Brooklyn transit riders could see significant savings in travel time if a revised proposal from Community Consulting Services (CSS) in taken seriously by the MTA. The report, Better Transit for Brooklyn, takes findings from a 2001 study and community input into consideration in laying out short-term, mid-term, and long-term solutions to improve Brooklyn transit.

And Brooklynites deserve it. Brooklyn riders account for 31% of total MTA ridership and therefore contribute the highest amount of any borough in farebox revenue, $714 million a year. At the same time, transit expenditures per person are lower in Brooklyn than in all other boroughs served by the MTA. And while ridership is increasing on most Brooklyn transit lines, service is not necessarily following suit. For example, even though average bus ridership in Brooklyn increased by 18.5% from 1997 to 2000, service only increased by 10.9%. This 7.6% gap is higher than that in any other borough.

The entire CSS report is valuable, but its strength is in laying out relatively short-term, easy to implement improvements that, within the next few years, could greatly improve transit for hundreds of thousands of people in Brooklyn.

For example, probably the easiest and cheapest recommendation in the report is instituting street transfers - between the Atlantic Ave/Pacific St. and Hoyt Schermerhorn stations, for example - that allow people to exit one subway station, cross the street, and enter another nearby station without paying a new fare. Street transfers could be accomplished with simple Metrocard coding, and would cost the MTA little to implement. The CCS report also recommends establishment of more Brooklyn to Manhattan express bus service from southern Brooklyn, increasing service on the extremely overcrowded L train, and extending the 5 train into Brooklyn at all hours.

Improving the G train and extending it at all times to Queens Plaza, extending the V train into Brooklyn to allow F express service, and providing bus service to places like Gateway Mall, would greatly help improve north-south transit routes within the borough.

A longer-term strategy is to re-evaluate existing bus routes (which are often still simply overlaid on trolley routes that made sense many decades ago), with extensive community input. While Brooklyn bus service extends to most parts of the borough, riders often complain of slow and sparse service, and difficult connections with other bus routes or the subway. A new route system, based on community input, population changes, intermodal connections, and economic centers, should be established. Express and local bus service along the new lines should also be investigated.

Long term strategies in the report, such as installing new escalators, providing real-time bus and train arrival information, making station connections at some of the points identified for near-term MetroCard transfers, and building a new East River tunnel are also important improvements to the Brooklyn transit system. But they are costly and won’t address short-term overcrowding and service problems.

The report is scheduled to be discussed at a NYS Joint Assembly meeting with BK Borough Pres. Marty Markowitz on July 15^th. We strongly urge elected and MTA officials to take the Better Transit for Brooklyn report to heart. With new development in the borough that will increase transit ridership, such as a revamped Atlantic Ave terminal, the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning and the recently announced Williamsburg rezoning, crowded conditions on Brooklyn’s bus and subway system will only get worse without service upgrades and improvements.

For more info on the report, go to http://www.communityconsulting.org. Report co-author Carolyn Konheim will speak about Brooklyn’s transit agenda at an Auto-Free NY meeting Tuesday, June 24 (see calendar). 

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