New Subway Line Could Be Coming To Crown Heights

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — Brooklyn's busy Utica Avenue could see a long-awaited transit upgrade in the form of a new subway line.

Or maybe added bus service. Or, perhaps, a light rail line.

Two parallel transit groups — one formed by MTA, the other by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams — are looking into all of those options. The Adams group, the Utica Avenue Task Force, kicked off with a meeting Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.

"What we wanted to do was create a 20,000 foot perspective," said Ryan Lynch, chief of staff for Adams.

Lynch told a room at Crown Gardens that Adams is interested to see if he can get an "in-the-ground subway" along the north-south corridor. But Adams is open to other options, Lynch said.

Those could be in the form of bus upgrades or other options. MTA's ongoing Utica Avenue study that kicked off in 2019 is looking into improvements to the B46 Select Bus Service line, which along with the B46 carries 44,000 daily passengers, according to the agency.

Any more passengers along that route — already Brooklyn's busiest — likely would stretch it to a breaking point, said Lisa Schreibman, MTA's senior director of strategic planning.

“We know we are going to need to do something to accommodate that future growth,” she said.

The study is also looking into converting the B46 SBS into a bus rapid transit or light rail line, Schreibman said. The final option under study is extending the existing Eastern Parkway or Fulton Street subway lines south along Utica Avenue.

"The extension could be either underground or as an elevated rail line," according to the MTA.

Schreibman said MTA has several goals — from increasing people's mobility up and down the corridor to making sure it helps, not hinders, economic growth — but officials are still taking in feedback from the community.

And attendees made very clear through several comments that they hope for continued, even expanded outreach for feedback.

The MTA study eventually will offer people five "packages" of options to go out for future discussion, so people can offer their feedback on what they think works, Schreibman said.

"We expect that we’re not going to have a single best option at the end of the study,” she said

The Utica Avenue Task Force also heard a presentation by the Regional Plan Association.

Rachel Weinberger, senior fellow for transportation at Regional Plan Association, said her group developed a plan to help move 1 million more people in the New York City region, including Utica Avenue.

She gave a breakdown of how many people different ways of travel — whether car, a protected bikeway or a sidewalk — can move per lane. One option called bus rapid transit can move 10,000 people per hour, perhaps far more, along a lane of traffic than the 1,600 an hour in private cars, she said.

Lynch said Adams hoped the borough's transit task force provide MTA officials help and feedback as they complete their study, such as providing them lists of community and civic groups along the corridor.

The meeting drew community board members from along Utica Avenue and representatives from the offices of City Councilwoman Alicka Ampry-Samuel, state Sen. Zellnor Myrie and Assemblywoman Diana Richardson.