Brooklyn Heights


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Brooklyn Heights, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Brooklyn, has long been stereotyped as the Neighborhood of the Rich White Folks. All the streets in the neighborhood are named for the Rich White businessmen who originally set up shop there and dominated the scene: Pierrepont, Middagh, Montague, and Fulton, to name a few. But how accurate is that assessment nowadays? Well, hop on over to the most recent available census data (here) and see for yourself…

How white is Brooklyn Heights?

As you can see from this map, Brooklyn Heights isn’t quite the brightest shade of green (and hence white) available, but it’s close.

How rich is Brooklyn Heights?

Not much of a question there. Brooklyn Heights falls squarely in the wealthiest bracket.

But what does any of this have to do with transportation or sustainability, you ask? Excellent question! To answer I offer one last map from those helpful Census Bureau people:

That’s a map of the average travel-time to work for the average Brooklyn Heights resident. These rich white folks have the shortest average workday commute documented. Lucky them, huh?

Undoubtedly, this can be due to any number of factors–traffic-detecting GPSs, working from home, top-secret teleportation technology–but a likely contributor is the organization of the MTA’s bus and train lines. Look at that hub of buses:

If that doesn’t help you with your morning commute, I don’t know what will.

In fact, public transportation in Brooklyn Heights is so abundant that residents of the Heights are half as likely to own a car:

This immediately begs the question: Is the current organization of MTA transportation a socially sustainable system? Does it provide access for all, or will it eventually force disadvantaged (i.e. poor, non-white) groups to look elsewhere for their commuting needs?

It’s a fact that Brooklyn Heights has historically been conveniently located near loads of public transportation options. But is that really anybody’s fault? Is it merely a random happenstance, or is there a pattern being actively enforced today?

In the past, the Heights’ location provided the ideal ferry point for commuters with jobs in Manhattan, so folks with well-paying Manhattan jobs logically moved into the area. But that’s ancient history, isn’t it? The Fulton Ferry is so 1814. It hasn’t been around since 1924. Let’s look a little closer to the present . . .

Have there been any recent MTA actions that favored Brooklyn Heights over other, less prosperous areas?

The answer may surprise you.

Voila, another map:



Look closely and you’ll see differences between these pre- and post-2010 MTA cuts maps. While the neighborhood is still serviced by the 103, the 41, the 52, the 45, the 38, the 26, the 57, and the 25, as well as numerous subway lines, some bus lines in Brooklyn Heights have indeed been cut, namely the 51 (2009 Average Daily Ridership: 889), the 37 (ADR: 3,197), and the 75 (ADR: 3,331).

These cuts make perfect sense. Those lines had some of the lowest ridership in all of Brooklyn, and other lines are readily available to provide commuters with alternatives. For instance, the 103 (ADR: 15,032) has in fact been extended further into the neighborhood, and the 57 (ADR: 5,471) has essentially replaced the 75. If cuts had to be made, it was only fair that Brooklyn Heights shoulder its share.

But, you ask, were there any cuts made to bus lines in neighborhoods where no other lines were around to pick up the slack?

The answer, quite honestly, is NO.

As you will see on the other neighborhood pages, the only major cuts were made to lines in neighborhoods that could afford them, i.e., had a wealth of other transportation options. There were in fact other bus lines with very low ridership, most notably the 74 (ADR: 4,278) and the 31 (ADR: 2,785), which were NOT cut, because they service areas with long commuting times and few to no alternative bus lines.

However, those poorly serviced areas are still poorly serviced, and until they have as much access to public transportation as areas like Brooklyn Heights, the whole system is socially unsustainable.

For complete ridership statistics, click here.

For more Brooklyn Heights Census Data and bar graphs, click here.