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Brooklyn's busiest bus route may finally get a boost. Commuters have waited decades.
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Jul 12, 2026
Modified Jul 12, 2026
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Stephen Nessen / Gothamist
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Jul 12, 2026
Modified Jul 12, 2026
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Riders boarding buses on Utica Avenue from Crown Heights to Kings Plaza know they’re in for a slog.
It’s Brooklyn’s busiest bus corridor, carrying more than 40,000 daily riders on the B46 route. But those buses move at a sluggish pace of just 6.9 mph due to traffic-clogged streets made worse by double-parked delivery trucks, Ubers and dollar vans.
“As it is now, sometimes it's extremely slow,” said Maria Misonet, 65, who lives off Utica Avenue. “You die under the storm waiting for the bus.”
City and state officials have for decades made failed promises to improve transit along the street. But riders were given new hope last week when Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the MTA released a citywide bus plan that includes a pitch to turn Utica Avenue into a “world-class” bus route.
The street is one of five corridors identified in the report where city and MTA officials want to implement “bus rapid transit,” or fast routes with dedicated lanes in the middle of the street that keep buses from jockeying for curb space with other vehicles. The routes could also have longer distances between stops, like the city’s existing select bus service.
The plan calls for short-term and long-term improvements to the five routes and notes “the scope, duration, and timeline for each corridor project will vary.” The report states the city transportation department and the MTA “will study options for rapid bus investments” on Utica Avenue, but doesn’t commit to a timeline for overhauling the street.
“ They've been trying to do that for a long time,” said Wayne Townsend, a 62-year-old retired MTA bus driver, as he watched the B46 bus struggle down Utica last week. “It's New York, it ain't gonna never happen.”
He has reason to be skeptical. City and state officials have since at least the 1950s considered fixing the street’s transit problems by either adding a subway extension down or building out new bus infrastructure.
None of the proposals ever came to be, which makes Utica Avenue reminiscent of Charlie Brown’s football — a transit promise that keeps getting yanked away at the last minute.
In 1951, the city planned to sell bonds to fund a subway extension that would add a spur down Utica Avenue that connects to the Eastern Parkway lines, according to reports from the time. Nearly two decades after that failed, William Ronan, the MTA's first chair, pitched a similar subway extension in 1968, but that fizzled with the financial crisis in the 1970s.
And in early 2020, the MTA launched a study of potential transit solutions for Utica Avenue, but the COVID-19 pandemic upended the process.
The MTA in 2023 estimated a subway extension down Utica Avenue would cost nearly $16 billion.
A bus rapid transit route on Utica Avenue like the one floated in last week’s plan would be much cheaper at $220 million, according to the agency’s estimates. The MTA projected 71,900 daily riders would use an express bus route on Utica by 2045, compared to an estimated 55,600 who would use a subway extension.
Many B46 riders feared cars would continue to block the bus route, even with a new bus lane and other infrastructure.
The plan published last week noted the MTA plans to expand the use of automated cameras on the front of buses that issue tickets to cars that block the bus lanes. Townsend, the former MTA bus driver, observed the technology only works if the license plates are visible. Drivers can avert the cameras by leaving their trunks open or covering their plates.
“ You got to have people out here to enforce all those rules, whether it be traffic, police department, or whatever,” he said “But when they leave, then they [drivers] are going to go back to their old ways.”
Tagged
brooklyn
new york city
transportation
Stephen Nessen
Stephen Nessen covers transportation. Since 2008 he has reported on everything from Occupy Wall Street, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, Hurricane Sandy, to Trump’s campaign for president. His transportation reporting has taken him everywhere from the MTA’s secret Rail Control Center to the gleaming subways of Seoul. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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