Urging more MTA outreach

A Brooklyn state senator says the MTA isn’t seeking enough public input into its massive effort to redesign the borough’s bus network.

Sen. Andrew Gounardes sent a letter to NYC Transit President Andy Byford on Monday urging him to hold more town hall meetings on the changes.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials have already held four “popup” events this month in an effort to connect with Brooklyn bus riders about the redesign, and have another six planned over the next two weeks.

Transit officials also have 10 town hall meetings at locations accessible to those with limited mobility slated from Oct. 29 through Nov. 21 — but Gounardes argues that they should hold 18, one in each of the borough’s community districts.

MTA spokesman Tim Minton said all of the agency’s bus redesign efforts “include unprecedented levels of public outreach.”

“We anticipate that anyone who wishes to provide input will have the opportunity to do so,” Minton said.

The public outreach events this fall are the first of many that the MTA plans over the next year. The agency will finalize the network’s redesign by the end of 2020.

Brooklyn’s bus network is the busiest of the five boroughs, with 63 local routes and 537,000 daily riders.

Ridership on those routes fell by 15% — or nearly 100,000 daily riders — between 2013 and 2018, MTA data says.

Transit officials will take a “holistic, blank-slate approach” to the network’s bus routes in an effort to make buses a more attractive transportation option, according to a presentation that’s been given at the MTA’s outreach events.