{"id":276812,"date":"2026-06-24T17:02:42","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T17:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/276812\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T17:02:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T17:02:42","slug":"cm-wong-files-foil-after-months-of-mta-inaction-on-overcrowded-queens-express-buses-qns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/276812\/","title":{"rendered":"CM Wong files FOIL after months of MTA inaction on overcrowded Queens express buses \u2013 QNS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Council Member Phil Wong<\/a> has filed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request seeking internal Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) records after receiving complaints that residents and commuters say include \u201covercrowded buses, long waits, and inadequate express bus service,\u201d according to a press release.<\/p>\n

Wong joined Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, state Senator Joseph P. Addabbo, Jr., and Assemblymembers Andrew Hevesi and Jenifer Rajkumar in calling on the MTA to address overcrowding on the QM25, QM34, and surrounding express bus routes serving Central Queens, as reported by the Queens Chronicle earlier this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The coalition urged the agency to \u201creview ridership data, restore previously eliminated trips, evaluate service gaps, and consider adding additional peak-hour service to meet demand.\u201d Riders had reported standing for lengthy commutes into Manhattan, overcrowded buses, and long waits between trips.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo courtesy of the District Office of Council Member Phil Wong
\n\"\"Photo courtesy of the District Office of Council Member Phil Wong<\/p>\n

In a March response, New York City Transit informed the elected officials that it was \u201cmonitoring ridership and service levels\u201d and would continue evaluating conditions on the affected routes.<\/p>\n

Nearly four months later, Central Queens residents and commuters report that little, if anything, has changed.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cCentral Queens residents are tired of being treated like an ATM,\u201d said Wong in a statement. \u201cThey\u2019re having rezonings shoved down their throats. They\u2019re being told to accept projects like the IBX whether they want them or not. Their water bills keep going up while state and city leaders divert those funds instead of investing in the infrastructure needed to prevent flooding in our communities. At the same time, commuters are paying a premium fare for express bus service that continues to leave riders standing, waiting, and squeezed onto overcrowded buses. In February, we brought these concerns directly to the MTA. In March, they told us they were monitoring the situation. It\u2019s now almost July and residents are still reporting the same problems. If the MTA has spent months monitoring these routes, the public deserves to see the data and understand why nothing has changed. That\u2019s why I filed a FOIL request, because the MTA has no answers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The filed FOIL request seeks the following items: passenger load data, ridership statistics, capacity utilization figures, overcrowding reports, pass-up data, reliability metrics, service planning documents, and internal communications related to the QM25, QM34, and other express bus routes serving Maspeth<\/a>, Middle Village<\/a>, Glendale<\/a>, Ridgewood<\/a>, Rego Park<\/a>, Elmhurst<\/a> and surrounding communities. The request also seeks records showing the criteria the MTA uses to determine whether additional express bus service is warranted.<\/p>\n

As confirmed by his District Office, Wong said he will continue pressing the MTA for answers and advocating for expanded express bus service throughout Central Queens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Council Member Phil Wong has filed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request seeking internal Metropolitan Transportation Authority…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[73092,2025,94195,86491,106409,21714,106410,141,106411,9,24,63,1260,23948,25042,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-276812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-cm-wong","tag-community-news","tag-complaints","tag-district-30","tag-express-buses","tag-foil","tag-inaction","tag-mta","tag-mta-transit","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-politics","tag-public-transportation","tag-quality-of-life","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}