While the right way to spend $40 million may be in doubt, the MTA is forging ahead with a plan to use of this unexpected windfall to restore services. According to a report in the Daily News and documents that will soon be made public, the agency will devote at least $14 million to bringing back some bus and subway service lost to 2010 rollbacks.
Pete Donohue had just a bit more: “A transit official cautioned the final list of “service investments” has not been finalized. But sources say it now includes restoring or increasing service on the M8 and M100 in Manhattan, the B37 and B70 in Brooklyn, the Bx24 in the Bronx, and the Q58 and Q37 in Queens. Many of the restorations involve bringing back weekend service, one source said.”
It’s unclear right now what the so-called “subway improvements” will be, but Donohue notes that at least $700,000 in G train upgrades, spurred on by the results of the full line review, will likely be a part of the budget as well. We’ll know more next week, and as it’s late and I just made it home from the All Star Game, I’ll have more to say later on Wednesday.
2 comments
A restoration of the B37 will be welcome news to us west Brooklyn types.
But when it went away before, they altered the route of the B70 so that it now ran on the Bay Ridge part of Third Avenue, instead of Eighth Avenue.
I wonder if the B70 and perhaps some other routes will be tweaked back in light of the restorations?
It’d be nice to see Q50 service increased on weekends the way it has been during the week. Also, maybe extending the Bx24 to Metropolitan Oval the way the Bx14 used to run and getting rid of the Bx4A. I *still* see people getting confused about where the 4A goes compared to the 4, and it’s been almost 2 and a half years now. Plus, the bus drivers themselves often seem to just decide to run as a 4 or a 4A depending on what they feel like doing half the time.