An article by James Barron in the Times' today reports on new bus shelters for the B23 bus, which goes through Kensington. Apparently that's one of the bus lines that the MTA wants to discontinues. So what gives? Why are they putting up new bus shelters? Is this just an example of one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing or is there a chance that the bus line won't be going away? An ex-Park Sloper is even quoted in the article citing the bus as one of the things "that made the move tolerable." The bus goes from Flatbush Avenue and Corteylou Road to Boro Park, making stops along Ocean Parkway. Richard Grayson must know all about that bus.
Two bus shelters on Cortelyou Road in Brooklyn — one at Ocean
Parkway, the other at East Fifth Street — were replaced this week with
shiny new steel-and-glass structures that can keep passengers on the
B23 bus line dry on rainy days and unmussed on windy ones.
But the B23 is one of six bus lines in Brooklyn that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority says it will eliminate unless it gets a financial lifeline from the State Legislature.
Asked
why new shelters were being installed along a line that could soon
disappear, Seth Solomonow, a spokesman for the Transportation
Department, noted that the proposed service changes were not definite.
“But we will postpone any further installations on affected routes
until the situation is clarified,” he said.
This reminds me of 1975, when that neighborhood’s Culver Shuttle was discontinued. It went along or near some of the B23 route, from the Ditmas Avenue station of the F train at McDonald Avenue to the old B (now D) Ninth Avenue station at 39th Street:
http://www.culvershuttle.com/news/culver-end-of-the-line.htm
The B23 is based on the old Route 23 trolley service. This is what the Transit Authority wrote about it in 1965:
Route 23 – Cortelyou Road
–July 23, 1930: Avenue C trolley service replaced by combined trackless trolley and gas bus operation on an experimental basis. The route ran along Cortelyou Road between Flatbush and Coney Island Avenues. It was decided to continue trackless trolley service and six additional coaches were purchased in 1931.
–May 27, 1932: 16th Avenue trolley service operating along Church, Gravesend, and 16th Avenues to 62nd Street was terminated at 16th and Gravesend Avenue and the line was renamed Gravesend-Church. Cortelyou Road trackless trolley service was extended from Coney Island Avenue through Cortelyou Road to Dahill Road and along 16th Avenue and 62nd Street to New Utrecht Avenue.
–October 31, 1956: Trolley coaches replaced with gas buses.
In 1930 the old Cortelyou Road-Avenue C trolley (Route 23) was replaced by a combined trackless trolley and gas bus operation on an experimental basis. The route ran along Cortelyou Road between Flatbush and Coney Island Avenues. It was decided to continue trackless trolley service and six additional coaches were purchased in 1931.
The next year 16th Avenue trolley service began operating along Church, Gravesend, and 16th Avenues to 62nd Street and the line was renamed Gravesend-Church.
Also in 1932, Cortelyou Road trackless trolley service was extended from Coney Island Avenue through Cortelyou Road to Dahill Road and along 16th Avenue and 62nd Street to New Utrecht Avenue.
Gas buses replaced the trolleys in 1956.
That neighborhood was also served by a defunct subway line, the Culver Shuttle, which I rode till it was stopped in 1975. It ran between the BMT B line (now D) at Ninth Ave. and 39th St. and the IND F line at Ditmas and McDonald Aves.