MTA officials held the final public hearing for the Queens Bus Network Design on Wednesday, Jan 22. The virtual town hall hearing covered an overview of the Proposed Final Plan Addendum and frequently asked questions by bus customers and other stakeholders.
MTA officials, including Lucille K. Songhai, assistant director of government and community relations; Chris Pangillinan, chief of operations planning; Frank Annicaro, senior VP of buses; Lola Vieira-Sullivan, transportation planner; Rick Hajduk, project manager of the redesign; and Ryan Wilkinson, staff analyst, held the presentation.
The final proposal addendum will increase the 113 existing bus routes servicing over 800,000 daily Queens commuters to 124 total routes, including 94 local routes and 30 express routes. The redesign focuses on four route types: local routes, limited routes, SBS-crosstown routes, and the newly proposed rush route. The plan invests over $30 million to improve service with new routes. The MTA board is expected to vote on the proposed final draft plan addendum this winter. If the vote is approved, then the bus network redesign will be implemented in phases aligned with regular seasonal service changes.
Proposed Final Plan Addendum
The program focused on an overview of the Proposed Final Plan Addendum, published in December 2024. Officials presented the addendum, reflecting the months of community input the MTA received on the Proposed Final Plan discussed in public hearings last year, including one on July 24, 2024.
The addendum adds 17 new local routes and 25 rush routes specifically designed to better connect Queens residents to the subway and LIRR.
Hajduk gave a virtual presentation on the current status of the redesign project and what riders want regarding better bus service. According to Hajduk, riders have four priorities: more reliable and dependable bus service, shorter travel times, better connections to other transit lines, and simplified bus service.
Hajduk added that in listening to residents’ 4 priorities, the MTA developed 7 strategies to redesign the bus network, including improved route designs by straightening routes, adding new route types and reducing the number of variants, enhancing connectivity with new routes, and improving interborough connections; improving frequencies for a better all-day frequent network; and balanced bus stop by improving bus spacing to increase speed and reliability.
Additionally, the MTA collaborated with the DOT on expanding bus priority treatments across Queens and focused improvements on areas with a greater need for transit to improve transit equity and accessibility to better connections to ADA-compliant subway stations.
Adjustments made in the Proposed Final Plan Addendum include:
Southeast Queens
- The new Q80 route will improve service to JFK Airport, and the new Q90 route will add service to LaGuardia Airport.
- The new Q98 between Myrtle Ave and Wykoff Ave. and downtown Flushing will provide critical interorough connections.
- As a result of concerns from community members in South Ozone Park about the Q10 proposal in the proposed final plan, the addendum restores the Q10 local as the Q10 rush picking up customers along 130th St. and provides faster travel along Lefferts Blvd.
- The Q10 limited has been relabeled as the Q80 limited, providing services similar to those of the existing Q10 limited branch.
- The Q9 and Q37 were returned to their existing southern terminals
- The new Q90 will connect Flushing to LaGuardia Terminals B and C.
- In the Rockaways, the Q22 will serve Bayswater
- Q52 SBS is extended to Edgmere
- Q113 is restored to provide service between Far Rockaway and Jamaica
Western Queens
- Due to feedback from residents from Roosevelt Island, the MTA restored the Q102 to Roosevelt Island and provided more direct service to Queens Plaza
- The proposed Q105 has been withdrawn, restoring the existing Q100
- MTA maintains the B62 extension into Astoria that was proposed in the proposed final plan
- The Q101 service to Hunters Point and Q103 realignment along 21st St. remain in the addendum.
- The Q110 will use the existing Q36 terminal
- The Q86 will be extended further into Rosedale.
- Proposed Q102 has more direct routing to Astoria
- Q104 maintains existing routing.
Northeast Queens
- Q65 and Q26 swaps will be maintained as in the proposed final plan.
- Q75 to Jamaica is realigned to a new route, the Q74, which will provide service between Forest Hills and Queens Community College.
Q & A Session
The latter part of the meeting answered frequently asked questions regarding the MTA Proposed Final Plan Addendum. Below is a record of some of the Questions and Answers covered in the meeting.
Q: Why has the QM3 route been removed?
Hajduk: “The QM3 currently serves fewer than 70 riders per day in each direction. A vast majority of the commuters in this area are better served by the Long Island Railroad’s Port Washington branch, which parallels the QM3. [LIRR]Stations in this area, from Little Neck to Manhattan, are eligible for discounted rail tickets through the city ticket initiative, so we are proposing to discontinue the QM3 to reinvest that into a more robust local network that serves the areas of greatest needs. Current QM3 riders who aren’t interested in taking the Long Island Railroad can transfer to the Q12 and Q13 and take the 7 train to downtown Flushing.”
Q: Can you talk about rerouting the Q23 from Austin Street and how the new routing can improve the bus reliability for bus customers?
Wilkinson: “Today, the Q23 runs down Austin Street in Forest Hills; it is an extremely congested corridor, as anyone who has taken the bus in the area is aware of. We are proposing to reroute the Q23 off of Austin Street and onto Yellowstone Boulevard and Queens Boulevard to avoid a bit of that congestion that we see today. This is the routing that people may be familiar with today; it’s the detour routing that the Q23 does during events at Forest Hills Stadium.”
Q: Can you discuss the importance of getting bus customers to Green Acres Mall regarding the Q5 and Q85?
Vieira-Sullivan: Today, the Q5 and the Q85 run in many different patterns. The Q5 has three different patterns, one that ends where the proposed route…that’s one of the patterns. The other one goes to Green Acres. the other one is just finished on the Long Island Railroad. The Q85 also has different patterns: one that terminates on Rochdale, one that goes to Green Acres, and another one goes to Rosedale. So, as part of the redesign, one of the objectives was to simplify the network, and we wanted to give one label for each one of these different destinations. So the customer doesn’t need to keep paying attention to, you know, the destination sign on the bus. The Q5 would be the main route on Merrick Boulevard. It’s going to have better service than it has today and better frequency.
So, the Q87 will be the Q5, the existing Q5 that goes to Rosedale. If you want to go to Rosedale and live along Merrick Boulevard, take the 87. You can also take the Q89, which also travels along Merrick Boulevard but goes through a different path, which is the existing Q85 today that goes to Green Acres. So, each one of these routes has one name, and it’s easier to understand.
Q: Can you talk about the rush routes specifically?
Hajduk: The hope for this new route type is to get people to the subway faster and their ultimate destination faster. The way the rush route operates is by picking up locally further away. It’ll act like an express train like the 4 train or the 5 train skip stops along 42nd Street and 125th Street to expedite service and travel to the Bronx. The goal of these is to get people that are furthest away from their final destination in Queens faster access to that subway connection, faster access to downtown Jamaica shopping centers and economic opportunities, but really to provide faster travel and more reliable service overall so that they can get to work reliably.
Vieira-Sullivan: Anywhere we have a rush route that does not stop at every stop, we are going to have a local route serving those local stops so nobody would be missed.
Q: is the Q100 being eliminated, or is it being kept in the latest version of the plan?
Hajduk: We have brought it back. In the proposed final plan, we had the Q105, which was going to run along 31st Street underneath the subway and replace the Q100. But, after we heard significant community feedback and there were operational challenges with the Q105, we decided to withdraw the Q105 and bring back the Q100. It is almost identical to what it is today, with just a couple extra stops on 20th Avenue in Steinway.
