They proposed building a bus depot on Muldoon Avenue and West Service Road, which has easy highway access and could ease overcrowding and traffic congestion at Staten Island’s three existing bus depots.
“There’s plenty of space, plenty of acres available,” said Borough President Fossella at a press conference at the site. “It would be not just a win-win, but a win, win, win. In other words, it would be a state-of-the-art maintenance facility. The buses would be here. You can’t get better access to the highways than right here. You can close Castleton Avenue once and for all. You can scale back or modify the Yukon Bus Depot, which has been a problem in the surrounding area for parking.”
Staten Island previously housed four bus depots until the MTA closed the Meredith Avenue depot in Chelsea last year. The depot housed 80 buses and served most of Staten Island’s express bus routes.
Borough President Fossella suggested a new bus depot could follow the model used when the city built a new state-of-the-art garage for the Department of Sanitation.
“It makes sense for the city to replicate what it did successfully for the Department of Sanitation,” said Borough President Fossella. “Maybe they can use some of the money that was generated by congestion pricing and plow it into doing something really beneficial for the people of Staten Island.”
