The city Department of Transportation began construction of Flatbush Avenue bus lanes between Livingston Street and Grand Army Plaza on April 28. The claim is that bus traffic will speed up by 43%, 132,000 daily bus riders will benefit, and traffic safety will be improved. Yet, there is no evidence that any of this will occur. Seven bus routes will supposedly benefit. Yet, except for the B41 and B67, the other five routes only use Flatbush Avenue for roughly one block each.
The 2024 Metropolitan Transportation Authority ridership figures state that 13,525 daily bus riders use the B41 and another 3,276 use the B67 or a total of 16,801. Total ridership on the remaining five routes, the B37, B45, B63, B69 and B103, is 14,041 or a grand total is 30,842 riders—but even that overstates the case. Most of those riders are nowhere near the corridor where the changes are proposed. If we focus on those actually on buses along the affected stretch, the number plausibly drops to around 4,000 riders. That raises a basic question: how does the city justify a 132,000-rider benefit?
Also, the B63, one of the routes supposedly benefiting, will be removed from Flatbush Avenue because according to the MTA in a staff summary, retaining service on Flatbush Avenue will delay other buses making turns. Its removal will make transferring to the B45 more difficult.
Safety claims are equally questionable. Center boarding islands will require passengers—including seniors and wheelchair users—to cross active traffic lanes to board and exit buses. It’s not clear how introducing that new conflict point improves safety.
Also, consider that the MTA is planning to cut bus service by about 33% under the Brooklyn Bus Network Redesign with a third of B41 buses terminating at Empire Boulevard, and being renumbered as the B40. If the route is converted to articulated buses, another 20% of the buses would be removed, reducing bus traffic by about 50%. Combined with eliminating half the bus stops where the bus lanes are being instituted, many riders will face longer walks and longer waits—potentially offsetting, or even erasing any marginal gains in bus speed. It is actually possible that no one benefits at all or their trips will actually take longer.
The impacts on everyone else are far more certain. The plan reduces general traffic to a single lane in each direction for most of the affected corridor, cutting lane capacity by up to 50%. Since left turns have already been banned, and trucks will be required to make tight right turns to leave Flatbush Avenue, some will have to back up before proceeding, jeopardizing safety. A single lane for all other vehicles means that all traffic must stop every time someone enters or leaves a parking space.
Any type of accident or emergency will completely halt traffic, because there will be no way out with most turning movements prohibited. All this will cause traffic congestion chaos and violations of the bus lane when vehicles will have no other choice but to enter it, which will mean extra revenue for the MTA.
Bus lanes will be in effect at all times, including when buses are nearly empty and infrequently operate such as at 11:00pm and there are far more people in automobiles than in buses. There are also at least two major construction projects planned for Flatbush Avenue which will further limit roadway space resulting in even slower traffic. How does it make any sense to institute exclusive bus lanes and cut bus service by up to 50% at the same time?
In short, this project is being sold on inflated ridership claims and unproven benefits, while ignoring clear and widespread downsides. At best, it may marginally help a few thousand riders, saving them three minutes or so. At worst, it will slow travel for many tens of thousands of others daily by adding 20 minutes or more to their trip and making an already constrained corridor more fragile.
The public deserves a full and honest accounting—not selective data and optimistic assumptions—before a project of this scale moves forward.
Allan Rosen, a Brooklyn resident, is the former director of Bus Planning for MTA New York City Transit.
