With Select Bus Service (SBS) B44 buses zooming past the local bus stop on Avenue R and Nostrand Avenue, City Council members Chaim Deutsch and Alan Maisel, Assemblywoman ae Helene Weinstein and several dozen seniors, today, called for the MTA to add the busy intersection as an SBS stop.
“It is wrong for the MTA not to listen to the many seniors, veterans and disabled that live here,” said Deutsch, noting that the nearest SBS stop is a half mile away in either direction – Kings Highway to the north and Avenue U to the South.
“Meanwhile, our seniors have to wait here in summer heat and winter cold sometimes for 45 minutes for a local bus while three, four and five SBS buses drive past,” he said.
Deutsch said for the past 10 months his office has been writing and calling the MTA imploring them to make Avenue R a SBS stop. This stop is also an important transfer spot for buses going to the nearest subway, he said.
In a statement, the MTA said looked into a community request for the stop, but decided it wasn’t feasible and has expressed that to council members on several occasions.
Weinstein, who doesn’t have one subway stop in her entire assembly district, concurred with Deutsch, adding that put the stop on Avenue R makes sense and would respect the many senior citizens – many of whom take the bus to doctor appointments.
Maisel suggested the MTA add the stop as part of a pilot program, that if it works, would become permanent.
The protest comes about two years after the MTA, with the city’s support, rolled out the B44 SBS as Brooklyn’s first such route to deliver mass transit services to neighborhoods where there is little or no subway service.
