|
|
| Re: Q66 Bus Stops Discontinued Every 4 Blocks Or So. (343507) | |||
 |
|||
| Home > BusChat | |||
|
[ Read Responses | Post a New Response | Return to the Index ] |
|
||
|
Re: Q66 Bus Stops Discontinued Every 4 Blocks Or So. |
|
|
Posted by BusMgr on Sun Sep 12 14:33:08 2021, in response to Re: Q66 Bus Stops Discontinued Every 4 Blocks Or So., posted by Osmosis Jones on Sun Sep 12 00:38:00 2021. The original purpose of the B24 (Greenpoint Avenue) route was, like many others in the area, to serve a cemetery. It terminated on Greenpoint Avenue at Bradley Avenue, Blissville, one block away from the main gate of Calvary Cemetery (it did not go all the way because the Q67 operated along Greenpoint Avenue between Bradley Avenue and Hunters Point Avenue). It did make sense to continue the B24 up Greenpoint Avenue to at least Queens Boulevard, especially in light of the Q67 route having its Blissville detour eliminated and remaining on Borden Avenue.By the turn of the century, Greenpoint Avenue had been built out as far as 58th Street, but no further, and no Roosevelt Avenue at all (it had been cobbled together from other local streets, along with some new street construction, so as to provide a right-of-way for the elevated BRT-IRT trains above to Corona, and eventually to Flushing). The primary road to Flushing was Northern Boulevard, and so during this era when so much of the surface transit system was being laid out there was no need to have such a route laid out. It was only in 1917 when the subway was built, and in 1925 when Fifth Avenue began the Q32 service, that Roosevelt Avenue finally developed into a significant transportation corridor (it was not until 1928, just after the bridge across Flushing Creek had been built, that the subway arrived in Flushing . . . after the Fifth Avenue bus had already been established, which terminated at the company's new garage on Northern Boulevard in Jackson Heights). So there is historic reason why the B24, at the time of its establishment, would not have had Flushing in mind as a terminus: Greenpoint Avenue, while crossing Newtown Creek, was not a major arterial street. Should the B24 (Greenpoint Avenue) service be extended to Flushing today? Geographically, it makes sense: there is a continuous street all the way from the East River to Flushing (and beyond to its junction with Northern Boulevard at 156th Street). But with a unified transit system (in place for the past 80 years), the establishment of new surface routes that duplicate the routes of rapid transit has been avoided (at least outside of Manhattan), and in some cases parallel surface routes have been suspended. The ones that exist now were established either prior to unification or by separate companies whose services were not acquired until more recently. I think it is more likely that the Q32 will be discontinued than new bus service being instituted on Roosevelt Avenue into Flushing (other than the NYCTA proposal, in its Queens bus route study, of relocating route Q58 so as to operate along Roosevelt Avenue between Main Street and 108th Street . . . but that is only to avoid the more circuitous route via the Long Island Expressway that was established prior to the opening of the Roosevelt Avenue bridge). Instead, the B24 (Greenpoint Avenue) route will go no further than 48th Street . . . or possibly the LIRR station at 61st Street (which would be near where Greenpoint Avenue ended at 58th Street at the turn of the century). |
|
|
|