The transit deserts within a transit desert
Kenny Zhou + Rae Lei
Northeastern Queens as a whole is a transit desert, but different neighborhoods within the area have varying levels of bus connectivity. Who’s in a transit desert within a transit desert? — people who have to walk more than 1/4 mile (5 mins) to a bus that connects to rapid transit.
4 distinct neighborhoods were selected due to their varying distances from the Flushing Main Street subway station, as well as different urban form. Flushing is the commercial center of the northeast Queens region, which would both see its own residents and act as transfer site for commuters of other neighborhoods. Whitestone is a residential neighborhood to the north of Flushing, split into 3 regions by the Whitestone and Cross Island Expressways. Auburndale is a residential neighborhood east of Flushing, straddling between denser residential and less-dense suburban residential. Lastly, Little Neck is located the furthest east from Flushing, and almost entirely suburban in form.
Trip-based connectivity modeling was used to generate travel walksheds. We intend to add amenity demand (bus stops), routing factors, and population by building calculations to inform the final simulation.
Almost all of Flushing is covered by acceptable bus service. Service run both on primary commercial corridors and many residential streets.
Despite highways splitting Whitestone into 3 sections, there is decent bus coverage here. Nonetheless, there are 3 pockets of residential areas that do not have bus service. Service run on primary commercial corridors and select residential streets.
The Queens bus network becomes less dense around Auburndale. Bus service here run only on primary commercial corridors, leaving distinct pockets of residential areas without buses. However, bus service still cover a large portion of the neighborhood.
Finally, bus service in Little Neck also run only on primary commercial corridors, but the difference in coverage gap is even more pronounced than Auburndale due to the suburban nature of the neighborhood: lots of narrow streets and few primary streets.
Data sources
Map: Open Street Map
Transit network: NYC Mass Transit Spatial Layers
