Just before new years, the MTA released their plan for redesigning the Queens bus network. The MTA, of course, often delivers some of the most underwhelming design work around. As usual, actually commuters are taking a back seat to political concerns.
If you really want to know all the various ways this redesign has rubbed commuters wrong, there’s an entire facebook group dedicated to it.
Instead of attempting to cover ALL the problems with this redesign, I want to focus in solely on those affecting western Queens. Namely, the death of the Q103 bus, the new QT1 route, and the behind the scenes political goop that is definitely worth your consideration.
The Death of the Q103
The proposed death of the 103 bus is perhaps the most disturbing of all bus route deaths. The 103 was long a bastard child. It ran infrequently, and only on weekdays. However, ridership over the past decade has rose steadily. In 2015, service was expanded into the weekends and late nights. At the time, Michael Gianaris, the state senator for western Queens, stated “Western Queens has long needed better bus service, so it is gratifying that the MTA responded to our concerns”. The MTA, of course, had fought long and hard against increasing any service on this route.
The 103 is one of the only NYC bus route to see increased ridership. This bus route services two NYCHA housing projects, as well as a growing residential population moving into new luxury high rises.
The nearest transit route to the 103 is the Q69 bus on 21st street, which on average is nearly half a mile away.
There is simply no sound, logical reason for killing the Q103 bus. When no logical reason can be found, you have to consider illogical reasons. I’m talking about politics of course. Read between the lines. Who benefits from this? And why would they want to use the 103 as one of their chess pieces?
The QT1 / BQX situation.
The MTA’s plan for the Q103 route is to shift riders a half mile over to 21st street. To do this, they would instituted a new bus route, called the QT1, which would run from the Astoria NYCHA complex at Hallets Cove, down 21st street, into Brooklyn and all the way to Downtown Brooklyn.
If this routing sounds familiar, that’s because it is the exact route that NYC Mayor DeBlasio has proposed for his pointless BQX trolley route. The MTA, of course, is controlled DeBlasio’s rival, Andrew Cuomo.
Followers of Cuomo’s career will recognize what is really happening here: Cuomo recognizes that commuters from Astoria want a seamless ride deeper into Brooklyn. He sees that the Mayor might score some popularity points with those who want BQX to make that commute better. He also sees how much resistance there is to this farcical, nearly three billion dollar BQX plan, with critics often questioning ‘why don’t they save all that money and run it as a bus route?’.
Cuomo can literally start the new QT1 bus route faster, with significantly lower cost (actually zero cost if he gets to cut back on other Queens routes), and obliterate the need for BQX entirely.
In the absence of logic…
Now consider the Q103 bus route elimination: There’s no logical reason for it. Therefore we have to consider illogical reasons, and in this case, those reasons are political. There is just no way that the MTA’s bus redesign just happens to compete with the mayor’s $3 billion dollar contractor-throw away pet project.
This would be a double win for Cuomo. By taking away the Q103, he could stick it to Gianaris (who championed expanding service on the route, and later opposed Cuomo on the Amazon HQ2 deal). By reshuffling the deck and starting the QT1 bus route for zero cost, Cuomo could stick it to DeBlasio and add even more fuel to the “why should we blow $3 Billion dollars on a Trolley” argument.
All of this said, we’ve got two fine example of how the Queens bus redesign is tainted with behind the scenes political goop. Quite a few people don’t want to talk about it, out of fear of retribution from Cuomo and his bottomless pit of snakes. But we need to raise this issues, openly and loudly. Otherwise commuters might get screwed just to satisfy the whims of the elite; the type of people who never take public transit and don’t care who gets screwed.
What other Queens bus routes are being tampered with for unspoken, unsavory reasons? What other bus routes in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island are facing similar treatment?
The comments section is open people. Have at it folks. Or better still, attend those meetings, write to media outlets, blast it all over social media. Dark political goop only dies in daylight.
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