What people are saying about the B82. Image via NYC DOTWhat people are saying about the B6 and B82
Two more enhanced bus routes are entering the project pipeline in NYC, one along a busy Manhattan crosstown street and the other snaking across a transit-hungry stretch of Brooklyn.
The Manhattan project will run across 23rd Street. The Brooklyn project would tackle a long route following the B6 and B82 between East New York and Gravesend, which carried a combined 69,586 riders on an average weekday last year, according to the MTA.
DOT and the MTA have already gotten started on the southern Brooklyn route. The project website includes reports from the field, where staffers set up tables at busy bus stops in August and September to find out what riders want. The top complaints: Buses are too slow, too crowded, and not running frequently enough.
There are also online maps -- one for the B6, another for the B82 -- so riders can pinpoint areas in need of improvement.
The B82 seems to offer the best opportunity for bus lanes, especially along Flatlands Avenue and Kings Highway. Getting these changes might take some effort: The route crosses City Council and community board districts where representatives don't have a great record on reallocating street space.
In Manhattan, SBS service on 23rd Street is a bit of a surprise, since it didn't appear in either the 2009 plan or OneNYC. The next logical Manhattan SBS route would have been 14th Street, which was identified in both planning documents. There's a reason 14th Street looked like a higher priority: The M14 served an average 34,487 riders each weekday last year, according to the MTA, while the M23 served just 13,971. DOT did not say why 23rd Street jumped ahead of 14th Street for implementation.
DOT has started reaching out to local elected officials and community board members in the area in advance of public meetings later this fall.
In spring 2017, Stephen wrote for Streetsblog USA, covering the livable streets movement and transportation policy developments around the nation.
From August 2012 to October 2015, he was a reporter for Streetsblog NYC, covering livable streets and transportation issues in the city and the region. After joining Streetsblog, he covered the tail end of the Bloomberg administration and the launch of Citi Bike. Since then, he covered mayoral elections, the de Blasio administration's ongoing Vision Zero campaign, and New York City's ever-evolving street safety and livable streets movements.
Mayor Adams said the pricing scheme should merely be the "beginning of the conversation" with "communities to deliberate and to make a determination of who is going to be exempted."