MTA Adds Extra AM Q53 Buses
I spoke with an associate recently & they shared the frustration of some residents in the Rockaways due to the overcrowding occurring in the morning on the Q53. Riders were not the only one to notice as the MTA did as well.
Their solution is to add extra buses in the AM. Here is more via the press release they sent out:
Early morning Q53 trips (Rockaway Park – Woodside) leaving Rockaway Park northbound are starting up 30 minutes earlier, due to an observed crowding condition caused by the long-term outage of the Rockaway Line due to storm damage.
The first trip on the Q53 now begins at 4:30 am, instead of 5 am, with a second northbound trip at 4:45 am. These additional trips will help ease overcrowding on the Q53 trip at 5:00 am, incrementally enhancing Q53 service throughout the remainder of the weekday AM peak period. The MTA will add weekday early AM peak period service incrementally based on monitoring of customer loading.
The MTA continues to monitor the ridership on the various regular bus routes to/from the Rockaways with the continued outage of A train service and return of other infrastructure and associated travel activities. The MTA had previously added supplemental weekday service on the Q22 segment between Far Rockaway-Mott Av and Rockaway Park-Beach 116th St, and supplemental weekday peak period service on the Q52 segment between Arverne (Beach 69th Street) and Ozone Park (Liberty Av).
It is good to see the agency quickly adjust service to match the current demand. This has not always been their strong point. However kudos are definitely due here & hopefully it helps starve off the crowding issues. I’ll ask around in the coming weeks to see if that is the case.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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Do you know if 4:30, 4:45 Q53’s will run on Saturdays and Sundays. Thanks.