NEW YORK CITY — The MTA is rolling out new bus and subway service to meet growing demand from Staten Island to The Bronx, officials announced this week.
The $15.5 million in improvements includes extending the J train from Chambers Street to Broad Street in Lower Manhattan on weekends and extending the B13 and B83 bus routes to Gateway Center II in Spring Creek, Brooklyn.
The J train extension, which will allow straphangers to reach Fulton Street on weekends, will occur in mid-2015.
The Brooklyn bus routes will be extended on Aug. 31 to prepare for Gateway Center II, a new shopping mall set to open in the fall.
Another shopping destination getting additional transit is the Bay Plaza Shopping Center in The Bronx, where the Bx5 bus will be extended in mid-2015, the MTA said.
Additional service improvements have already taken effect on Staten Island, where the MTA expanded bus and rail service in May to match the Staten Island Ferry's extended hours.
The MTA also plans to add two more select bus service routes which make express stops, but the specific locations have not yet been chosen, officials said.
To prevent signal problems from delaying trains during rush hour, the MTA will dispatch extra workers to fix issues on the 4, 5 and 6 lines, which is the busiest in the system.
The changes and upgrades are part of the MTA's new budget, which drew praise from the Straphangers Campaign of NYPIRG, a riders advocacy group, because it does not raise fares.
