BusTalk

[B53]

Hello. Does anyone know why the B53 bus, which ran from Bridge Plaza in Williamsburg to Jamaica Queens, was renamed the Q54?

[N4 Jamaica]

I can make only a guess about "Why" the B53 became the Q54 in December of 1988.
Please see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bus_lines_in_Queens
---
The date of several changes from B to Q, other renumberings and reroutings was December 11, 1988, when the Archer Avenue subway was opened. I think the new routes to serve Archer Avenue made sense. I think the dropping of the A suffix made sense. As for the B to Q changes, I suspect that in most cases the route travels mostly in Queens, so it deserved a Q, not a B. Case in point, the Metropolitan Avenue car line ran within Brooklyn only to English Kills, where it entered Queens.
---
The streetcars did not carry route letters or numbers. I suspect that several of the routes received B designations upon bustitution in 1949 or 1950 because they began their routes in Brooklyn, at least from a Brooklyn point-of-view. In 1988, the change to Q designations may have been based on distance traveled.
---
It is possible that the B designations assigned in 1949 or 1950 were made by a Department of Franchises rather than the Board of Transportation.
Joe McMahon

[B53]

Thank you for your reply.

[BrooklynBus]

Actually, the buses themselves didn't specify borough prefixes until the New Looks arrived in 1959, with the possible exception of a few Manhattan bus routes.