A B1 Manhattan Beach and B68 Windsor Terrace bus stop at Brighton Beach storefront's sign at Brighton Beach Avenue & Brighton 1 Place, which contains both its English and Russian names.
The B1 begins at 4th Avenue and 87th Street in Bay Ridge and then turns right onto 86th Street. It then travels down the full length of 86th Street until McDonald Avenue, where it turns onto Avenue X. The B1 then turns right onto Ocean Parkway and continues until turning left onto Brighton Beach Avenue, sharing the street with the B68. It continues until turning right at Corbin Place and left onto Oriental Blvd. The route then continues until it ends at Kingsborough Community College.
History
Streetcar line
1906 atlas of Gravesend showing the 86th Street Line's main storage depot
The 86th Street streetcar line or Streetcar Line #31 was built by the Nassau Electric Railroad in 1894 to make more profits for the company. The company was later leased by the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation. In 1929 the company made a subsidiary company, the Brooklyn and Queens Transit Corporation, to run multiple Streetcar lines one of which was the 86th Streetcar Line. The line ran entirely on surface level except for the northern terminal where it went onto an island platform. The 86th Streetcar Line had connections to multiple lines including the Bay Ridge Line, West End Line and the Fifth Avenue Line. In 1930, new tracks were made that split from the West End Line at 24th Avenue and went onto a right of way path used by trolleys to get to the Unionville Depot and onto Crospey Avenue. The 86th Street line would then later merge back with the West End Line at the intersection of Crospey and Stillwell Avenues.
The 86th Street streetcar line closed on August 12, 1948, was replaced with bus service and demolished some time later.[2]
A 2012 XD40 (4899) on the KCC-bound B1 at 4th Avenue/86th Street
Bus service in the Sheepshead Bay area was started in April 1919 by Plum Beach Auto Stage. Trolley service had not reached the area, due to its sparse population. It was one of the first bus routes in Brooklyn. Initially, the routes were lettered A, B, and C. They were feeder routes for elevated trains.
Between 1936 and around 1940, a branch of the B1 was extended from Brighton Beach Avenue and Ocean Avenue to Coney Island Hospital. Another branch of the B1 that operated from Bragg Street and Emmons Avenue and making a loop between Avenues X and Y between Coney Island Avenue and Ocean Avenue was rerouted and extended south to Coney Island Hospital.
When the B2 (later renumbered the B32) started from Avenue U to the foot of Flatbush Avenue, the prefix 1 was added to routes A, B, and C.
In 1946, the B1A and B1B branches were combined to form the B21 making a U-shaped route.
The 86th Street portion and Bay Ridge Avenue portion of the B1 (west of 25th Avenue) were B34 until 1978. Service via Brighton Beach was the B21 bus until 1978. Service originally ran via the Sheepshead Bay (BMT Brighton Line) station. Service was rerouted via Brighton Beach and Coney Island Hospital in 1978, absorbing the B21 and B34. The current routing was originally proposed in the 1970s as the B86.
The western end (13th Avenue and 86th Street) was swapped with the B64 in 2010. In June 2020, the B1 was converted into an articulated bus route. Before articulation, Jackie Gleason Depot used to provide additional service to Kingsborough Community College in the A.M. rush with buses that run on compressed natural gas, as well as Flatbush Depot.
On December 1, 2022, the MTA released a draft redesign of the Brooklyn bus network. As part of the redesign, the B1 would retain its route, but closely spaced stops would be eliminated.[6]
