Northeast Queens Pols Convince MTA Not to Reroute Two Bus Lines

Northeast Queens elected officials recently convinced the city’s Metropolitan Transit Authority not to initiate a plan that would have rerouted two neighborhood buses for a year.

The Q13 and Q16 buses would have been rerouted for one year due to a project being completed by the city’s Parks Department at Fort Totten.

Under the MTA’s plan, the buses would have been forced to travel through a congested area near P.S. 169, M.S. 294 and residential areas in Bay Terrace.

But state Assemblyman Edward Braunstein, D-Bayside, state Sen. Tony Avella, D-Bayside, and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, D-Manhattan, convinced the MTA to find an alternate solution to rerouting the buses.

“It was gratifying to work together in an extremely short time frame to develop and alternate option that prevents the Q13 bus from being rerouted through a residential area in Bay Terrace,” Braunstein said.

Avella said the construction project at Little Neck Park near Fort Totten would likely cause disruptions, but that rerouting local buses should not be among them.

“We cannot let the surrounding community bear the brunt of these disruptions,” Avella said.  

Under a revised plan, MTA buses would utilized Fort Totten as a turnaround point so that existing routes would not be drastically altered as the construction project is completed.