Transit officials announced the start of a $24.7 million project that will see the installation of elevators from street level at Continental Ave. to the station platforms along the IND Queens Boulevard line in Forest Hills. The project is due to wrap up by October of 2013, and renovations to this dilapidated but popular station will also include staircase work, signage upgrades, tactile warning strips along the platform edge and some communications and signal upgrades.

Politicians praised the work. “The renovation will greatly increase train accessibility for residents of our community, while also providing more neighboring residents access to the shops in Forest Hills,” Forest Hills’ Assembly rep Andrew Hevesi said. With the MTA on track to make 100 of its 468 stations accessible by 2020, the authority will have technically fulfilled its mandate under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The agency deserves its accolades, but the system remains frustratingly inaccessible for thousands of disabled riders who must cater their routes to this list of stations.

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We heard rumblings in early January that Genting would fund a Train to the Plane-type service, and this week, the company confirmed as much. In an interview with Crain’s New York, the company’s senior V.P. for development spoke about the company’s needs if they are to operate at a profit. Essentially, they would require a larger slice of the revenue pie from the convention center and an expected boost of traffic to the racino next door. They also won’t do much for transportation.

Jeremy Smerd reported:

Genting will pay for upgrades to the Aqueduct subway station and for direct A-train service to take passengers from Fulton Street in Manhattan to the site—with a stop in downtown Brooklyn—in half the 35 minutes it takes now. The company won’t fund a new AirTrain spur from John F. Kennedy International Airport. It also will not pay for street upgrades.

That simply will not cut it. Based on past experiences without new trackage, such a service won’t cut travel time from 35 minutes to 17 minutes. Rather, these super-express trains will end up stuck behind regular express trains, and straphangers who live along the IND Fulton will find their service less frequent.

Genting won’t like the reality of this situation, but they’re going to need to find a better transit solution that doesn’t rob service from areas with rapidly growing populations and transportation needs. If increasing capacity is not in the cards, this convention center, already a fairly bad idea, will just look worse.

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A schematic shows the Rockaway Beach Branch service from 1955 until it was shuttered in 1960. (Courtesy of Railfan.net)

Before Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced plans to build a convention center in Ozone Park, Queens residents were gearing up to square off over a decommissioned bit of former LIRR tracks. Park advocates with some vague stirrings of NIMBYism wanted to turn the rail right-of-way into a park while rail advocates rightly objected. The convention center proposal, complete with a vow by the developer to fund transit to the area, has thrust this small section of rusted rail tracks back into the spotlight, and now the trail advocates are fighting back hard.

In The Daily News today, Carl Perrera, David Krulewitch and John Rozankowski put forward a compelling argument for reacativating the Rockaway Beach Branch line, and they put forward various solutions for such a reactivation. Krulewitch and Rozankowski are no strangers to this issue, and Perrera has been advocating for rail use for years. Now, they offer up this argument:

Some have suggested the revival of the JFK-Super Express service. Since there are more A trains running today than in the 1980s, a service conflict would be created and the needs of the convention center would not be met. Fortunately, there is a better alternative: the revival of the northern section of the old Long Island Rail Road Rockaway branch. The Regional Rail Working Group Rockaway Subcommittee and other transit advocates have studied this line and offer the following options:

The Railroad Option would have the LIRR resume operations between Penn Station and Aqueduct. Two stations would be built — at Rego Park and at Aqueduct. The latter would allow transfers to the A train and to the Air Train (if it were extended from Howard Beach). If rail cars are developed with the ability to operate on both lines, a one-seat ride from Midtown to JFK would be created.

The Subway Option would divert the M or R subway line east of 63rd Drive (via an already built connection) to the northern section of the Rockaway line. The subway would converge with the A train north of the Aqueduct Station and continue into the Rockaways. At Rego Park, two stations would be built, one for the subway and one for the LIRR mainline to permit transfers between the two services.

This would allow Rockaway riders a quick trip to Midtown or to eastern points in Long Island. Under both options, additional stations can be added after consultation with the affected communities.

The trio note that, if the MTA is not interested in such a proposal, the city could, as it has done with the 7 line, foot the bill since it is the legal owner of the right-of-way. In fact, for any rail development along the Rockaway Beach Branch to see the light of day, someone else — the city, the state or Genting — will indeed have to foot the bill.

Furthermore, the three authors parry with neighbors who claim a rail line would have a negative impact on their quality of life. Perhaps noise for a few would be an issue, but an electric train line would not impact pollution levels. Plus, the increased transit access would lead to a jump in property values as well.

They end with a call for a Rockaway Line Reactivation Task Force: “Does CB9 want to be the spoiler conducive to the inundation of Ozone Park with traffic, thus continuing transit misery for Rockaway riders and to block a chance to link Queens in an effective crosstown service? Or does CB9 prefer to be a good neighbor and support a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to improve mass transit for everyone’s benefit?” The choice, to me, is an easy one. If the state is going to build a convention center in Ozone Park, they must do everything right, and that includes rail access.

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That shuttle bus piece, you see, ended up becoming something of an explosive issue today. MTA refuses free money! MTA turns down shuttle buses! Outrage! Drama! That, in a nutshell, is what this teeny tiny article from The Post hath wrought.

To summarize, Jimmy Van Bramer, a Queens City Councilman, offered to give the MTA $250,000 out of his discretionary funds while the MTA engaged in this 11-week project. The authority turned him down, and thus Queens commuters who are bound for Grand Central must take the 7 to Queensboro Plaza, the N or Q trains to 59th St. and the East Side IRT to 42nd St. It is a roundabout way to go all of four stops on the 7.

Queens residents weren’t too pleased with the MTA for turning down the free bucks, and after numerous inquiries, Transit released a statement late in the day on Monday: “While we understand the Councilman’s attempts to mitigate the effects of work on the No. 7 line, the proposal to run a bus shuttle between Long Island City and Grand Central would be operationally inefficient, requiring long lines of idling buses and limited curb space to stage them. E, N, Q and R train service all link LIC with midtown Manhattan and these subway trips promise to be faster than a bus ride, which would be subject to traffic congestion and would still require a transfer to the subway for destinations beyond Grand Central.”

So what’s really going on here? Essentially, the MTA is turning down the money for a variety of interrelated measures. First, the MTA has learned over the years that, due to surface congestion, running a bus from Queensboro Plaza to Grand Central via the tunnel doesn’t save on travel time. They claim that due to traffic, the three-train route is just as efficient (or inefficient) as a shuttle bus.

Second, the MTA points to the 42nd Street area as one not geared for such an influx of automobiles. There isn’t enough available street space around 42nd St. on the East or West Sides to serve as the staging grounds for 5-10 buses that are required for a given run of a shuttle. That is the so-called operational inefficiency.

Third, it has long been MTA policy to provide shuttle buses to the nearest station in service, and it is my understanding that the MTA does not wish to break that policy every time a City Council member dangles a few bucks for a few weekends of buses. Fourth, and similarly, Transit seems to recognize that work on the 7 line is going to last longer than through early April. The CBTC project will require numerous segment shutdowns over the next few years, and the authority is concerned that Van Bramer’s well of discretionary funds may dry up. Furthermore, selective shuttle busing based on the whims of the area’s council representative could create inequities as other areas suffering from weekend outages do not enjoy such bonus shuttle service.

Some transit advocates in Queens have not been satisfied with the MTA’s answers. Ahead of the 7 line work, Angus Grieve-Smith urged the MTA to run buses to 34th Street instead. This, he claimed, would solve the staging problem while improving traffic times and providing the necessary subway connections. Service though would be fairly redundant, and the MTA has been hesitant to embrace this idea.

So I live it to you, dear reader: How do you solve this problem? Is the MTA acting foolishly as it rejects free money? Are these concerns valid? Such are the questions of a 24-7 transit system with an aging and technologically out-of-date infrastructure.

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Speaking with reporters earlier today, Cuomo said in a reponse to a question on mass transit, “The MTA is working on additional transit applications.” He touted the fact that Genting will pay for the construction of the convention center and will carry the costs of some transportation-related aspects of the project as well.

Admittedly, it’s still early in this process, but early is when key decisions are made. The MTA, governor and Genting must be as transparent and inclusive as possible in this process. A successful convention center will incorporate increased transit access without taking frequency away from popular stops further down the line, and the MTA should not be expected to cover the operating costs of increased service or the capital costs of building out a rail extension or new station stops. Now is the time for these concerns to see the light of day and not when the shovels are entering the ground.

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The MTA says this work is part of two projects. First, the authority is installing a communications-based train control along the 7 with a completion date of late 2016. Second, the Court Square closure is part of a comprehensive rehabilitation project that will make the station accessible to the disabled by June.

“We are taking the opportunity to do a lot of work during this period and while we regret the inconvenience to our customers, this is work that must be done in order to improve the performance of this line,” Transit President Thomas Prendergast said. “We have already accomplished a lot here and we have seen an improvement in reliability. With the work we are doing now, we are continuing that progress.”

Since the old Steinway Tubes offer “virtually no clearance,” the authority must shut down service in the tunnels to perform this work. When the 7 is out of service, Transit will provide a fare-free shuttle bus between the Vernon-Jackson and Queensboro Plaza stations. Customers are urged to transfer at Queensboro Plaza for N and Q trains which will run between the two boroughs. Those who switch from the 7 to the G can walk to the 21st St. – Van Alst station.

During the service shutdown, Transit says it will perform the following work along the 7 line with more to come in the fall.

• Additional track and tunnel maintenance work in the Steinway Tube, including upgrading emergency alarms and telephones, installing the copper cable associated with them and replacing collapsed ducts in the tube.
• Track replacement work along 23rd Street between Queens Plaza South and 44th Drive.
• Installation of electrical equipment at the Vernon-Jackson Station for the CBTC project.
• Station renewal work is continuing at the Hunters Point Avenue Station, including platform, stairway and mezzanine repairs, bringing the station to a state-of-good-repair. This $5.2M project is scheduled for completion in May 2012.
• A series of station improvements at the Vernon-Jackson station. This work includes replacing platform edge concrete, removing wood rubbing boards and replacing them with boards made from polyethylene, installing tactile platform edge ADA warning strips and repairing or replacing platform columns. Transit will also repair cracked platform surfaces, walls and station ceilings while improving the lighting.

I had hoped to journey into Queens for a show on January 28. Already, I’m reassessing my plans. It’s going to be a tough 11 weeks for folks used to a speedy connection between the two boroughs.

©2012 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

By 1990, the Train to the Plane died. It was a slow and painful demise brought on in part because the service was ahead of its time. It wasn’t truly a train to the plane. Rather, it was a train to a bus to the plane, and no one wanted to wind up in Howard Beach still a significant ride away from any JFK Airport terminals. Today, with the success of the AirTrain and when a super-express to JFK from Manhattan would be worthwhile, ridership along the IND Fulton line has grown such that sacrificing regular service to bypass stops would create deep animosity in Brooklyn and Queens.

Yet, as plans for a convention center in Ozone Park take center stage, the Train to the Plane is back on the table. We first got wind of this idea yesterday when transit advocates expressed their lukewarm embrace of the plan. In a recent radio appearance, though, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said a super-express along the IND line is a big part of the plan and that Genting will pay for the servce, whatever that means.

“It’s a non-binding letter of intent,” Cuomo said of Genting’s proposal. “All that letter of intent means we have an intention to. It was a proposal I wanted to talk about in the State of the State — the terms, the conditions, Port Authority land, Genting would want to reinstitute the train to the plane, which they would pay the cost of. But the terms and conditions will be in a piece of legislation.”

Far from clearing up the matter, Cuomo’s statement simply leads to more questions. What did Genting volunteer to pay for? Will they fund restoration of a service that wasn’t ripe for the subway 20 years ago and isn’t a better fit today? Will they fund operating costs in perpetuity? Can they guarantee that a Train to the Convention Center that bypasses some crowded stops and used to rely on a key switch and a dead end at Queensbridge won’t have a negative impact on the 6th and 8th Ave. IND lines? What protections does the MTA have against being forced to spend any money on this new service?

On the one hand, if Genting were able to answer these questions and provide the money, a funding deal could provide the model for a so-called public-private partnership. On the other, it’s hard to see how this plan wouldn’t leave thousands of riders and the MTA holding the short straw. Redeveloping the Javits Center land is a fine idea. Having someone else pay billions to build a convention center isn’t a bad one either. But transportation planning must be a part of the process, and right now, all we’re getting are platitudes with few promises.

©2012 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

Still, New York’s planners are dreaming big when it comes to Queens, and two projects that may rely, to varying degrees, on rail connections are on the table. First up is a plan from the Port Authority to replace La Guardia Airport’s Central Terminal Building. The agency released a request for information (PDF) last month, and The Journal profiled the planned upgrades late last week.

Essentially, the new terminal building will replace the 46-year-old structure that isn’t prepared for today’s modern airplanes. The Port Authority is planning a $3.6-billion construction effort that would commence in 2014 and wrap by 2021. Now, before we get our hopes up, the current project does not include a rail component simply because the Port Authority cannot control that element of the project, but while we often build without keeping future provisioning in mind, the Port Authority is requiring its bidders to do so. The RFI says:

While the Project scope does not include rail service, the new CTB shall be designed so as not to preclude future rail access. The design shall incorporate provisions for track alignment and connections compatible with current New York City plans for light and heavy rail, should future funding become available.

A faint glimmer of hope is better than nothing at all, but any such rail link would have to overcome extreme NIMBY opposition in Queens. If recent history is any indication, such a plan would involve a fight for the ages — if the money for a La Guardia subway connection ever materialized.

Across the borough, where plans to build a massive convention center are taking center stage, transit advocates are leery. As I noted last week, transit access to Ozone Park is rather sparse, and building a convention center at the Aqueduct site would raise significant transportation concerns. Transportation Nation’s Andrea Bernstein has more on the vague plan to provide express service from Manhattan to the Aqueduct:

One idea bandied about was that the MTA would run express trains along the A line. But that idea was tried once before — in the now-defunct “Plane to the Train.” That service was plagued by low ridership, and created hostility by setting up a service that whisked past waiting straphangers on the local platforms. “If one of their ideas is to create a convention express modeled after the JFK airport express, that’s going to be much harder to do than it was in the 1970?s and ’80?s,” the Straphangers’ Campaign’s Gene Russianoff said.

Russianoff noted that many neighborhoods along the A and C lines — including Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, and Bedford-Stuyvesant — have undergone rapid growth in recent years, and couldn’t withstand reductions in service.

But Bob Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, which is backing the convention plan, thought adding express trains might be possible. Yaro also said the air train to JFK could be extended to Aqueduct, or the LIRR Rockaway Beach line could be brought back to life. Both plans would cost considerably more.

Extending the JFK air train seems likely but useless. To reach the air train still requires a significant amount of travel time to Jamaica on the E or Howard Beach on the A. Adding an Aqueduct stop wouldn’t improve Manhattan travel times. Reactivating the Rockaway Beach line would also be an expensive undertaking that would face opposition from residents who live along the old right-of-way and QueensWay advocates who want to turn the ROW into a park. Of course, the dollars remain an issue as well.

For now, then, as the MTA’s capital dollars are focused on Manhattan, these Queens’ projects will remain on paper. The La Guardia rail connection would be a vital link for the city while a convention center cannot sprout up in Ozone Park without speedier and more reliable rail service to Manhattan. Hopefully, those pushing these plans are paying attention.

©2012 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed building a 3.8 million-square-foot convention center in Ozone Park, Queens. (Image via Arquitectonica)

Throughout the first year of his time as chief executive of the state of New York, Andrew Cuomo has made a name for himself. Even as he has not embraced New York City’s transit network or transportation policy overall, he has earned accolades because he Gets Things Done. In Albany, that is apparently an accomplishment in and of itself.

Yesterday, Cuomo gave his annual State of the State address. Transit was again absent. In fact, he mentioned the MTA twice and did not use the word “transit” at all. A centerpiece of his plan did concern a so-called Infrastructure Bank that would seemingly unify capital expenditures from the MTA, NY DOT and Port Authority. We’ll get to that later in the day. For now, I want to focus on another part of Cuomo’s plan: He wants to tear down the Javits Center and build a giant convention center near the Aquaduct race track in Ozone Park.

For Cuomo, the desire to build 3.8 million square feet convention center in the far reaches of the city is about job creating. “Let’s build the largest convention center in the nation, period,” he said. “It will be all about jobs, jobs, jobs, tens of thousand of jobs.”

Crain’s New York has more on this idea which has long enjoyed support from the RPA. Allow me to quote at length:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo outlined his administration’s second year priorities Wednesday in a State of the State speech that described $25 billion worth of economic development initiatives. At the top of the list for New York City is a push to build the country’s largest convention center in Queens, raze the Jacob K. Javits Center and then redevelop the 14-acre waterfront property on the far West Side of Manhattan…

He said he wanted to replace the Javits Center with 3.8 million-square-foot exhibition center at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens through a joint-partnership the administration is developing with Genting Americas, the gaming corporation that operates the racino…

Razing the Javits Center would leave a multi-block, $4 billion piece of waterfront property that could be parceled off and developed alongside Related Cos.’ planned Hudson Yards project and the redevelopment of the Farley Post Office into Moynihan Station. The redevelopment of Javits will be modeled after Battery Park City, where the state leases the land to developers in exchange for a percentage of their rental income. Revenue for the state would increase along with apartment values.

Economic development officials had considered Willets Point, Queens, a possible site for a new convention center because of its proximity to La Guardia Airport and infrastructure improvements that are already underway. But the Aqueduct Racetrack site in Queens has clear advantages, too: Genting could build a convention center on one story and, perhaps most importantly, finance it.

If this doesn’t seem like a clear example of the left hand not knowing what the right is up to, I do not know what is. For the past few years, the state has spent $500 million on Javits Center renovations that are still ongoing. The city has spent $2.1 billion to send the 7 line to Hudson Yards, in no small part to improve access to the Javits Center. Now, the state is willing to spend another $4 billion on a plan that would plop 3.8 million square feet into a far-away neighborhood and include 3000 hotel rooms as well.

That, of course, brings us to another point: Transportation access to the Aquaduct area is subpar as it is. Only the A train to the Rockaways stops there, and those trains don’t run too frequently. It’s also a 45-minute ride from West 4th St. and a 50-minute ride from 42nd St. on the A train. While close to JFK, it’s not a convenient location for anyone else. A fifteen-minute walk from the Javits Center has conventioneers in Herald Square. A fifteen-minute subway ride from the Aquaduct stop drops a straphanger off at Broadway Junction in East New York.

According to Crain’s, the $4 billion plan would include some transportation upgrades and perhaps a connection to the JFK AirTrain. Again, though, I view these dollars as money poorly spent. If there is only a limited amount of money for transit, spending it on a subway to a station with very low traffic on a lightly-used part of the route only because the Governor wants to place a giant convention center there is the height of foolishness.

Meanwhile, as development at Hudson Yards has been non-existence, who will take on the task of redeveloping another 14 acres of land? The 7 line extension would truly be the subway to barely anywhere at all while the city would have a giant convention center in the no-man’s land of Southwestern Queens. This isn’t urban planning around the city’s core that addresses the city’s infrastructure needs. Rather, it’s pure folly instead.

As Haywood Sanders, a professor who specializes in urban economics, said to The Times, “The convention business is a disaster everywhere. Simply building more space gets you nothing more than a big empty building. And to put it in a place where there aren’t any hotels, restaurants or amenities next door is to doom it to serving only a local or metropolitan market.”

©2012 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

A schematic shows the Rockaway Beach Branch service from 1955 until it was shuttered in 1960. (Courtesy of Railfan.net)

As rails-to-trails proponents move forward with a plan to convert part of the Rockaway Branch Line into a park, Queens’ transit advocates are none too pleased with the idea. As The Daily News reports today, those who want to see better rail access in Queens are speaking out against the so-called QueensWay park.

Lisa Colangelo has more:

“Certainly a quick trip to JFK Airport from the core of the city is something people have talked about from Year One,” said George Haikalis, a civil engineer who heads the Institute for Rational Mobility, a nonprofit umbrella group for transit advocates. “Nobody in the rest of the world would be so dumb as to let a valuable asset like that sit there.”

…Assemblyman Philip Goldfeder, who represents the Rockaways, jumped into the fray on Tuesday saying he opposed the creation of a park. “I believe southern Queens and Rockaway would be better served if this forgotten track once again fulfilled its original purpose as a railroad,” Goldfeder wrote in an open letter. “Those same communities that are pushing this proposal are privileged with commutes of 30 minutes or less to midtown Manhattan.”

Andrea Crawford, the chairwoman of Community Board 9 who also is a member of Friends of the QueensWay, said a park would enhance the neighborhoods and prevent future over-development. “No one disagrees that the Rockaways are underserved by public transportation,” she said. “But to say this particular right of way could be a viable rail of some sort does not have a basis in reality.” Aside from deteriorated tracks and infrastructure, the line runs close to schools and homes that did not exist when it was first constructed, she said.

This he said/she said story from the News encapsulates the debate over rails-to-trails perfectly. As I first said when I wrote about the QueensWay plans in early December, once the rail right-of-way is converted to a park, the land is never returned to its original use as a piece of the transportation network. On the other hand, the ROW has sat unused for six decades, and despite numerous calls for a reactivation, nothing has ever materialized even as the city’s needs have become glaringly obvious.

If QueensWay becomes a reality — and it still has a way to go — New York City will not be irreparably harmed. Restoring rail service to the Rockaway Branch Line is probably a pipe dream, but it says a lot that a rails-to-trails park can gain more community support than a potentially important train line would. Our urban development priorities are not in the right place.

©2012 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.