Flatbush Bus Riders Are Still Waiting. Mayor Adams Must Deliver

Every morning, tens of thousands of working class New Yorkers crowd onto Flatbush Avenue’s B41 bus, hoping for a reliable ride to work, school, doctor’s appointments, and family. Instead, what we get is delay, frustration, and disrespect.

Flatbush Avenue is one of the busiest corridors in Brooklyn, with more than 130,000 daily bus riders — many of them from Black, Latino, Caribbean, and immigrant communities. Yet despite our essential role in this city, we continue to be treated like an afterthought.

Last year, Riders Alliance and the Pratt Center joined forces with Flatbush riders, local community groups and cultural institutions to develop a clear, community-driven plan to fix this problem: a center-running bus lane that would allow buses to finally move reliably and fairly along the corridor. DOT acknowledged the overwhelming local support and promised to deliver a new design. A year later, nothing has happened. Buses on Flatbush still crawl at less than 4 miles per hour in some sections — slower than a person can walk.

The story of Flatbush Avenue is not unique. Across New York, the communities that depend most on public transit — Black, Latino, immigrant, and working-class riders — are the ones forced to wait the longest for long promised improvements. It’s the same unacceptable pattern again and again: city leaders make bold statements about equity, but when it’s time to act, our neighborhoods are left behind.

Mayor Adams has repeatedly said he stands with working people. But after years of delays and broken promises, working-class communities are still waiting. Flatbush Avenue riders, like so many others across the city, deserve more than words — they deserve action. If Mayor Adams won’t deliver, we need new leadership that will finally put working New Yorkers first.

Flatbush riders have done our part. We’ve organized. We’ve shown up at community meetings. We’ve built broad support from local institutions, unions, small businesses, and faith groups. We have done everything the city has asked us to do — and yet, we are still waiting for the basic dignity of a reliable ride.

Enough waiting. Mayor Adams and DOT must move forward immediately with the center-running bus lane on Flatbush Avenue — and send a real message that working-class communities matter.

Transit justice is racial justice. Transit justice is immigrant justice. Transit justice is economic justice. And its long overdue. It’s time for Mayor Adams to deliver it — starting here.

Mayra Aldás-Deckert, Lead Organizer, Riders Alliance