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| Q44 Jamaica Routing- Re: Bx9 Question (107496) | |||
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Q44 Jamaica Routing- Re: Bx9 Question |
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Posted by Howard Fein on Mon Jul 21 13:03:22 2008, in response to Re: Bx9 Question, posted by Osmosis Jones on Mon Jul 21 10:22:35 2008. Some of the bus route structures are very idiosynctatic, many of them dating back to the trolley routes that preceded them. That's not the case with the Q44, which was not descended from a trolley route but was created as a bus route in 1939 in deference to the Worlds' Fair and the opening of the Whitestone Bridge.The reason 150 Street was used as the connector between the GCP and Hillside may have been because it was the only through street at the time. Main Street between the GCP and Queens Boulevard didn't even exist until the early fifties; it merely dead-ended at the GCP. The construction of the Van Wyck Expressway spurred the southwesterly extension of Main into the long underpass that leads onto the expressway. If you're ever in the area, notice how Main cuts through the existing street grid rather than conforms to it. Nonetheless, it took forty years for lower Main Street to finally get bus service. This no doubt thrilled Molloy students from northeast Queens who had to make a long walk from the GCP service road where the Q44 originally turned east. Drivers are also happy that the 1999 rerouting via Queens Boulevard is on entirely level terrain. Yes, I know Parsons Boulevard runs parallel one block east of 150. I'm not sure in Queens Transit yet existed in 1939, or whether any bus ran along that stretch of Parsons at the time. But competitive reasons of some kind may have kept the 44 off Parsons. |
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