The B63 is a bus route in Brooklyn, New York City, running mainly along

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...

and

Atlantic Avenue Atlantic Avenue may refer to: Highways * Atlantic Avenue (Boston) in Massachusetts * Atlantic Avenue (New York City) in Brooklyn and Queens, New York * Florida State Road 806 in Palm Beach County, locally known as Atlantic Avenue * Atlantic Avenue ...

between Fort Hamilton and Cobble Hill. Originally a streetcar line called the Fifth Avenue Line, it is now operated by the New York City Transit Authority as the Fifth/Atlantic Avenues bus.

Route description

The B63 bus route begins at Shore Road and Fourth Avenue in Fort Hamilton, and heads north on Fourth Avenue, splitting onto Fifth Avenue at 94th Street. Fifth Avenue is followed through Bay Ridge, Sunset Park, and

Gowanus Gowanus ( ) is a neighborhood in the northwestern portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, within the area once known as South Brooklyn. The neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community District 6. Gowanus is bounded by Wyckoff Street on ...

to Park Slope, where buses turn northwest on Flatbush Avenue and west on Atlantic Avenue to South Ferry. Along the way, connections with the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 2 ...

can be made at , , and , as well as the

Long Island Rail Road The Long Island Rail Road , often abbreviated as the LIRR, is a commuter rail system in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk Co ...

's Atlantic Branch at Atlantic Terminal.

History

The Brooklyn Central and Jamaica Railroad opened the line along Fifth Avenue, from its Atlantic Avenue Line south to 24th Street at Greenwood Cemetery, on August 28, 1860. The Brooklyn, Bath and Coney Island Rail Road opened on October 5, 1863, running

steam dummies A steam dummy or dummy engine, in the United States and Canada, was a steam locomotive enclosed in a wooden box structure made to resemble a railroad passenger coach. Steam dummies had some popularity in the first decades of railroading in the U. ...

from Fifth Avenue and 36th Street (the city line) south to 37th Street, and east on 37th Street and south towards

Coney Island Coney Island is a peninsular neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, Manhattan Beach to its east, L ...

. At the same time, the Central Railroad extended its Fifth Avenue Line south to 36th Street. The Atlantic Avenue Railroad, the Central's successor, gained control of the Brooklyn, Bath and West End Railroad, the BB&CI's successor, in January 1893, and soon changed it to an electric trolley line. The Nassau Electric Railroad was incorporated in 1893, and its plans included the east-west Church Avenue Line along 39th Street and a branch south along Fifth Avenue into New Utrecht. The Nassau Electric leased the Atlantic Avenue on April 5, 1896, and opened their Fifth Avenue Line that day as an extension of the Atlantic Avenue's line all the way to Fort Hamilton; they also continued to operate West End Line cars via Fifth Avenue, and soon also ran cars to Coney Island over Fifth Avenue and the 86th Street Line. Bus service replaced streetcar service on February 20, 1949. In February 2011, the B63 became the first bus route in Brooklyn to test the tracking real time arrival system called

MTA Bus Time MTA Bus Time, stylized as BusTime, is a Service Interface for Real Time Information, automatic vehicle location (AVL), and passenger information system provided by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) of New York City for customers ...

. The pilot program was implemented after similar technology had been tested on the M16 and M34 buses in Manhattan during 2010. Following the success of MTA Bus Time on the B63, the program was expanded to all bus routes in the city. On December 1, 2022, the MTA released a draft redesign of the Brooklyn bus network. As part of the redesign, the B63 would maintain its existing routing, but closely spaced stops would be eliminated.

References

{{Brooklyn bus routes Streetcar lines in Brooklyn B063 B063