When Public Transit Isn’t For the Riders
A glimpse at who NYC’s BQX really serves, using census data.
New York City’s Brooklyn Queens Connector (BQX) proposal mirrors many new transit proposals across the nation. These are forward thinking, innovative ideas to boost transit, which our cities drastically need right now. But, who do these projects really benefit? Who is public transit for?
The BQX is a proposed 11-mile light-rail street-car running between Brooklyn and Queens. The area is facing a population boom, especially in newer developments. While the gentrification and evolution of this area over the past few decades is a complicated phenomenon, it is clear that the area’s transit can be improved. From the overcrowding and impending closure of the L subway, to the unreliability and the necessary re-allocation of bus service, to the “subway deserts” that exist in many areas of the city, transportation needs to be a priority for improving the livelihood of Brooklyn and Queens residents.
My views on transit are pretty predictable: regardless of when, where, what, or how, I can be counted on to vocally support any transportation improvements. Our cities and transportation networks need radical proposals and new ideas to solve the unprecedented challenges they are facing now. This is especially true in light of the unequal burden COVID-related service reductions has on low income and communities of color, and how these are the same populations that have relied on public transit through the pandemic.
Therefore, it came as a surprise — even to myself — that I was questioning the BQX proposal. After attending a community meeting about the BQX proposal, I met many community members who were vehemently against the idea, but had emotion, rather than data to back up these objections. The BQX costs $2.5–$2.7B, which is a difficult number to stomach given New York’s massive (and growing!)budget deficit.
My questioning of the BQX stems from my desire to see NYC’s transit systems succeed, which is impossible without riders who believe in and truly benefit from the service. To understand the proposed BQX, I plotted the proposed stops over NYC Census data from the most recent 5-year American Community Survey, which ended in 2018.
I first wanted to understand where the BQX was spatially, and understand the communities surrounding the stops. There are a proposed 26 stops, only 6 of which are in Queens, which faces a larger population and far fewer transit options than Brooklyn.
My first thought when looking at the BQX route, which starts in Red Hook, travels along the East River, and terminates in Astoria, was that the stops are close to the water taxi and ferry stops. In fact, the BQX website boasts the connections to the ferry.
There are other areas that have fewer transit options than the neighborhoods touched by the BQX. The route is also close to the majority of CitiBike stations.
Between the ferry landings, CitiBike investments, and the BQX, this one strip of the vast city of New York has seen a significant focus from the city when thinking about the future of transportation in NYC. Unsurprisingly, the string of neighborhoods that would benefit from the BQX is also an area of relatively high incomes, compared to other areas. While I think that this map would be more informative using Census Tracts, rather than the Neighborhood Tabulation Areas I chose, the income pattern is still clear.
Looking at the medium income, we know that these neighborhoods are not the ones that have the most need. When evaluating the neighborhoods that benefit from the BQX, I wanted to understand the existing public transit, both bus stops and subway stops, near the stops. Because I am looking at the broader Neighborhood Tabulation Areas (NTAs), the data does not show that the neighborhoods with BQX stops have more existing transit than other neighborhoods. Some neighborhoods have plenty of existing bus and subway stops, while others have very limited existing transit options.
COVID has put our transit systems on life support; it is difficult to imagine a project like the BQX being implemented anytime in the next decade. These types of projects are hard to justify when large groups of New Yorkers face service reductions, a distrust of public transit, and reduced commutes.
With the dual ridership and financial crises, we need to be thinking about how to build and re-build transit for riders. Who are we building for? Who benefits from these decisions? While the big, radical ideas bring great attention to cities’ recovery efforts, it is the smaller less noticeable changes that are most feasible to roll out in the short run. Less flashy, but much cheaper solutions include re-establishing routes with cut and reduced service, rolling out free and reduced fares for low-income riders, and taking steps to improve safety and well-being of existing passengers and drivers, both while they wait for transit, and while they are on transit.
This isn’t just a phenomenon happening in large cities; cities of all kinds are facing difficult decisions about where transit investment goes and who reaps the benefits. Pittsburgh is facing a $100M budget shortfall while its Department of Mobility and Infrastructure is moving forward with rolling out a $20–23M autonomous vehicle shuttle project that provides only 180 passenger trips per day yet represents the single biggest transportation investment by the city. The project is being pushed forward and benefits the companies and community of Carnegie Mellon University, while residents of the neighborhoods impacted by the shuttle face steep bus service cuts and transit costs are an overwhelmingly high portion of their monthly expenses.
Tackling transit inequity means evaluating these big money, big name projects against other projects that would benefit those who aren’t affiliated with big developers, companies, or endowments and assessing the best investment based on costs and benefits.
The larger areas of the Neighborhood Tabulation Areas, while easier to understand graphically, over-generalize what transit options actually exist near the BQX. As a next step after this initial analysis, I would like to create the same graphs using Census Tracts. Additionally, I want to add additional census analyses such as population densities, travel time to work, other neighborhood amenities, and breakdowns of means of transportation.
