Advocates say buses on Flatbush Avenue are “slow and unreliable.”
Photograph courtesy of Marc A. Hermann/MTA
Each morning, tens of 1000’s of working-class New Yorkers crowd onto Flatbush Avenue’s B41 bus, hoping for a dependable journey to work, faculty, physician’s appointments, and household. As a substitute, what we get is delay, frustration, and disrespect.
Flatbush Avenue is among the busiest corridors in Brooklyn, with greater than 130,000 each day bus riders — a lot of them from Black, Latino, Caribbean, and immigrant communities. But regardless of our important function on this metropolis, we proceed to be handled like an afterthought.
Final 12 months, Riders Alliance and the Pratt Heart joined forces with Flatbush riders, area people teams and cultural establishments to develop a transparent, community-driven plan to repair this downside: a center-running bus lane that might enable buses to lastly transfer reliably and pretty alongside the hall. DOT acknowledged the overwhelming native assist and promised to ship a brand new design. A 12 months later, nothing has occurred. Buses on Flatbush nonetheless crawl at lower than 4 miles per hour in some sections — slower than an individual can stroll.
The story of Flatbush Avenue just isn’t distinctive. Throughout New York, the communities that rely most on public transit — Black, Latino, immigrant, and working-class riders — are those compelled to attend the longest for lengthy promised enhancements. It’s the identical unacceptable sample repeatedly: metropolis leaders make daring statements about fairness, however when it’s time to behave, our neighborhoods are left behind.
Mayor Adams has repeatedly mentioned he stands with working individuals. However after years of delays and damaged guarantees, working-class communities are nonetheless ready. Flatbush Avenue riders, like so many others throughout the town, deserve greater than phrases — they deserve motion. If Mayor Adams gained’t ship, we’d like new management that may lastly put working New Yorkers first.
Flatbush riders have accomplished our half. We’ve organized. We’ve proven up at group conferences. We’ve constructed broad assist from native establishments, unions, small companies, and religion teams. We have now accomplished every little thing the town has requested us to do — and but, we’re nonetheless ready for the fundamental dignity of a dependable journey.
Sufficient ready. Mayor Adams and DOT should transfer ahead instantly with the center-running bus lane on Flatbush Avenue — and ship an actual message that working-class communities matter.
Transit justice is racial justice. Transit justice is immigrant justice. Transit justice is financial justice. And its lengthy overdue. It’s time for Mayor Adams to ship it — beginning right here.
Mayra Aldás-Deckert is the lead organizer of the Riders Alliance
