Hasina Rahim has a long commute between her teaching job at a high school in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn and her home in Ozone Park, Queens.

“Oh my God, I’m so excited I don’t have to walk to Nostrand anymore," she told NY1. "I just get out here, the B44 bus, and the station.”

Reopening the old entrances means Rahim and other riders no longer have to walk a quarter mile between the bus stop on Bedford Avenue, and the other station entrances on Nostrand.

 

What You Need To Know

  • The MTA reopened the Beford Avenue entrances to Nostrand Avenue station on the A and C lines, after being shuttered for 30 years

  • In the 1970s and 80s, the MTA shut down access points to reduce areas police had to patrol when crime in the city was at record highs

  • The new entrances cut out the quarter-mile walk between Bedford and Nostrand avenues

 

These entrances were closed in 1991, as part of a system-wide shut down of access points to reduce areas police had to patrol when crime in the city was at record highs.

Here at the Nostrand Avenue station, on the A and C lines, the closures not only inconvenienced riders, they led to crowding at the remaining entrances.

"It was a bit of a bottle neck, the entrances at Nostrand Avenue, they can get pretty crowded because of the narrow staircases, so this new area here will definitely do a lot to help the congestion," said Diego Carvajal, a Bedford Stuyvesant commuter.

For years, the community lobbied for the entrances to reopen. The clamor grew as ridership here increased, about 17,500 people used the station each weekday before the pandemic.

"That’s taking precious minutes off of someone’s commute and when that makes a difference between catching a train and missing it, that savings in time add up even more," Sarah Meyer, chief customer officer at NYC Transit, said at the official opening.

As part of the reopening, the MTA improved lighting and installed surveillance cameras.

NYPD Transit Bureau Chief Kathleen O'Reilly vows to keep the station and the subway system safe, after a spate of violent attacks on riders.

“We have deployed more officers, we switched officers from plain clothes to uniform presence to the platforms to the trains and to the mezzanine area," she said.