Q58 (New York City bus)

A Ridgewood-bound Q58 bus entering service in Flushing.

The streetcar line was operated by the Brooklyn and Queens Transit Corporation, a subsidiary of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) and later Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) which operated many streetcar lines, and several rapid transit lines including some of the city's first subway lines.[3][16] The line began operation on June 20, 1896 as the Fresh Pond Road Line, running the same route except turning north at Junction Boulevard (then Junction Avenue) and Corona Avenue towards Bowery Bay (the current site of LaGuardia Airport).[3] In November 1899, the Flushing–Ridgewood routing began service. Around this time, the Junction Boulevard portion of the line became a shuttle known as the North Beach Line, while the Grand Street Line was truncated to the Maspeth Trolley Depot at Grand Avenue and 69th Street.[3] On October 19, 1919, the line was extended from the Fresh Pond Depot south to Ridgewood terminal at the Brooklyn-Queens line.[17] Between 1939 and 1940, the line served passengers going to the 1939 New York World's Fair in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park.[3][16][18]

Beginning in the 1920s, many streetcar lines in Queens, Brooklyn, and the rest of the city began to be replaced by buses, particularly after the unification of city's three primary transit companies (including the BMT) under municipal operations in June 1940.[8] Buses began running on the line as early as 1946.[19] On June 30, 1949, the New York City Board of Estimate approved the full motorization of the line with buses.[20] The Flushing–Ridgewood line was officially replaced by city-owned buses on July 17, 1949,[1][5] The line was designated B58 ("B" the designation for buses based in Brooklyn), and the line was renamed the Corona Avenue Line. The early fleet consisted of General Motors-built buses.[1][5]

On July 27, 1960, the B58 was moved to the newly opened Fresh Pond Bus Depot, after operating from bus depots in Brooklyn.[12] During the 1964 New York World's Fair, the B58 was rerouted to stop at the Rodman Street entrance of Flushing Meadows Park.[21][22] On December 11, 1988, the B58 was renumbered Q58.[23] Due to slow trips and high passenger load, limited-stop service was added to the route on September 12, 2010.[4][24] Community Boards 5 and 8 had been asking for the introduction of limited-stop service for the Q58 for years, but limited service was only added at this time because the Q58 had reached the headway required for limited-stop service. The Q58 was moved to Grand Avenue Depot in 2019, possibly in preparation for conversion to Select Bus Service (SBS), since the Grand Avenue Depot can hold the articulated buses used on the SBS system. However, the Q58 was moved back to Fresh Pond Depot in January 2020.[25]

In December 2019, the MTA released a draft redesign of the Queens bus network.[26][27] As part of the redesign, the Q58 would have become a "intra-borough" route called the QT58, and it would be rerouted east of 108th Street to use Roosevelt Avenue rather than Horace Harding Expressway and College Point Boulevard. A new "high-density" route known as the QT6 would have been created, running parallel to the QT58 from Myrtle–Wyckoff Avenues to Grand Avenue–Newtown before running along Queens Boulevard, Horace Harding Expressway, and College Point Boulevard. The QT6 would have fewer stops than the QT58.[28] The redesign was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City in 2020,[29] and the original draft plan was dropped due to negative feedback.[30]

A revised plan was released in March 2022.[31] Under the new plan, the Q58 would use 111st Street and Roosevelt Avenue to cross Flushing Meadows Park. A new "crosstown" route with limited stops, the Q98, was also proposed; it would duplicate the QT6 proposal and would make many of the same stops as the existing Q58 Limited. West of the intersection of Grand Avenue and Queens Boulevard, the Q98 would follow the Q58. East of that intersection, the Q98 would run along Queens Boulevard, Horace Harding Expressway, and College Point Boulevard.[32]