View Photos of MTA Ambassadors at Main St/Kissena Blvd Q20 and Q44-SBS Bus Stop
See Video of MTA Chair and CEO Lieber's Media Availability on First Weekday of Queens Bus Network Redesign Launch
View B-Roll Footage of MTA Leadership and Customer Ambassadors Engaging with Riders
MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber, Chief Customer Officer Shanifah Rieara, and Acting NYC Transit Senior Vice President of Department of Buses Chris Pangilinan joined customer ambassadors in Flushing, Queens, this morning to greet bus riders, answer questions, and gather initial impressions on the first weekday of Phase 1 of the Queens Bus Network Redesign. Officially launched yesterday, Sunday, June 29, the Queens Bus Network Redesign marks the beginning of the most significant transformation of the borough’s bus system in more than half a century.
Phase 1 implements approximately 70 percent of the changes, and the remaining set of changes will roll out in Phase 2, which begins Sunday, August 31.
“There are literally hundreds of MTA ambassadors out today, making sure that everybody in Queens knows, especially eastern Queens, where the changes are in effect right now, that many bus routes have changed,” said MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber. “Now, the good news is there's more service. We have 11 more bus routes than we did before. We're spending $35 million more a year to give Queens better, faster bus service. We spent 5 years listening to Queens and making changes so people could get more service and better service, and we're rolling it out right now.”
With an additional $33.7 million invested annually in bus operations to maintain service levels introduced in the redesign, the MTA is delivering on its commitment to prioritize better bus service and bring long overdue improvements to the city’s most bus-dependent borough.
The Queens Bus Network Redesign is part of major effort to modernize New York City’s bus network across every borough. Over decades, demographics have shifted in residential and business communities and so have travel patterns. The redesigned networks deliver the needed larger-scale improvements to better meet the demand of current and future bus customers.
In 2018, a redesigned express bus network was implemented on Staten Island. In 2022, a redesigned local bus network was implemented in the Bronx. And in Brooklyn, the project team is reviewing feedback from the Brooklyn Bus Network Redesign’s Draft Plan released in December of 2022 to develop the Proposed Final Plan. Manhattan will be the last of the boroughs to begin its bus network redesign, to be followed by the Staten Island Local and Bronx Express bus network redesigns at a later date.