They’re in the no man’s land of MTA budget cuts.
But riders of the little-used Q79 bus route in Floral Park, Queens, and the S60 route in Grymes Hill, on Staten Island, said they’ll suffer — facing long treks or the addition of 30 minutes in transfer time — if the MTA, as planned, eliminates their lines.
“I take this bus every day. If they get rid of it, I’d have no choice but to take a 30-minute walk to work,” said Nancy Papini, 65, who works at a grocery store in Floral Park.
Student Nicholas Mancuso said he’d have to “take another bus the wrong way and take it all the way back around to get home” from school if the Q79 is cut.
MTA officials said they targeted the two routes because they have the lowest ridership levels in the system. The S60 carries 210 people per day, and the Q79 about 650.
The move would bring about $1.1 million in savings to a $400 million budget gap.
“Clearly, we have not taken away all the impacts” from service cuts, MTA chief Jay Walder said about recent route-restoring revisions in the agency’s “doomsday” plan.
“We cannot meet the type of financial pressure we’re under without having some impact.”
But transit advocates said the agency has the obligation to serve areas that may not be the most profitable.
“Thousands of bus riders will be forced to walk many minutes to a different bus line, make extra transfers, suffer longer waits or have go out of their way to get to their destination,” said Gene Russianoff, of the Straphanger Campaign.