Route 110 'rapid transit' line seeks to upend how Long Islanders see public buses

As shifts ended at the Walt Whitman Shops in South Huntington on a recent, humid afternoon, workers lined up in the upscale mall’s parking lot to catch the S1 bus north or south along Route 110.

Jordan Peters, 20, of Stony Brook, en route from a summer internship at a housing nonprofit in Melville, had waited 20 minutes for the bus.

"I'm originally from the city. The transit system there versus in Suffolk County — [here] it’s not up to standard in my opinion," he said.

Only around 5% of Suffolk County residents commute by bus or train, and many who take buses, like Peters, say they do so as a last resort, since they don’t have cars.

But county officials are hoping to upend the status quo around Suffolk buses in the coming years with a plan, estimated at nearly $80 million, for Long Island’s first "bus rapid transit" line. It will run every 7.5 or 15 minutes, depending on location, during peak hours between Amityville and Huntington along Route 110 — a major improvement over the S1 line’s current half-hourly weekday schedule. Seven miles of the 16-mile line will feature a bus-only lane to bypass traffic and vehicles. Buses will have transponders to hold green lights a little longer as they approach, thus speeding up service, and raised terminals will ease boarding for riders.

Elisa Picca, Suffolk’s chief transportation officer, said the idea is for the bus to be more like a train and convenient enough to convert at least some drivers into riders.

“[People] always say the people that use the bus don't have any choice [because] they don't have a car. You know what? People do have a choice — they don't have to be a four-car family," she said during a presentation about the project last week hosted by Action Long Island, a business association.

Engineering plans are still being drawn up and the service won't be operational until at least 2031, but in June it received an environmental clearance from the Federal Transit Administration, a significant milestone, according to the county.

Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine said in a statement the project "represents the next generation of transportation for Suffolk County" aimed at "delivering faster, more reliable service through the heart of one of our region’s most important economic corridors" with benefits for "jobs, schools, healthcare, and businesses."

The new service, for which planning began under Romaine's predecessor Steve Bellone, will connect Suffolk's three Long Island Rail Road lines through the Huntington, Farmingdale and Amityville stations, as well as many stops in between, helping address a dearth of north-south public transit options to complement the LIRR’s frequent east-west service.

Romaine, who has called for more state funding for Suffolk transit, recently told state lawmakers that Suffolk County bus ridership is up 40% over the past two years — around 3.6 million annual trips, roughly equivalent to pre-pandemic ridership — thanks in part to a recent redesign of routes and expanded hours of service.

Riders told Newsday last week that they appreciated the reboot, which was also designed to sync timing for connections between bus routes. But they said bus travel often remains inconvenient and they hope the new rapid transit line will make things better.

The bus rapid transit plan "sounds feasible," said regular S1 rider Thomas Garry, 57, of Freeport. "If people get out of their cars and take public transit and save money and save on the emissions, it would help."

The project would serve a corridor that has 6,000 businesses with 92,000 employees and about 45,000 residents, according to Picca. Those numbers could grow with a multibillion dollar new hospital NYU Langone recently announced in Melville, and other planned housing developments. Huntington Town recently rezoned part of the area for mixed-use housing development, while Babylon proposed a similar rezoning this year.

Lawrence Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, said efforts to expand public transit are important but the new line will likely face "obstacles around culture and convenience" in attracting new riders.

"It's a car culture, and a lot of people move to the suburbs to get away from what they see as features of the city — including buses," he said.

Plan could be boosted by reopening an old train stop

Bus rapid transit is often touted as providing rail-like service at a lower cost, especially in urban areas. Pioneered by Brazil in the 1970s, it has been adopted in cities around the world. A 2012 Government Accountability Office found the systems boosted bus ridership in crowded metro areas like Los Angeles, Cleveland and Las Vegas, but also in less-dense cities like Eugene, Oregon, and Flagstaff, Arizona — which both saw ridership increase over 60%. (New York City's select bus service has elements of bus rapid transit, but is generally not considered a fully fledged example of the system.)

Suffolk county says the planned service will reduce congestion along Route 110, parts of which see about 50,000 vehicles each day, and where the current S1 line has the fifth-highest ridership among the county's roughly 30 routes. It will feature at least 20 new hybrid buses, which will be equipped with Wi-Fi and specially branded to distinguish them from other county buses. The new "line" will actually consist of two largely overlapping routes, one between the Farmingdale LIRR station and Huntington Hospital and the other between the Huntington Station and Amityville LIRR stations. Service will be most frequent in the overlap zone.

Though the Ronkonkoma LIRR line does not currently stop on Route 110, Picca said reopening the old Republic Station there could enhance the bus rapid transit system. Trains stopped at Republic Station from the 1940s until the 1980s, when the Fairchild-Republic aircraft factory went out of business. Today, only the concrete steps to the old station remain beside the railroad overpass near Republic Airport. 

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which has not announced any plans to reopen Republic Station, did not respond to a request for comment.

Picca said her office is working with the state, which owns Route 110, to acquire adjacent land along the middle portion of the route for constructing the bus-only lanes.

The project costs will include $31 million for roadway construction, $10 million for land acquisition, $22.5 million for early startup operations, $9 million for new vehicles and $6 million for stations, according to Picca. Eight million dollars in federal funding and a $2 million county commitment are included in the current regional Transportation Improvement Plan for 2026-2030, and Picca said the county is applying for additional grants.

The concept for a bus rapid transit route goes back to at least 2014, when Bellone commissioned a feasibility study of several corridors, including Route 110, Sagtikos State Parkway and Nicolls Road. The latter two proposals were shelved because ridership was not considered sufficient, according to Picca. Babylon Town followed up with an additional Route 110 study in 2015, and the county’s preliminary engineering and environmental review was completed in 2023.

Nassau County also proposed a much shorter bus rapid transit service between Hempstead and Westbury, via the Nassau Hub, in its long-range transportation plan published last year, which gives an "expected completion date" of 2035. County spokesman Christopher Boyle did not respond to a request for an update on progress.

Questions about the potential to convert drivers to riders

Yves Quintanilla, a tattoo artist from Amityville, said it currently takes over an hour and a half to reach work in Bay Shore by walking and taking the S1 and S2 buses — a trip of less than 20 minutes by car. 

He said he hadn’t heard about the bus rapid transit project, but liked the idea.

Garry, the bus rider from Freeport, said he likes the idea of a bus-only lane for skipping traffic along the middle part of the route, but questioned whether it would be effective if it’s not extended to the route’s southern end.

Stacey Sikes, acting president of the Long Island Association, said her business group believes the project "can help maximize the potential of planned developments" in Huntington and the region.

Levy said the new service could benefit existing riders, which is important in itself, but convincing drivers to leave their cars at home could be a challenge, requiring strong public promotion.

Picca said the county is still forecasting potential ridership.

Shelly Sackstein, the chair of Action Long Island, said the idea of creating a fast and reliable service to attract new riders "makes sense."

"Will it be utilized? Time will tell. That's part of what we have to explore, working closely with the county," he said.