{"id":9764,"date":"2025-10-17T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chelseascorner.org\/?p=9764"},"modified":"2025-10-16T08:22:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T12:22:46","slug":"q38-rego-park-fresh-pond-aka-the-bus-that-used-to-take-50-minutes-to-go-half-a-mile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chelseascorner.org\/index.php\/2025\/10\/17\/q38-rego-park-fresh-pond-aka-the-bus-that-used-to-take-50-minutes-to-go-half-a-mile\/","title":{"rendered":"Q38 (Rego Park\/Fresh Pond – aka the bus that used to take 50 minutes to go half a mile)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Q38 is an anomaly of a bus, and quite possibly one of the few that was saved<\/em> by being severed in two during the bus network redesign changes. For those who don’t know, the Q38 used to form a U shape that took 50 minutes to, essentially, go half a mile. The deviation index? 24.34.<\/span><\/em><\/strong> YEP. However, for the purposes of this blog, I’m only really going to count the new Q38’s routing towards the scoring (that has been unchanged aside from being severed into this and the Q14 near Middle Village<\/a> station). With this, welcome to the former most deviatory bus in NYC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bus stop!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The beginning of the madness<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Q38 in its current form didn’t change much from when I rode it, up to Metropolitan & Eliot Avenues. With that said, the route is a straight shot down 62nd Drive, a turn down Queens Boulevard with a connection to the M\/R lines, and then things get SLOW. The route weaves through the streets of Middle Village, going down Penelope Avenue, Woodhaven Boulevard (briefly), Juniper Valley Road, and eventually Metropolitan Avenue, ending at Metropolitan & Eliot. In terms of scenery, it’s mostly residential, although you do have various shops near Queens and Woodhaven Boulevards. Certainly, it could be a bigger stinker as far as land use goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Residential!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Section 8?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Burlington!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The rather wide Queens Boulevard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Taco Bell!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A church<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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More density!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Woodhaven Boulevard!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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HOUSING STOCK!!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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More housing, less density<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Even more. Oh my.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Now we’re doing row housing?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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There’s this.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The M!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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BJ’s!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In terms of the section axed, it’s a return back up to Corona via a straight shot up Eliot Avenue and Woodhaven Boulevard, serving the M\/R again, going into the Queens Center Mall, and then turning towards the Horace Harding Expressway (I-495), terminating around there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Something.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I believe this was the Lower Montauk line<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Suburbia!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A graveyard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Ooh, you can see (what I think is) the LIC skyline!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Back to this stuff again<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Another bus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I think this one is the Bay Ridge line (eventually to be the Interborough Express!)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Street parking galore<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This reeks of suburbia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Under the LIRR mainline<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Queens Center Mall, my maligned<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Queens Boulevard!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Housing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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More stuff<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Even more housing stock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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AND EVEN MORE!!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I did it…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I BLOODY SURVIVED THE QUEENS ROUTE 38.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The good: It’s (now) a mostly normal straight line between Rego Park and Middle Village! It serves the local neighborhood and at a rather frequent 10-20 minute headway. It also connects the M on both ends, so it conceivably could be faster than taking the M in a giant circle.

The bad: I think the biggest stinker for this route comes down to Queens traffic patterns. Which, isn’t the worst<\/em>, but can still be unbearable at times. It also doesn’t run overnight to connect the M shuttle to the E\/F more directly.

Nearby points of interest: I think the Best Buy, Burlington, and Queens Center Mall are the biggest ones. There’s also a park, graveyard, and a Costco.

Overall, it’s a funny route (historically), and it does well to connect the two segments of the M.

Rating: 8\/10<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Routing gore, for history’s sake.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Q38 is an anomaly of a bus, and quite possibly one of the few that was saved by being severed in two during the bus network redesign changes. For those who don’t know, the Q38 used to form a U shape that took 50 minutes to, essentially, go half a mile. The deviation index? … Continue reading “Q38 (Rego Park\/Fresh Pond – aka the bus that used to take 50 minutes to go half a mile)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12,8,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-irl","category-extra","category-othertransit","category-public-transit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseascorner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseascorner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseascorner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseascorner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseascorner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9764"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseascorner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9807,"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseascorner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9764\/revisions\/9807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseascorner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseascorner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chelseascorner.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}