Flatbush Bus Redesign

July 8, 2025

On June 24th, 2025, the DOT had presented to CB8’s EST committee their proposal for the Flatbush Avenue bus redesign. During initial outreach over the summer of 2024, the DOT had proposed 3 possible solutions for increasing the speed of the B41 bus route from Grand Army Plaza to Livingston Street. These included:

Curbside bus lanes
Offset bus lanes
Center running bus lanes

June 2024 CB8 Presentation Slides

See presentation slides below for additional details on each option and redesign rational:

flatbush-ave-cb8-jun2024 Download

Center Running Bus Lanes

During the EST meeting in June 2025, the DOT announced that it would be implementing its most aggressive option of the center running bus lane option. This design would:

Create two way bus lanes in the center of Flatbush Avenue
Install center medians for passenger loading and drop off
Provide one lane of car traffic in each direction
Reallocate curb usage and space

The reported benefits to this plan included (slide 13 in presentation below):

Minimized car- bus conflicts
Dramatic bus speed improvements (during the meeting a 20% increase was reported which would place it at about 5MPH from the current 4MPH during peak traffic).
Improves business access
Near level boarding platform
Enhance the public realm

Questions Remain

Participants during the EST meeting had raised a variety of questions to the DOT as part of the presentations. These included:

Where and how much traffic will be diverted to local streets given there will only be one car travel lane in each direction? The DOT’s response stated that car traffic will be decreased by encouraging more bus ridership and that drivers will take alternative routes to reach the bridges and BQE. For the Prospect Heights/ Park Slope community, these appear to be taking Bedford Avenue or the Battery Park Tunnel (see slide 26).
Safety of the center median to protect pedestrians as they will be standing in the middle of car and bus lanes and their ability to support the number of passengers waiting along with users with motorized wheelchairs. It was reported that the illustrations in the presentation are not to scale and will support users.
Senior members in the audience voiced a preference for curb side bus access and a reluctance to have to cross a street in order to get on the bus.
The outreach to senior, disabled, and general community members was questioned. As per the DOT’s presentation feedback for the bus boarding islands was gathered from 118 participants citywide. Other input included 185 pedestrian surveys, 78 business surveys, and 105 submissions during Open Streets (slides 10-11). These are far shy of the reported 69,000 daily riders using this stretch of Flatbush.
How will businesses be impacted by this redesign as well as the loading and unloading process? DOT stated that they are in frequent collaboration and contact with businesses on this corridor but did not provide clear plans of curb management.
Lack of specificity in the presentation. There were no clear illustrations of median locations, dimensions, bus stop locations, etc. Feedback for this design is difficult given the lack of information.
How will cars and busses enter and leave Grand Army Plaza? Is this being factored into the future Grand Army Plaza design? What about the southern part of Flatbush Avenue that also experiences slowdowns and impact overall bus speed? DOT does not currently have plans for the southern part of Flatbush and stated that they are taking notes.
How will this design be evaluated once put in place and what are the contingency plans if it is unsuccessful?