Under MTA Bus Redesign, New Q60 Route Wouldn't Go To Manhattan

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — The Q60 is among the borough's most popular local bus lines thanks to its lengthy route carrying commuters all the way from South Jamaica to Manhattan's Upper East Side, but the MTA's proposed redesign of the Queens bus network calls for a major switch-up: The route would no longer go to Manhattan.

The MTA's proposal, released Dec. 31, would have the Q60 bus end at the Hunters Point ferry landing rather than at the foot of the Queensboro Bridge in Manhattan. To get to Manhattan, riders would have to take the ferry, switch to the subway in Long Island City or transfer to a new bus route that passes through Sunnyside on the way to Midtown Manhattan.

The new Q60, referred to as the QT60 on the MTA's map of the proposed routes, would run every 15 minutes during peak morning hours and every 12 minutes during the afternoon and evening rush.

Q60 riders, which number more than 14,000 on an average weekday, say the MTA's proposal doesn't take into account the seniors and the riders with disabilities who exclusively use buses to travel around Queens and get to Manhattan. (Only 20 of the 81 subway stations in or near Queens comply with federal law on accessibility requirements, according to the MTA.)

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The Q60 proposal is particularly contentious in the Forest Hills-Rego Park area, where roughly 20 percent of residents are aged 65 or over, compared to a Queens-wide average of 14 percent, according to census data.

"It's beyond asinine," Jean Silva, a member of Queens Community Board 6 in Forest Hills, said during a Feb. 12 board meeting on the redesign.

Silva, who uses a motorized scooter, said she relies on the Q60 to get to medical appointments at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan.

"This will make it impossible for me to get into Manhattan," said Pat Morgan, a Queens Community Board 6 member who identifies as disabled and has been taking the Q60 bus since 1971.

Turning to address two MTA representatives who were there to present the plan, Morgan added, "The Q60 has worked longer than the two of you have been alive."

MTA officials said their proposal is only a first draft and welcomed feedback to inform the next version of the redesign, due to be released by the summer.

Shams Tarek, an MTA spokesperson, said the new route was designed to bypass the traffic that often ensnarls the Q60.

"The current Q60 goes from South Jamaica to Midtown Manhattan and suffers in reliability due to its extensive length and heavy congestion at Queensboro Plaza and the Koch Queensboro Bridge," Tarek said in an emailed statement.

"The draft plan proposes to speed trips, improve reliability and expand bus service to emerging residential areas by avoiding the most congested parts of the route and going to Hunters Point South, a developing section of Queens with no current bus service."

Tarek said that riders who prefer not to take the subway would be able to transfer to a new bus line, the QT61, that goes along Queens Boulevard in Sunnyside on its route between East Elmhurst and Midtown Manhattan.

But City Council Member Karen Koslowitz, who represents Forest Hills, called the proposed Q60 changes "unacceptable."

"We don't want to send our people on a wild goose chase," Koslowitz said.

MTA officials say their overhaul of the Queens bus network, first announced in April, is an effort to remedy declining bus ridership and slow bus speeds by cutting under-used bus stops and combining redundant routes. The borough's bus routes have gone largely unchanged for more than a century.

In central Queens, the MTA's proposals are based on a study of the existing Queens bus network and ridership patterns, which found that most of the 80,000 riders who take the four bus lines along Queens Boulevard are traveling to or from Union Turnpike, the Queens Center Mall and the area by the Forest Hills-71st Avenue subway station.

About one-fifths of the riders who take buses along Queens Boulevard are going to or from the Forest Hills-Rego Park area, according to the MTA's existing conditions report.

Queens commuters and elected officials have lambasted the MTA's proposal as reducing bus service rather than improving it.

The MTA has pushed back heavily on that narrative, but sources told Patch that MTA officials privately acknowledged to them that the draft plan was designed to be budget-neutral.