Williamsburg Buses Put In For L Train Project Stop In September

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN — The MTA will officially scrap the buses put in to help straphangers get around during repairs on the L train after cutting back on the service earlier this summer.

The transit agency announced over the weekend that it will be stopping the Williamsburg Link bus, the B91A, service after Aug. 31 because not many straphangers had been using the buses.

The MTA said that, on average, only three people rode the B91A in each loop it made between Marcy Avenue and the Bedford Avenue and Lorimer Street station areas.

The bus, along with another B92 option, had started running in April and were meant to bring riders that normally use the two L stations to other subway lines when the L train slowed down on weeknights and weekends for a 15-month repair project.

But instead of using the bus as a shuttle between the stops, most riders just go straight to the Marcy Avenue station, the MTA said.

"You've continued using the alternative subway options, especially the J and the M, instead of the L, in big numbers," the agency wrote in its newsletter. "But you've been starting your trip directly at the subways, instead of using the neighborhood Williamsburg Link bus (B91A) we've been running."

The announcement comes a few months after the MTA originally just cut back on the link buses, bringing the two routes with a combined seven stops down to just one route with four.

Back then, the MTA said that the J and M lines had seen a 60 percent increase in riders going into Manhattan since the L project started. The repair project, which replaced the original plan to shut down the subway line to reconstruct the Canarsie tunnel, makes it so the L runs only every 20 minutes on weeknights and weekends.

Without the link buses, riders can instead take existing Queens and Brooklyn buses like the B62, B24 and Q54, transit officials said. In comparison to the low ridership on the B91A, buses like the B62 have about 33 customers on weekends and 44 on weekdays per trip.

Here's the MTA's map of those routes:

(MTA)

The link bus will run until Aug. 31.

For other information about how to get around during the L train repairs, check out Patch's Commuter's Guide on the project.