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About the Brooklyn Bus Network Redesign
The Brooklyn Bus Network Redesign is a multi-year initiative with multiple rounds of planning and public outreach.
We’re working with our riders to improve the Brooklyn bus network so trips are faster, more reliable, and more seamlessly integrated with the rest of the transit system.
Here, you'll find archived materials and a list of past events held as part of the Brooklyn Bus Network Redesign process.
Past public outreach: April-June 2023
In the spring of 2023, the Brooklyn Bus Network Redesign (BkBNR) team partnered with the MTA’s MetroCard Mobile Sales team at four locations for pop-up events, hosted five outdoor outreach events, and hosted six additional pop-up events to continue to meet with and hear from Brooklyn bus customers.
Events were mostly held outdoors.
The input gathered at these events as well as from hundreds of New Yorkers who attended our virtual workshops in January, February, and March are being used to inform the next report in the Redesign process – the Proposed Final Plan. Importantly, the public and other stakeholders should not expect to see changes to the proposals in the Draft Plan announced by the MTA until the next report is published.
Download the Brooklyn Bus Network Redesign promotional poster
Outdoor open houses
We hosted five outdoor outreach events, one for each of the sectors we identified during our initial wave of outreach on the Draft Plan. These events had an “open house” format. Attendees were able to stop by any time during the event to learn how we’re building a better bus network for Brooklyn and talk with our team about their trips. Attendees had the opportunity to tell us what they like and would like to see changed in the Brooklyn Bus Network Redesign Draft Plan.
Language interpreters, including ASL, were made available upon advance request.
All events were held from 3 p.m.- 7 p.m.
- Wednesday, April 19 at the Coney Island-Stillwell Av subway and bus terminal
- Thursday, April 20 in Sunset Park at the corner of 5 Av and 44 St
- Thursday, April 27 at the Canarsie-Rockaway Pkwy subway and bus terminal
- Thursday, May 4 in Columbus Park at Borough Hall station
- Thursday, May 11 at the Broadway Junction station
Brooklyn Bus Network Redesign Pop-Up Events
The nine events listed below gave customers the chance to meet and speak with the Redesign team and talk about the Draft Plan and the route proposals in their neighborhood. Customers were able to give their feedback on the Draft Plan directly to the team for consideration.
- Monday, April 17: 1-3 p.m. at the Red Hook Initiative/Red Hook Houses
- Tuesday, April 18: 3-6 p.m. at the Sheepshead Bay subway station
- Tuesday, April 25: 3-6 p.m. at the Flatbush Avenue subway station
- Wednesday, April 26: 3-6 p.m. at the Church Avenue subway station
- Tuesday, May 9: 7:30-10:30 a.m. at the Myrtle-Wyckoff Avs subway station complex
- Wednesday, May 10: 3-6 p.m. at the Classon Avenue subway station
- Friday, June 2: 11 a.m.-12 noon at the Nassau Avenue/Humboldt Street B48 bus stop
- Friday June 2: 12:30-2 p.m. at 685 Manhattan Avenue (at Norman Avenue)
- Friday, June 9: 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at the Bay Parkway subway station
Brooklyn Bus Network Redesign and MetroCard Mobile Sales Pop-up Events
For each of the four events listed below, members of the BkBNR team were on-site at MetroCard Mobile Sales locations to meet with bus customers and talk about the Draft Plan and the route proposals in their neighborhood. Customers were able to give their feedback on the Draft Plan directly to the team for consideration.
- Friday, April 14: 1-3 p.m. in Bay Ridge at 86th Street and 4th Avenue
- Tuesday, May 2: 9:30-11:30 a.m. in Starrett City at Pennsylvania Avenue and Twin Pines Drive
- Tuesday, May 2: 10 a.m.-12 p.m. in Sheepshead Bay at Nostrand Avenue and Avenue V
- Tuesday, May 2: 12-1:30 p.m. in Flatlands at Flatlands Avenue and East 59th Street
Draft Plan public workshops
From January 11 – March 9, 2023, the Brooklyn Bus Network Redesign team hosted 18 virtual workshops – one for each community district in Brooklyn. Hundreds of New Yorkers participated in the workshops and provided their thoughts and ideas on how the proposals in the Draft Plan would impact their trips.
Sessions began at 6:30 and 7:30 p.m., though attendees could join at any time. Customers were encouraged to pre-register for their preferred workshop, but registration was not required and the zoom link to participate was published to the project website as well as shared out to elected officials, community boards, and other stakeholders. If a customer couldn’t make the workshop for their neighborhood, they were invited to sign up for a different one.
Each workshop was conducted in English. Additional language interpreters as well as ASL and CART were made available upon advance request via the aforementioned registration form.
Date |
Community district |
Neighborhoods covered |
|---|---|---|
Wednesday, January 11 |
Community District 1 |
East Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Northside, Southside, Williamsburg |
Thursday, January 12 |
Community District 2 |
Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Clinton Hill, Downtown Brooklyn, DUMBO, Fort Greene, Fulton Ferry, Navy Yard, Vinegar Hill |
Tuesday, January 17 |
Community District 3 |
Bedford-Stuyvesant, Stuyvesant Heights, Tompkins Park North |
Thursday, January 19 |
Community District 4 |
Bushwick |
Tuesday, January 24 |
Community District 5 |
Broadway Junction, City Line, Cypress Hills, East New York, Highland Park, New Lots, Spring Creek, Starrett City |
Thursday, January 26 |
Community District 6 |
Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Columbia St, Gowanus, Park Slope, Red Hook |
Tuesday, January 31 |
Community District 7 |
Sunset Park, Windsor Terrace |
Thursday, February 2 |
Community District 8 |
Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, Weeksville |
Tuesday, February 7 |
Community District 9 |
Crown Heights South, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Wingate |
Thursday, February 9 |
Community District 10 |
Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Fort Hamilton |
Monday, February 13 |
Community District 11 |
Bath Beach, Bensonhurst, Gravesend, Mapleton |
Thursday, February 16 |
Community District 12 |
Borough Park, Kensington, Ocean Parkway |
Tuesday, February 21 |
Community District 13 |
Brighton Beach, Coney Island, Gravesend, Homecrest, Sea Gate, West Brighton |
Thursday, February 23 |
Community District 14 |
Ditmas Park, Flatbush, Manhattan Terrace, Midwood, Ocean Parkway, Prospect Park South |
Wednesday, March 1 |
Community District 15 |
Gerritsen Beach, Gravesend, Homecrest, Kings Highway, Manhattan Beach, Plumb Beach, Sheepshead Bay |
Thursday, March 2 |
Community District 16 |
Broadway Junction, Brownsville, Ocean Hill |
Tuesday, March 7 |
Community District 17 |
East Flatbush, Farragut, Flatbush, Northeast Flatbush, Remsen Village, Rugby, Erasmus |
Thursday, March 9 |
Community District 18 |
Bergen Beach, Canarsie, Flatlands, Georgetown, Marine Park, Mill Basin, Mill Island, Paerdegat Basin |
Brooklyn Bus Network Redesign Existing Conditions Report (January 2020)
This report on existing conditions is the first step in the bus network redesign process. The goal is to take a fresh look at Brooklyn, its people, its travel needs, and what can be done to improve bus travel to meet those needs.
The Brooklyn Bus Network has not substantially changed in decades. The continuing decline in bus ridership in Brooklyn, and in New York City, requires a fresh look at how we provide bus service. Buses are slowing down and bus reliability is suffering. Over that same period, our customers’ needs have transformed dramatically. The bus network needs to evolve with them.
We will build a new bus network to meet those needs.
Route profiles
We created profiles for the existing routes in the Brooklyn Bus Network. Each profile contains information about ridership, frequency, span of service, and performance metrics.
Key findings
Brooklyn at a glance
- Brooklyn’s population has grown 5.2% since 2010. Since 2009, private sector job growth in the borough has outpaced the rest of New York City, New York State, and the country, with the number of businesses growing 32% and private sector employment growing 39%. Growth has occurred in nearly every sector.
- Brooklyn’s ongoing population and employment growth is expected to continue, though some neighborhoods are expected to grow faster than others. While the Brooklyn Bus Network covers nearly the entire borough, it has not changed much in the past decades to support this growth.
- Currently 31 of the 170 subway stations in Brooklyn are accessible according to standards established by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The network redesign will be particularly important for those customers whose transit options are currently more limited.
- According to Census data, about 55% of Brooklyn households do not own a vehicle. About 62% of Brooklyn commuters travel via transit. About 53% of Brooklyn commuters identified rail modes as their primary means of transportation, while 9% identified bus as their primary means. About 23% of commuters drive to work.
- The Brooklyn Bus Network, which has 72 routes, carries over 650,000 riders on an average weekday. In general, bus boardings are more prevalent in the eastern half of the borough, particularly in the neighborhoods east of Prospect Park.
- Most Brooklyn bus customers transfer as part of their journey; 37% transfer to another bus and 35% transfer to the subway.
Limitations of the existing network
- Much of the network is a grid, though in some neighborhoods, circuitous routes slow down travel to key destinations and transfer points.
- Bus routes sometimes operate on nearby parallel streets, splitting the available resources.
- Bus priority is generally limited to SBS corridors and does not benefit most Brooklyn bus riders.
- Bus stops spaced close together slow down bus travel, as the bus needs to frequently decelerate to a stop and then wait to re-enter the flow of traffic.
- Narrow streets and difficult turns, particularly left turns, hamper bus speeds and reliability.
- Even with bus routes covering much of the borough, there are opportunities to improve connectivity and provide easier access to places in Brooklyn and beyond where customers want to go.
Customer priorities
Decreased wait time and increased frequency
Customers want more frequent bus service to shorten waits at bus stops. In the existing network, Brooklyn customers wait longer for the bus than they expect to, about two minutes on average for each trip.
Decreased travel time through faster buses
Customers want faster travel on buses to get to their destinations more quickly. Average bus speeds in Brooklyn are the second-lowest of the five boroughs, at 7.0 miles per hour (MPH) in May 2019, and have slowed 5% since 2014.
A more reliable network
Customers want buses to be more reliable and less bunched. Once on the bus, Brooklyn customers spend more time traveling to their destination than the schedule would indicate, about one minute on average for each trip. About one-third of the time, it takes customers five minutes longer than expected to complete their trip.
Improved connections to more places
Customers want access to more of the city than they have now, both within and between Brooklyn neighborhoods and onward to other boroughs.
Network simplification to increase ease of use
Customers want the bus network to be easier to use.