinations throughout New York’s suburbs. According to a Forbes article, 500,000 people pass through GCT daily, and about a million people pass through GCT during the holiday season. These numbers were taken before the opening of Grand Central Madison, which now serves LIRR trains.
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By Joseph Morales
Queens Blvd is one of the busiest streets in all of Queens, stretching from Downtown Jamaica in Southern Queens, about 7.5 miles to the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge, which connects Queens to Midtown Manhattan and is the only way to get to Queens to Manhattan by car without paying a toll. Along the way, the Boulevard passes through many diverse neighborhoods with high population densities such as Forest Hills, Elmhurst, Woodside and Long Island City. Many major destinations are located along the corridor as well such as the Queens Center Mall and Queens Borough Hall. Many schools, hospitals, retail stores and other facilities are located along or off the bustling street as well.
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By Joseph Morales
The MTA is redesigning the Brooklyn Bus Network with the intention of creating a new bus network with simpler, more direct routes as well as to adjust frequencies on bus routes in order to match current demand. The MTA is also adjusting or even creating new bus routes to match the travel needs of Brooklyn bus riders.
While this project may seem like one riders are looking forward too, express bus riders may or may not be so excited. Express buses are typically but not always designed for the purpose of getting people to and from Manhattan from areas of the city that are not served by the subway. Getting to Manhattan without these express buses would likely result in many people having to take bus rides to subway stations, which vary in length depending on where one’s starting point. As areas served by express buses in Brooklyn generally tend to be areas with higher rates of car ownership, many Brooklynites who would otherwise take these buses are likely to drive into Manhattan which can lead to more congested streets in Brooklyn as well as Manhattan. Therefore, express buses are a critical part of a Brooklyn bus network to ensure that all residents have the opportunity to conveniently travel into Manhattan without driving.
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By Joseph Morales
The Pelham Bay Park station area in the Northeast Bronx is a major transit hub for people traveling throughout the borough. It provides connections to the 6 train at the Pelham Bay Park station as well as 5 other bus routes including the Q50-LTD to Downtown Flushing, Queens and the Bx12-LCL/SBS which was the second busiest bus route in the city as of 2021. Many Bronxites take buses here in order to get to the subway station as many of the buses traverse areas that lack subway service. Many also use the buses to get throughout the borough and to major destinations such as the Bay Plaza Shopping Center, City Island, the Fordham Rd Business District and more. According to a presentation from the NYCDOT, 55,000 bus riders passed through the area on an average weekday pre-pandemic. The area also tends to be busy with automobiles too, as the area is near several major highways and streets including Interstate 95 and the Hutchinson River Pkwy.
Therefore, it is no surprise that congestion slows down both motorists and bus riders alike. The street layout of the area has been known to exasperate the issue, with slow downs being very common along Amendola Pl and Bruckner Blvd respectively, especially at the three-way intersection of Amendola Pl, Wilkinson Av and Bruckner Blvd where the bus routes all make their stops and attempt to reenter what is already busy traffic. The layout also forces the eastbound Bx12-SBS toward Bay Plaza to have an unnecessary long circuitous route segment, which increases travel time for riders. The westbound and eastbound Bx12-SBS stops which are both heavily used were also on the same side of the street, causing confusion for those trying to board a bus in a particular direction.
The NYCDOT has recently implemented several solutions to the issue. The improvements include a protected bus lane for the eastbound Bx12-SBS on Westchester Avenue so that it can make a stop on Westchester Ave and take a more direct route to Interstate 95 North rather than use its previous routing via Wilkinson Ave. This not only saves riders time, but since many Bx12-SBS riders board at Pelham Bay, this will provide riders of both buses more space to comfortably wait for the bus. It will also be easier to differentiate the eastbound and westbound stops. The NYCDOT has also implemented a protected bus lane on Wilkinson Ave for the westbound Bx12-SBS as well as all other buses headed for Bruckner Blvd North and I-95 so that they can move faster. The bus lanes also help to organize traffic and ensure that motorists do not get stuck behind buses that are making stops or that just take up more space in general, which may help to reduce congestion as a whole.
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The B82-SBS is New York City’s newest select bus service route which began service in October 2018. The route runs along Kings Hwy, which is among the busiest roads and travel arteries in Southern Brooklyn to the Canarsie and Starrett City areas and it has done so for little more than 4 years. The bus connects many areas without subway service to the L, B, Q, D, N and F trains as well as 21 bus routes including the B44-SBS(Nostrand/Bedford Av) and B46-SBS(Utica Avenue) which are also among the city’s busiest bus routes. The route contains many large high school campuses such as the Canarsie Educational Campus , South Shore Educational Campus, and James Madison High School. There are also multiple hospitals such as Mt Sinai Brooklyn, The New York Community Hospital and Midwood Medical Center. A large number of residents in communities along this corridor have a car free commute as per the NYU Furman Center such as Flatlands/Canarsie 52.1%, Flatbush/Midwood 73.5% and 67.8% Bensonhurst. Thus, many rely on that bus to get to the many subway stations on the route as well as across Brooklyn. Therefore, access to quality transit across this corridor is crucial to ensure that people have equitable access to transportation. The B82-LCL/SBS was the 7th busiest bus route in all of New York City and the 3rd busiest in Brooklyn in 2021 with a ridership of 5,287,019.
The purpose of a select bus service route is to provide rapid transit service to areas without subway service that can benefit from subway-like service. Rather than spending years constructing a subway or light rail, the MTA can choose to create a select bus service route in its place. That is exactly what happened with the B82-SBS.
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By Joseph Morales
Red Hook, Brooklyn is an area with a very rich history as one of the busiest industrial neighborhoods in NYC. Now, it is a densely-populated residential community with a growing arts scene and a wide variety of businesses including an IKEA store. A substantial number of Red Hook residents live in the Red Hook East and Red Hook West NYCHA complexes, which is the largest public housing development in Brooklyn and one of the largest public housing complexes in New York City.
Unfortunately, Red Hook can be a difficult place to travel to and from via public transportation. Red Hook is one of the few Western Brooklyn neighborhoods to not have subway access and bus service is limited. There are two MTA bus routes that operate in Red Hook, the B61 which travels from Park Slope through Red Hook to Downtown Brooklyn as well as the B57 which goes from the IKEA store in Red Hook to Maspeth, Queens primarily via Court Street through Red Hook and Cobble Hill and Flushing Avenue from Downtown Brooklyn to Maspeth. Despite being overcrowded sometimes, the B57 and B61 are not very frequent.(You can check out the schedules for these buses here:(B57)https://new.mta.info/document/7121 (B61) https://new.mta.info/document/7131These routes are also considered to be slow and unreliable. The B57 averaged speeds of 6.5-7.0 with a CJTP(Customer Journey Time Performance) of 56.2-70.6% each month between July 2021-2022. These numbers are lower than the Brooklyn averages of 7.0-7.3 mph and 65.5-74.8% each month in the same timeframe. While the B61 averaged higher speeds than the Brooklyn average of 7.3-7.8 mph each month as well as a pretty much average CJTP of 65.4-78.6%, it received a D on its latest report card from the Bus Turnaround Coalition, an advocacy group that fights for better bus service in NYC. This was in large part due to its 1 in 8 bunch rate, which was higher than 88.5% of NYC bus routes. A bus is considered bunched if it arrives within 25% of the bus that is supposed to come after them on its route. In addition, this route had a 53% on-time rate which was worse than 73.5% of NYC bus routes. CJTP measures what percentage of buses arrive at key destinations along its route within five minutes of its schedule.
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By Joseph Morales
The Northern Blvd corridor between 114th St and Broadway is one of the busiest stretches in East Elmhurst and Jackson Heights. The area is both a busy commercial and residential area with a plethora of small businesses with roots from all over the world. There is also a good amount of public transit along the corridor. Despite the 7 train being about 0.5 miles south, the Q66 local bus as well as 4 Queens-Manhattan express buses use the corridor. In addition, the M and R trains are located at the Northern Blvd Station which is on Northern Blvd and Broadway. Around 15,000 bus riders ride the bus along this portion of Northern Blvd on any given weekday. Public Transit and walking is a critical part of how people in the surrounding community get around in Queens Community District 3, where the corridor is located as 64% of residents here take public transit to work and 8% walk according to data from the New York City Department of City Planning. Only 50% of housing units have at least one vehicle.
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By Joseph Morales
The West Shore of Staten Island comprises the communities on the west side of Staten Island and accompanies about 20% of Staten Island’s total land. The West Shore includes neighborhoods such as Tottenville, Rossville, Travis-Chelsea, New Springville and more. Major destinations in and just outside of the West Shore include, the Staten Island Mall, The Teleport Office Complex, an Amazon Distribution Center and so much more. The West Shore has a large amount of things that can contribute to job growth such as a plethora of green space and other natural areas, suburban-style livable communities and a high density of potential employment hubs. The area also has solid highway access with the West Shore Expressway(NY-440), Staten Island Expressway(I-278) and Korean War Veterans Parkway all traveling through the West Shore. The Outerbridge Crossing and the Goethals Bridge both connect the West Shore of Staten Island to New Jersey.
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Transit Central 