Letter: ‘No voice for drivers’ — a former MTA planner pushes back on bus lanes and related street redesigns

# What this letter says Allan Rosen, a former director of MTA New York City Transit Bus Planning with three decades in transportation, wrote to the Queens Chronicle to object to recent street redesigns he sees as hostile to drivers. He responds to an earlier editorial about a planned "Moped Blvd." and frames the change as another action by Transportation Alternatives and similar groups that, in his view, harms motorists, businesses, the elderly, and disabled residents.

# Main complaints Rosen lists several concrete problems:

• Bus lanes and busways that were supposed to speed up service instead slowed travel. He points to Woodhaven Boulevard as an example where riders were promised a 30% travel-time improvement in 2017 but, he says, ended up with slower service than the Limited buses they replaced.

• Left-turn bans implemented without guidance: He argues motorists weren't told where the next legal left turn is, creating extra miles driven daily.
• Center boarding islands and busways that remove traffic lanes and ban cars, which he says redirect traffic onto already-congested parallel routes and hurt nearby businesses and people with mobility challenges.

# Who is being represented — and who isn't Rosen's core point is that drivers and disabled residents lack a unified, visible advocacy presence to counter well-funded street-reform lobbies. He calls out groups by name: Transportation Alternatives and the Riders Alliance. He also says the organization that used to advocate for drivers — AAA — appears silent, implying it has been bought off or otherwise not opposing these changes over the past 20 years.

# Evidence and authority Rosen's credibility rests on his professional background. He identifies himself as a former MTA New York City Transit Bus Planning director with three decades in transportation planning. He cites one specific example (Woodhaven Boulevard) to illustrate a broader pattern: promised service improvements that he contends failed to materialize and produced negative side effects for drivers and other street users.

# Implications Rosen highlights

# What the letter does not provide The letter is an opinion piece rather than a data-driven report. It references specific outcomes and a professional background but does not include formal ridership or traffic data, cost figures, or citations beyond the Woodhaven example and the writer's credentials.

# Bottom line