The Q12 bus starts at the city line in Little Neck and follows Northern Boulevard and and Sanford Avenue to Main Street Flushing.
The mighty Q12 started as a trolley line in 1902 operated by the Mineola, Roslyn and Port Washington Traction Company along Northern Boulevard from Flushing to Roslyn. As the company spread into Queens, it changed its name in 1907 to the New York and North Shore Traction Company. The trolley cars operated by them were considered the largest and most powerful cars on all of Long Island, but they still had difficulty climbing the hills of Douglaston and Manhassett. The company was in trouble financially by 1920 when Joseph Rauchwerger started the Rauchwerger Bus Company to replace two trolley lines with buses. By 1926, he had cofounded the North Shore Bus Company which took over Rauchwerger Bus Company and additional lines of North Shore Traction. In 1947, the New York Board of Transportation took them over after a strike and took over the line. Today it is operated by the NY City Transit Authority's Queens Bus Division and it is serviced at the Casey Stegel Depot.