Stopped by the Metropolitan Ave station and had to school the MTA's mass engagement posse about how the IBX is not going to work in the future when the current transit system is still a hot mess. Spoler alert: Eminent Domain is a major factor with this project
The IBX the MTA, accidental Governor Kathy Hochul and the urbanist cult lobbyists love so much is going to require eminent domain to get it done.
This means over a decade of construction that's going to cause damages to homes and displacement of residents and also the destruction of the environment by razing trees and green space all long the transit line that will stretch from middle class Middle Queens to low area median income towns in South Brooklyn.
This transit plan must be terminated.
Wondering if the IBX will improve your commute to the EFMR or 7 trains? Here's a video that illustrates the very impractical transfer. pic.twitter.com/yz0jWwcM3f
— Juniper Park Civic (@junipercivic) November 12, 2025
Pressure was on the MTA Thursday night to end or change plans for the IBX in Queens, as a number of local residents claimed the nearly $6 billion light-rail is “not needed or wanted” in their neighborhoods.
Over 100 Middle Village and nearby residents filled seats inside Christ the King High School’s auditorium on Nov. 6 to voice their opinions on the project, which centers on the construction of a 14-mile light-rail that would have a direct connection from Queens to Brooklyn without touching Manhattan.
MTA representatives at the meeting said the train, which already entered its environmental review phase last month and is in design contract, will be beneficial for residents because it will provide fast and direct transit service between the two boroughs.
“We’ve noticed there is significant travel demand between and among Brooklyn and Queens,” said Jordan Smith, IBX project director, adding that environmental review is a milestone for the project. “It’s a process that requires the MTA to take a hard look at what potential environmental impacts could result from the IBX project.”
While the MTA tried to focus the meeting on environmental scoping — the act of analyzing potential environmental impacts — attendees overwhelmingly voiced their opposition to the entire project, or at least the parts of the railway that would run through their neighborhoods.
At the top of the list of concerns was upzoning, which would likely attract more people to the relatively quiet parts of northern Queens.
“There will be upzoning with the City of Yes, and now with the proposals that just passed, high-density housing at market rate can get built, so it’s going to destroy the neighborhood,” said Lee Rottenberg, a Middle Village resident. “When we bought our house here, we knew it was a two-fare zone. We didn’t want to live near a subway station.”
City of Yes is a zoning reform that allows more housing to be built in places where it was historically not permitted. This can include the creation of basement apartments, conversion of commercial space into residential units and new construction. The goal is to address affordable housing concerns in NYC.
The initiative aims to create approximately 82,000 new homes over the next 15 years.
The Queens bus map will change this summer, MTA brass announced on Monday.
As previously reported by the Daily News, the massive overhaul of the largest borough’s bus network will give Queens 124 routes — 94 local and 30 express — with an emphasis on connecting bus riders to the rest of the city’s transit systems.
In a statement Monday, MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said that “800,000 Queens residents depend on our buses every day, and we owe it to them to find new ways to speed service.”
The bus map will change in phases, transit officials said, with the bulk of the new routes coming online in June.
On Sunday, June 29, 16 new routes will launch, 67 routes will change, and five routes will be discontinued. Then on Sunday, Aug. 31, one new route will launch, 37 routes will change, and one route will be discontinued.
To help Queens riders parse the changes in service, the MTA has launched an interactive version of the new bus map.
“As implementation dates near, we’ll ramp up the outreach efforts to make sure everyone’s aware about the upcoming changes,” New York City Transit president Demetrius Crichlow said in a statement. “In the meantime, we strongly encourage bus riders to take advantage of the online tools which provide the best customized approach to learn more about how your trip can change.”
The U.S. Department of Transportation has pulled its approval for the MTA's congestion pricing toll program, but the MTA is vowing to take the decision to federal court to ensure the plan will continue.
In a release Wednesday, the DOT's Federal Highway Administration said it sent a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul informing her that the department had rescinded the agreement.
"New York State's congestion pricing plan is a slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. "Commuters using the highway system to enter New York City have already financed the construction and improvement of these highways through the payment of gas taxes and other taxes. But now the toll program leaves drivers without any free highway alternative, and instead, takes more money from working people to pay for a transit system and not highways. It's backwards and unfair. The program also hurts small businesses in New York that rely on customers from New Jersey and Connecticut. Finally, it impedes the flow of commerce into New York by increasing costs for trucks, which in turn could make goods more expensive for consumer. Every American should be able to access New York City regardless of their economic means. It shouldn't be reserved for an elite few."
Duffy said in the letter to Hochul that the plan is being terminated for two reasons:
1.) The scope of the CBDTP is unprecedented and provides no toll-free option for many drivers who want or need to travel by vehicle in this major urbanized area.
2.) The toll rate was set primarily to raise revenue for transit, rather than at an amount needed to reduce congestion.
MTA chair and CEO Janno Lieber released a statement that the MTA has already filed papers in federal court in response to the DOT's letter:
STFU Janno. You're done.
The MTA’s plan to fix the ailing East New York Bus Depot, which has been without a functioning fire sprinkler system for nearly three years, has been pushed back again, the Daily News has learned — a delay that could cost the agency $5 million in overtime.
As previously reported by The News, the MTA has been struggling to fix a 2,000 foot underground pipe at the facility since 2021, when the line responsible for feeding the sprinkler system from the city main failed to hold pressure.
Since then, countless attempts to patch the pipe and plug the leaks have failed, though repair crews have flooded the facility’s boiler room and uncovered asbestos piping beneath a storeroom in the process.
A plan to replace 2,000 feet of leaky subterranean piping with an above-ground loop, first reported by The News, had initially been scheduled for completion in August 2026.
But sources with knowledge of the facility said this week that that date has now been pushed back to late June 2027, nearly an 11-month delay.
A contract for the work, which had been due to be awarded this month, has not yet been solicited — the award is now scheduled for June of this year.
“This project will be awarded and commenced in 2025, as anticipated,” MTA spokesperson Kayla Shults said in response to questions about the reason for the delay. “We look forward to delivering upgrades to this nearly century-old depot,” she added.
The broken subterranean pipe is designed to provide pressurized water to the depot’s thousands of sprinkler heads in the event of a fire. As previously reported by The News, the pipe has repeatedly burst and failed pressure tests.
The repair project — which also includes the replacement of 3,000 sprinkler heads on the depot’s first floor — is expected to cost the MTA more than $4.5 million to complete.
Meanwhile, the transit agency is expected to continue to pay dozens of transit workers overtime to patrol the sweeping facility as a so-called “fire watch,” looking for fire 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The MTA board approved a new Queens bus network redesign on Wednesday that aims to provide better service with faster commutes — but also fewer bus stops.
The $35 million network overhaul includes the addition of 11 more local routes, bringing the total number of bus routes in the borough to 124 (up from 113). Seventeen existing routes will also run with increased frequencies, while eight routes will get increased service spans.
Another major highlight is the addition of “rush routes.” These new lines would operate similarly to subway routes in which some trains run locally for a few miles before switching to express service toward major destinations.
The MTA will add 25 rush routes to the bus network as early as this summer, with full implementation by Labor Day. Details on how they will operate — including time of day and days of the week — are still being finalized. But MTA officials said the swift service would be a game changer for many Queens straphangers, especially those with two-step commutes.
The agency has been working on a bus redesign since 2019 to accommodate the borough’s changing population and ridership. More than 800,000 commuters ride the buses in Queens each day.
“It represents a generational opportunity to redesign the bus network in a borough that is nearly the size of Chicago,” said Chris Pangilinan, NYC Transit’s chief of operations planning. “We have not had the opportunity in many decades to redesign it, despite the growth that is happening in the borough and in the city.”
Pangilinan added that the increases in service, including weekend service, will support changing travel patterns in the borough.
“New types of routes, routing changing and increased frequencies, increased spans of service and more weekend service recognizing that people’s travel patterns have changed over the last many decades, especially over the last five years,” he said. “We need to be able to have a new bus network that serves people.
However, the redesign will eliminate some bus stops to speed up travel time, creating further distances between existing stops—a potential problem for New Yorkers with mobility issues.
The Q110, for example, which runs on Jamaica Avenue East, will be rerouted and experience “minor stop balancing”. That means there will be nearly 1,400 feet between stops compared to the previous 752 feet of space.
The bus will be rerouted and extended along Jamaica Av/Jericho Tpke to the existing Q36 terminal in Queens. Q110 service along Hempstead Av will be discontinued and replaced by the new Q82.
Many passenger and disability advocates expressed serious concern about this and other changes.
Jack Nierenberg, vice president of Passengers United, said eliminating bus stops will create “barriers to access” for many disabled New Yorkers and seniors who might have mobility issues.
“The MTA is just shifting bus routes around. Most concerning to us is the elimination of nearly 1,800 bus stops, which was increased from the 1,400 that were proposed in the 2023 plan. The MTA is touting that this will speed up the buses, but what it really does is create barriers to access for senior citizens, people with disabilities, and other mobility issues who can’t necessarily walk farther to get to the bus stops.”
Niernberg added that he and others in his organization studied the redesign documents and said the needs of vulnerable New Yorkers were not considered.
“The MTA needs to reconsider their bus stop eliminations,” he said.
The MTA Board approved on Wednesday a budget plan for 2025 that includes public transportation fare hikes and toll increases slated to take effect next summer.
The board unanimously voted to pass the plan during its monthly meeting on Dec. 18. The exact amount of the increases has yet to be announced but could go into effect in August 2025.
In recent years, the MTA approved 4% increases in fares and tolls. Should that trend continue, a base fare for a subway or bus trip would cost $3, up a dime from $2.90, come next summer, according to an article from ABC 7.
Meanwhile, during Wednesday’s meeting, MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber boasted of “excellent service” and surging subway ridership.
“Last week, we set a new single-day record for subway ridership, 4.5 million customers,” he said. “Compare that to 2021, when this group began when the average weekday was less than half of that level.”
The most recent fare hike occurred in 2023, when the base NYC Transit fare was bumped up 15 cents, from $2.75 to $2.90. That marked the first such increase in eight years.
Despite the fare rise, Lieber remained optimistic and said the agency is coming out “on a high note” for 2024.
“I always look back at the goals we set at the beginning of the year, and when I took the chair a couple of years ago, priority one was recovering ridership to support the region’s comeback and also to help us achieve financial stability,” he said.
Lieber added that the MTA vowed to deliver “excellent” service to New Yorkers.
“And we also needed to keep the capital program on track to earn the public’s trust on how the MTA was going to spend money,” he said.
But New Yorkers whom amNewYork Metro talked to Wednesday after the budget vote did not hold back their opinions on the increase, some even calling it “straight-up greed.”
Others said they pay too much for too little service.
“This is absolutely outrageous. That last increase led to subpar service as it is,” said Roger Smith, an Upper West Side resident.
Carlos Rivera of Harlem questioned what the increases will actually support, as he is often stuck waiting for late trains and buses.
“I wish us New Yorkers could audit the MTA because this is absolutely ridiculous at this point,” he said. “Track maintenance and the trains and buses are never on time. Where is our money going?”
The MTA will shut down A train service in the Rockaways for five months starting in January, disrupting the commutes of more than 9,000 daily riders.
Beginning on Jan. 17, the A train won’t run between Howard Beach-JFK Airport and the last stops of the line, either Rockaway Park-Beach 116 St. or Far Rockaway-Mott Ave. The Rockaway Park Shuttle trains will also stop running to and from Broad Channel.
The MTA says the lengthy suspension of service is necessary to fortify infrastructure against extreme weather. The viaducts and bridge that carry trains across Broad Channel need “major upgrades to help protect the line from future storms,” the MTA wrote in an announcement.
The agency noted that much of the work is in response to extensive damage caused by Hurricane Sandy. It took seven months to restore service to Rockaway after the storm in Oct. 2012.
Free bus shuttle service will be available along the affected stops. The announcement gave no indication that NYC Ferry service from Rockaway would be expanded while the upgrades are underway.
Far Rockaway resident Quazel Trower said the shutdown will upend his life.
“There’s only one train that goes to Far Rockaway. It’s not like two trains, three trains. It’s literally one,” Trower, 27, said. “Taking the shuttle bus always makes your commute longer than it needs to be.”
Trower said his typical commute into Manhattan already takes more than an hour.
In a statement, MTA Deputy Chief Development Officer, Mark Roche, said that the plan was consistent with what has been done in the past for the L train Canarsie Tunnel project and G line modernization work.
"This next phase of the A train resiliency work has undergone internal and external expert review to weigh alternate delivery and construction methods,"he said. "It was determined that the plan presented is the best option for getting this work done as quickly as possible, with the least impact to commuters.”
So if congestion pricing started, this would have happened anyway. Nice of the MTA to drop this right when the weather got chilly, it's really no different how they obfuscate reasons during train delay announcements.
The number of people traveling in and out of New York City by car is higher than ever before, even as mass transit ridership continues to lag behind levels seen before the COVID-19 pandemic, a new report on MTA finances from State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli revealed.
Crossings on the MTA’s seven bridges and two tunnels across New York City climbed to 335 million in 2023, already a record, and are expected to hit 339 million in 2024, according to DiNapoli’s report. That comes even as paid weekday ridership on the subway still hovers at around 70% of pre-COVID averages, with higher numbers registered on weekends, suggesting a permanent shift to working from home even as New Yorkers take transit for personal activities.
Even worse, MTA ridership over the next several years is expected to recover still more slowly than officials once projected: in November 2020, consulting giant McKinsey & Company predicted ridership would rise to 86% of pre-COVID levels by 2026, but MTA brass now concede it will likely average only 80% by that time.
Suck it, Open Plans.
The group Passengers United has been making itself heard throughout the Queens bus redesign process, and the public hearing on July 24 was no exception.
Several members addressed officials of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority at the Borough Hall meeting, and they were clear about wanting plenty of changes to the amended proposal released last December [see separate story in some editions or at qchron.com].
The group also held a small protest at Borough Hall prior to the hearing, both calling on the MTA to reschedule the event and denouncing the bus plan as drawn up.
Queens Village resident Charlton D’souza, founder and president of the group, said during the hearing that there has been a lack of public input and transparency on the part of the MTA; and that the agency has reneged on promises to emphasize equity with necessary changes tailored to low-income communities and communities of color.
“The way this agency has treated us is disgraceful,” D’souza said. “If all of us right now, tomorrow, next week, we start protesting outside our elected officials’ offices saying we do not want the Queens bus redesign because equity was not even considered ...
“The whole plan, the way it’s been put out, you guys promised us a final plan before you implemented changes. But then you changed the game on us at the last minute and now you’re saying, ‘We’re going to release the plan after this public hearing.’ That is ridiculous. This is absurd.” He promised a civil suit.
As to the group’s preferences, a 21-page presentation of recommendations released on July 24 appeared to be a detailed extension of a letter Passengers United sent to Gov. Hochul dated July 9.
The report, online at passengersunited.org, calls for “serious revisions” to the bus plan.
@newyorkrealm MTA makes pregnant transit worker stand all day guiding commuters #NYC #Subway #MTA ♬ original sound - New York Realm
Congestion pricing will fix this.
The MTA sucks.
Queens straphangers are worried after spotting zip ties along the tracks at an Ozone Park subway station.
What keeps the trains running in the Big Apple?
Queens straphangers are praying it’s not plastic zip ties.
Dozens of zip ties wrapped around one of the tracks at the Rockaway Boulevard A train station in Ozone Park have been raising eyebrows and making some subway riders queasy.
“Should I be worried?” asked nursing student Kayle Persaud. “If I cut one zip tie, does it start to fall?”
The troubling scene, first reported by AM New York, shows a long line of the plastic ties along the middle track at the elevated subway station – which one straphanger noted is “not a good look.”
“The first time I saw it I thought, ‘Hmm… Is it holding the tracks together?'” said subway rider Eliana Rodriguez. “Even the screws look like they’re not all the way in.”
Another subway rider, who only identified himself as Ibrahim M, agreed it was a tad concerning.
“Even if it’s not actually holding the track together, it just looks awful,” he told The Post on Thursday. “They could have cut it off or painted it the same color. I hope it’s not holding the tracks together for all the money we pay to travel on the subway.”
Adding to worries was this week’s MTA announcement that the railroad is halting planned capital projects following Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision to hold off on the controversial congestion pricing plan.
The MTA’s board voted Wednesday to indefinitely pause the implementation of congestion pricing tolls, formalizing an eleventh-hour postponement announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this month and officially blowing a $15 billion hole in the authority’s capital budget.
In a 10-to-1 vote, the board at its monthly meeting advanced a resolution that hits the brakes on a long-awaited toll program that would have charged most motorists $15 to enter Manhattan below 60th Street to reduce traffic and raise funds to improve the region’s mass transit. The vote firmly shut the door on the MTA’s board possibly attempting to advance congestion pricing against Hochul’s wishes.
MTA board member David Mack, who voted against the tolling program in March, was the sole vote that sought to block the resolution, instead preferring a permanent halt on the program.
“Our guiding principles for the last 21 days, as we've been going through this process, has been to maintain the safe and functional operation of the system,” said Mulligan as he detailed likely changes to the MTA’s capital program.
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| Photo by JQ LLC |
The MTA executive in charge of running New York City’s subways and buses is slated to leave his job to become CEO of the Massachusetts Port Authority, according to people with knowledge of the decision.
New York City Transit President Richard Davey joined the agency in May 2022 and led it as transit ridership rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic. His departure is the latest example of turnover at the prominent post that’s had four leaders in just over four years. Davey is responsible for more than 5 million daily commuters.
His exit comes as the MTA prepares to launch congestion pricing, which aims to push drivers into mass transit.
Transport Workers Union International President John Samuelsen, who represents NYC Transit’s workforce, said he’d been told Davey is leaving New York.
"My trade union counterparts in Boston confirmed to me that Davey is just waiting on an approval vote from the Massport board,” said Samuelsen, who holds a seat on the MTA board.
Davey neither confirmed nor denied his new job during a news conference on Tuesday.
"I do get calls from time to time because I got a great team that makes me look good," he said.
The MTA plans to boost service on various express bus lines in a bid to spur drivers to switch to mass transit as congestion pricing takes effect in New York City.
Express buses with the highest weekday ridership will see additional trips per day starting in June should the plan be approved by the MTA Board this week, according to a document posted on the MTA’s website. The routes take riders from outer borough neighborhoods with comparatively scant train access, or none at all, to the heart of Manhattan.
The routes that will get beefed up service are the BM2 and BM5, both of which run between southeastern Brooklyn and Midtown Manhattan, as well as the SIM1C, SIM4C, SIM23, and SIM24 between Staten Island and Midtown.
The MTA says the intention of the boost is to incentivize drivers to switch over to mass transit as it prepares to implement congestion pricing on June 30.
“This is belt and suspenders,” said Richard Davey, president of New York City Transit, at the MTA Board meeting on Monday. “You’ve often heard us say that we have capacity in the subway system and the bus system, largely because of COVID. But this is an opportunity for us to continue to improve express bus service in these corridors.”
The plan will be funded with $883,000 per year from the state’s Outer Borough Transportation Account, which is funded by a surcharge on taxi and for-hire vehicle trips. The OBTA also funds toll rebates on outer-borough bridges and will fund a new monthly discount for city riders of the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North.
Congestion pricing is expected to take effect in Manhattan below 60th Street on June 30, with a $15 toll charged to most motorists and a higher toll for trucks. The plan has survived numerous rounds of public review but could still be derailed if any of a number of lawsuits are successful.
Still way too little and much too late.
I don't recall ever seeing infrastructure upgrades honoring a president before. This looks like a campaign ad for The Big Guy.
