The MTA has just published their “draft plan” for the 2023 Brooklyn City Bus Redesign.
For the Crown Heights neighborhood, in addition to the Empire Blvd B43 city bus route, it adds a brand new bus route on Empire Blvd from Utica Ave to Flatbush Ave.
Residents of Empire Blvd pointed out to COLlive, that Empire Blvd has only one driving lane each way, like a regular residential street, and is too narrow to accommodate the busses.
Is also a commercial truck route designed by NYC with very large and dangerous trucks simply “passing through” the area, driving there day and night.
(There are other 2 lane each way streets in Brooklyn which can handle commercial trucks).
The MTA bus route on Brooklyn Avenue will be moved to Albany Avenue, thus causing traffic havoc on the already congested Albany Avenue in addition to taking away about 20 parking spots for 3 new MTA city bus stops along Albany Avenue from Eastern Parkway till Empire Blvd.
Many local Residents of the area stated that if NYC “feels” that Brooklyn Avenue is no longer in need of a bus stop, that is their choice and we welcome that.
Yes, a small amount of residents do use the MTA city bus, and it’s important to make the buses accessible to riders.
But it is very few and as a community, they don’t mind walking a block or two blocks to the bus stop. Just like residents don’t mind walking 5 or 10 blocks to the subway train. Not everything needs to be within a block, almost every Avenue in this neighborhood already has a full MTA City Bus route.
“This is just too many busses and bus stops. More than the neighborhood wants or needs,” a concerned resident said.
And the residents living near Albany Avenue, don’t want an MTA bus route taking away parking, causing a gridlock in the already traffic avenue, and causing a danger to the school children, both public school and private school children walking in the Albany Ave area by having large big busses obstructing views on an already heavy traffic street.
This is a “draft plan” and Community Board 9 with the MTA wants to hear the community’s input.
The community board 9 meeting with the MTA will be today Tuesday, February 7 at 6:30pm on Zoom.
Click here to join
Meeting ID: 872 2144 3989
All Crown Heights residents are encouraged to attend.
Local Crown Heights Residents have the option to submit a formal comment to the NYC MTA with any concerns you may have with these 2 new bus routes.
https://contact.mta.info/s/forms/bus-network-redesign
We also encourage local residents to join Community Board 9 (Community Board 8 for North Crown Heights) to become a member, as all these different projects go through the Brooklyn community board and we want our communities concerns to be heard.
This actually adds a net positive of about 30 parking spots in crown heights.
How so ? the streets are very narrow. If anything parking will be removed and not only that we will be TICKETED for driving in a bus lane.This has to be stopped.
Basic knowledge will show you that It will take away parking spots to make the bus stop. Not sure where you got your information from.
Our community council is totally worthless.
Time and again the major issues facing our neighborhood is being forced down our throats. Resign!
You should get involved. Join the brooklyn community board, or at least the brooklyn community board meetings.
At the very least attend the meetings from the local Assemblymember, NY senate member or councilmember that represents CH.
I actually did!
You are right that ppl should be involved as much as possible, hence my recent activism… but a community does need a leading body and there are ppl that claim to be that , yet we don’t here a word from them on these major issues. So my point is if they can’t take on the leadership they should resign.
With the current construction of the expansion of ULY disrupting traffic abysmally, it is scary to think what could happen if they put in a bus route there, chas v’shalom.
The sidewalk is gone and our children would be further endangered!
Need the pass code to join!
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There are a large majority of senior citizens and many others that can’t afford cars that regularly take public transportation. This also includes kids that live far from their schools but are too big for busses. The new routes are very exciting and needed.
We want the Albany bus route to be in addition to the Brooklyn one. And another bus that goes north.
This will make it much easier to get around ch for those that don’t have cars.
Albany Avenue is already used by the Fire Department, and by ambulances as their quick-direct route south toward the hospital. Can precious minutes be taken away from those saving lives?
Albany ave is very narrow. I drove their tonight to see for myself just to be sure. There is NO WAY between the school busses and emergency vechicles there is room for city busses UNLESS they are planning on removing large swaths of parking spaces. What are we waiting for, G-D forbid for a student to get smashed in between this mess? Friends, wake up write to community board 9 NOW. A basic simple email. There is power in numbers. bk09-1@cb.nyc.gov Dont wait for some one else to be your voice.!
Will make it easier to get places
It’s like door to door uber for a fraction of the price
And as usual the constituents are not represented by the representatives.
NY is going down the drain
So glad I left
Adding a bus route to Albany makes the street busier and therefore safer. Kind of like the 5g internet towers, when the city does stuff for our community, some people are so distrustful they see it as an attack, when it actuality it’s very helpful to many people. People just need to relax and stop being so paranoid.
Very safe indeed. I hope you are joking. Between the school busses, emergency cars, Food delivery trucks and now this I hope we will be safe and a child will not be a korban.
I will disagree with you at this point. Now the city has MORE of a chance to give tickets for going on the bus lane. Watch out street cameras are coming up next. Is that also for our good? Please explain why you think we are not being paranoid? We are being CHOKED in every aspect . ENOUGH IS ENOUGH ! Lets DO something about this.
Albany ave is a traffic nightmare how is adding a bus route safer ?
I use public transportation to commute to work and I always wished there was a better bus system in our neighborhood.
The B46 on Utica or the B35 on Church are efficient bus services.
The B43 in Crown Heights is a joke that comes every 20 minutes.
With Crown Heights expanding it would be amazing to have a better public transportation system.
I don’t know if the current proposal is best for our neighborhood but a good public transportation system in our neighborhood is long overdue.
1- The B44 is moving to Rogers, B43 is moving to Albany now there is no access for seniors etc living between nostrand and Albany.
2- I have BIG news for you all, A BIG supermarket is coming to the condos being built on Crown between Albany and Troy. This is ASKING FOR A DISASTER. A disaster of noise and traffic.
I think Empire Blvd is a great location to improve mass transit since it connects to the B/Q/S and 2/5 and is wider than nearly every other street in CB9. Additional bus service there would be a tremendous way to people to also reach Prospect Park without driving and creating more vehicle congestion. No doubt details need to be worked out, but overall this seems like a very wise plan from what I saw.
If New York City & the MTA actually wants to do what’s relevant to the residents of Crown Heights, Then. Instead of having useless bus routes that very very very few people use. Make a MTA City Bus express route with limited stops, from Crown Heights, passing thru Flatbush to Borough Park (and a route back) That will benefit all residents in Crown Heights, Flatbush & Borough Park and will probably be one of the most used MTA bus routes. This is a PRACTICAL idea. A middle ground between yes or no new bus routes. Yes, but a relevant bus… Read more »