Restore Weekend Q42 Bus Service, SE Queens Residents Urge: Report

ST. ALBANS, QUEENS — Southeast Queens residents are lobbying the Metropolitan Transit Authority to revive weekend service on the Q42 bus route, which connects Jamaica and St. Albans.

Hundreds have riders have recently participated in a letter-writing campaign to ask New York City Transit President Andy Byford to bring back the Q42's weekend service, according to the Queens Daily Eagle.

The Q42 ferries riders between the Jamaica Center subway station and the intersection of Sayres Avenue and 180th Street in St. Albans — but only on weekdays. The transit authority eliminated the Q42's off-peak service in 2010 amid an $800 million budget deficit, the Eagle reported.

"The main issue is that there are no other buses that run through the neighborhood where the Q42 goes," St. Albans resident Danielle Brodnax, who launched the letter campaign, told the Eagle. "The people along that route are literally stuck in the neighborhood."

Brodnax, who attends the Shiloh Baptist Church of Jamaica, said elderly congregation members have a difficult time getting to services without the Q42 running.

The MTA did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment.

City data shows the Q42 has one of the lowest weekday riderships of any Queens bus, according to the Eagle; an average weekday in 2016 saw just 1,195 riders taking the line.

Read the full story in the Queens Daily Eagle.