Bring Back B71 Bus, Run It To Manhattan, Officials Say

CARROLL GARDENS, BROOKLYN — A group of community organizations, schools and elected officials are renewing their call for the MTA to reinstitute the B71 bus and use it to connect Red Hook with lower Manhattan.

The bus would run along Union Street to connect Carroll Gardens with Gowanus and Park Slope, then continue into Prospect Heights and Crown Heights. The officials also want to add a leg from Red Hook into FiDi to give residents of the transit-starved neighborhood a route into Manhattan.

They will hold a rally on Friday, Oct. 13 on the corner of Union and Court streets in Carroll Gardens from 12 to 1 p.m. to kick of this new effort.

"Red Hook is not served by any subway stop, and only by two local Brooklyn bus routes," City Councilman Brad Lander wrote in a post on his website. "A direct connection between Red Hook and Manhattan would make 90,000 more jobs accessible for Red Hook commuters within a one-hour transit zone. And everyone along the route would gain a convenient new commuting route to Lower Manhattan."

Here's what the proposed route would look like (click here to see it full size).

The coalition of over two dozen neighborhood groups are also circulating a petition that it will present to the MTA to revive the bus route.

The B71 was axed in 2010 amid a wave of MTA budget cuts. Lander said he still hears about the loss of a cross-Brooklyn connector on Union Street.

"To this day, every time I visit the Eileen Dugan Senior Center, they have a very clear message: 'Bring back our bus!'" Lander wrote. "Despite economic recovery and significant population growth along the route, the line has never been restored, leaving thousands of riders stranded."

Two years ago around this same time of year, officials similarly pushed to restore service (without the Manhattan portion of the proposal), a movement that didn't go anywhere.

At the time, the MTA noted that the bus route had one of the lowest riderships in the city.

"Customers have viable alternatives with the B65 on Bergen St./Dean St. or on Ninth Street when we extended the B61," MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz told DNAinfo two years ago.

Patch has reached out to the MTA for comment on the newest effort, and we'll update this story if we hear back.

Image courtesy Brad Lander's Office