July 30, 2012 Joseph J. Lhota Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Metropolitan Transportation Authority 347 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10017-3739 Thomas F. Prendergast President MTA New York City Transit 2 Broadway, New York, NY 10004 RE: Increased Service in Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue Corridor Dear Chairman Lhota and President Prendergast: As representatives of communities along the Fourth Avenue corridor, we write to applaud your efforts to restore and expand service throughout the metropolitan region. While specific bus and subway service along Fourth Avenue was not restored, we believe that an opportunity exists to expand service moving forward and we write to ask the MTA to consider our request. Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn cuts through an area of the borough with over 350,000 residents, thousands of businesses and hundreds of civic institutions, schools and hospitals. It is an area that has always been transit dependent. Recently, the Fourth Avenue corridor has become a destination, with numerous hotels and thousands of tourists visiting annually. Since the rezoning of Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue in 2005, thousands of new residents have moved to new apartment buildings along the corridor and numerous new businesses have opened to tap into these new potential customers, adding further strain to the existing transit system. This, along with efforts to revitalize the avenue into a boulevard by the Fourth Avenue Task Force, has led to more and more people utilizing the transit system as their primary mode of transportation. The MTA’s own numbers bear out this trend. From 2007-2011, ridership at stations along Fourth Avenue has seen enormous growth: • Atlantic/Pacific (B,Q,2,3,4,5,D,N,R): 11.2% • Union Street (R): 12.2% • 4th/9th (F,G,R): 25% • Prospect Avenue (R): 3.7% • 25th Street (R): 3.7% • 36th Street (D,N,R): 9.4% • 45th Street (R): 1.9% • 53rd Street (R): - 0.6% • 59th Street (N,R): 3.1% • Bay Ridge Avenue (R): 4.1% • 77th Street (R): 5.1% • 86th Street (R): 6.8% • Bay Ridge/95th Street (R): 5.3%

Chairman Lhota, President Prendergast July 30, 2012 p.2

On average, ridership grew by 7.3% at stations along the corridor during this time. When removing the regional transit hub, Atlantic Terminal, and looking solely at the stations with routes that make up the spine of the Fourth Avenue corridor—the D, N, or R routes—the average station ridership increase is approximately 7%. The fact that transit ridership continued to grow during the worst economic recession in generations only indicates that as more and more people locate to Fourth Avenue, transit is the preferred method of travel. Unfortunately, these ridership increases have not been met with a comparable increase in service, nor have they been met with increased investment in new subway cars and 21st century infrastructure. In fact, during this same time period, this corridor has seen a reduction in service. In the 2009-2010 service reductions, prior to your tenure at the MTA, the M line was eliminated south of Broad Street cutting off a key transit option for residents in Southern Brooklyn; the N and the R saw an increase in headways during weekend and off peak service times; and the corridor saw the elimination of the B37, a critical transit component, particularly for seniors and those with limited mobility, in an area with few ADA compliant stations. R service is provided entirely by 1970s-era R-46 cars; of the other lines besides the R that are based at Jamaica Yard, E service is provided entirely by new R-160 cars, and almost all F service is. A mix of older and newer equipment on the R would be welcome. The communities along the Fourth Avenue corridor—Park Slope, Sunset Park and Bay Ridge—as well as the broader southern Brooklyn and Staten Island communities that utilize the transit system throughout this corridor, are united in their calls for better transit service. We urge you, as you consider restoring previous service reductions and adding service to the MTA’s system, to look at adding and restoring service to this neglected corridor. Sincerely,

Joan L. Millman Member of NYS Assembly

Marty Markowitz Brooklyn Borough President

Steve Levin NYC Councilman, District 33

Sara Gonzalez NYC Councilwoman, District 38

Brad Lander NYC Councilman, District 39

Vincent J. Gentile NYC Councilman, District 43

Michael Cairl President, Park Slope Civic Council

Elizabeth Yeampierre Executive Director, UPROSE

John Dew Chair of Brooklyn Community Board Two Fred Xuereb Chair of Brooklyn Community Board Seven Joanne Seminara Chair of Brooklyn Community Board Ten