MTA New York Metropolis Transit President Demetrius Crichlow talking concerning the Queens bus community redesign in June 2025.
Marc A. Hermann / MTA
One week into Section 1 of the Queens Bus Community Redesign, it’s going very easily — and that’s resulting from efficient planning and a large communication effort.
Thanks go to tons of of volunteer ambassadors, principally MTA workers, who’re taking time from their common roles to assist educate and direct Queens riders to new service choices for shorter, quicker commutes.
LaGuardia Airport vacationers and workers say they love the brand new Q90’s extra direct experience from Flushing to that airport. We’re additionally listening to from Q98 Restricted passengers who’re thrilled to be on a route that bypasses congested streets to ship a speedy connection between Ridgewood and Flushing.
We’re grateful to bus operators who skilled extensively and seamlessly switched to new routes actually in a single day. We additionally respect the NYC Division of Transportation for making a whopping 1,600 adjustments to bus cease indicators to keep away from confusion as riders sorted out new methods to get the place they needed to go.
With time, we’re hoping to see the identical type of boroughwide pace will increase that adopted our most up-to-date redesign within the Bronx. Within the months after implementation in summer time 2022, native buses ran 4% quicker on the 13 routes that had been remapped, whereas total speeds elevated 2% on weekdays and three% on weekends.
Each second we may give New Yorkers again of their day counts, which is why I’m so enthusiastic about these redesigns. They’ve been within the works for nearly a decade.
We began with specific buses on Staten Island; planning there started in 2017, and remaining adjustments took impact the next 12 months. Then we moved on to the Bronx earlier than tackling Queens, the place Section 2 is coming this August.
Subsequent, it’s Brooklyn’s flip. We’ve already revealed a Draft Plan on the MTA web site for the general public to evaluation, and can launch the Proposed Closing Plan later this 12 months. Like its predecessors, this proposal might be finely tuned earlier than it goes reside.
Each redesign teaches us one thing new to deliver to the following iteration. For instance, this time round in Queens, we made certain to enhance signage on the Information-A-Journey canister on bus cease poles to incorporate localized details about service and bus cease adjustments based mostly on suggestions from Staten Islanders and Bronxites.
We additionally considerably improved the route lookup device on the MTA web site to make sure that riders have all of the instruments they should navigate the brand new community. Riders in Brooklyn and Manhattan can anticipate the identical degree of customer support.
I do know change isn’t all the time straightforward, but it surely’s a lot wanted. In Queens and Brooklyn, many bus strains nonetheless observe previous trolley routes. Simply consider how a lot New York has modified since they stopped operating!
We wish to enhance and simplify the service map to get riders the place they wish to go now – to not 1937 locations – and we’ll be with them each step of the way in which.
Demetrius Crichlow is MTA New York Metropolis Transit president.
