Some folks stroll along the virtual QueensWay. (Rendering via WXY architecture + urban design and DLANDStudio Architecture & Landscape Architecture)
Thanks for bearing with me over the last few days. I’ve started a new job, and time was at a premium earlier this week. I’ve missed some big news though as someone smoke-bombed Bar Pitti by popping out of an emergency access grate just south of the West 4th St. subway station and Transit Wireless is set to unveil subway cell service at nearly 30 stations in Queens. I’ll cover that in due time, but tonight, we talk about the QueensWay.
Earlier this week, the folks behind the QueensWay — some CB heads in Queens, the Trust for Public Land, formers Parks Department head Adrian Benepe — unveiled a snazzy new website and the results of their state-funded study regarding the proposal to turn the defunct Rockaway Beach Branch right-of-way into a 3.5-mile park. They’ve designed something that they keep referring to as the High Line of Queens. It will supposedly have space for ample pedestrian pathways and a two-way bike lane; it will cost at least $125 million; and around 1 million people per year — 250,000 from outside of the area — will visit.
In a vacuum, it’s not a terrible idea. The costs are high; for only $25 million less than what it cost to build two phases of the High Line, the QueensWay would draw in around 3 million fewer visitors per year. But the renderings sure are nice, and Queens needs the to improve alternate transportation modes on a route that parallels Woodhaven Boulevard. But planning doesn’t exist in a vacuum. I’d rather see the city reimagine Woodhaven itself, and the RBBL ROW offers the city a unique opportunity to take advantage of a rail ROW through a neighborhood that badly needs high-speed transit connections. (Just look at the completely unironic Subway Links section of the website.) Unfortunately, no one as powerful as the Trust for Public Land or Benepe, let alone Gov. Cuomo who funded the latest round of renderings, is backing rail reactivation.
Over the past few days, a lot of voices have come out against the QueensWay plan. Assembly member Phil Goldfeder, one of the few politicians skeptical of the park, released his own statement:
The Queensway and Trust for Public Land have wasted taxpayer dollars on expensive, out of state consultants and one-sided studies that don’t actually represent the interests or needs of Queens families. Elected officials and community leaders from every part of the borough and as far as Manhattan have expressed full support for the complete restoration of the Rockaway Beach Rail Line and increased transit options.
In a few weeks, the Queens College Department of Urban Studies will release its own comprehensive and objective study, done by local scholars, faculty and students. I am confident that this new independent study will reflect the true needs of Queens residents and small businesses. Our growing coalition, including the MTA, will continue the fight to expand transit in Queens while easing commutes, creating jobs, cleaning the environment and expanding our economic development.
Gothamist too issued a takedown of the Queensway, echoing arguments I’ve made in the past. To me, though, there are two distinct problems with QueensWay. The first is that the people in the area and those arguing for it don’t really want it. Everyone keeps calling it the High Line of Queens as though that’s a net positive, but a non-insignificant portion of Manhattanites feel that the High Line isn’t what they wanted New York to become. It’s become a tourist trap and a high-end condo trap. Long-time residents and business have become priced out of what has become a very exclusive neighborhood. Even as I stray into NIMBY territory, divorce yourself from that Manhattan experience, and imagine it in Queens. It just wouldn’t fly.
But worse is the way this area needs rail. The MTA vaguely committed to RBBL reactivation in its 20-year needs assessment, but the project has no fiscal champion. As we’ve learned, if someone delivers money, the MTA will deliver a project. If the RBBL becomes a park, no matter how much we spend on that park, it will never be rail. When or if an impartial study says rail reactivation is a definite impossibility that no one would use, we can turn it over to the QueensWay. For now, though, this artery preserved for rail from the Rockaways to Queens Boulevard is too important to give up. It’s a shame that advocates who are usually on the same side have wound up fighting each other over this plan, but the choices we make now with regards to this 3.5-mile ROW will reverberate for decades.
102 comments
Who knows, maybe QueensWay will be the wakeup call the destruction of Penn Station was: after the park is built and is an unmitigated failure – as it attracts crime and the property owners next to it start to put up fences, after which the visitors and maintenance dries up – maybe then we will give up on this idea of park as tourist attraction and start again to build things for all people, not the select few.
I’m a little perplexed as to how the High Line has become a “tourist trap,” given that a lot of locals use it, and it’s free. If it’s a high-end condo trap, I’d like to hear that from someone who actually got trapped. It sounds like jealousy to me. I don’t live there, but I’ve walked the High Line a number of times (most recently on Monday): one needs to be completely blind to think what was there before was better.
Bear in mind, almost nothing gets built in NYC without some “not insignificant” portion of residents saying it’s terrible. I’m sure that when Central Park was built, someone opposed that too.
“I’m sure that when Central Park was built, someone opposed that too.”
…yeah, probably
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_Village
Most do not want Queensway and many who are for it will never use it because this is not Manattan and not easy to access by bike. As for pedestrians, who would take a subway from Manhattan just to take a walk on a pedestrian path in Queens? I really wonder where the estimate of 250,000 from outside the area comes from. That’s like over a thousand a day if you subtract inclement weather and we are not talking about the same 1,000 every day. Absolutely ridiculous.
However, most of the who are for it, woud actually use it in their daily commute if it is not overpriced.
As far as a few opposing Central Park, what does that even prove and why mention it?
Ben, this is an excellent article. You said it better than I ever could. The only thing you left out, is that while a park would only be used during good weather, a rail line or even BRT, would be used every day of the year.
Parks are the first thing cut in a fiscal crisis, and debts and pension increases/underfunding ensures we will have one. We are facing the nick, nick, nick of service cuts as it is, despite the tax revenues generated by ongoing pillaging by Wall Street.
It won’t attract crime anymore than the present abandoned ROW does. Park fetishists want to wreck the future in pursuit of their ideological ends, so they’re a fundamentally unreasonable lot. They aren’t going to accept anything they do could fail, and if something does fail they will shift the goalposts for success.
lots of better places to build new subway lines other than this old line
That’s not really the discussion though, and few of those other places have a preexisting ROW running through them.
and of course there is no money for new tunnels unless you do under in manhattan
No Park, build subway tracks and stations.
Two subway tracks plus a bike path. This isn’t so hard.
If you provide adequate provisions for said bike path, then you’re right.
Much of this assessment is spot-on.
A couple of points that are salient that may shift the calculus slightly:
* Assuming that this would be done as a “railbanked” conversion under
Section 8(d) of the National Trails Systems Act, it would require that the ROW is preserved for reactivation. Once a park is built, such reactivation requires “deactivating” the park, which may be an unpopular proposal once the community is accustomed to the space.
* Financing isn’t done in a vacuum either. The MTA just proposed a capital plan with a $15B funding shortfall, and there isn’t a dollar yet committed to SAS Phases 3-4. The shortfall applies to non-frivolous capital needs, and SAS 3/4 are definitely higher-priority projects (in short: that connection brings bigger net value to NYS in customers served and tax ratables). It appears to me that this sits low on the list of achievable priorities from where it sits on the financing totem pole.
I would be a lot more careful than any of the proponents are suggesting before making any part of this ROW into a public recreation facility. But I think a temporary repurposing of the space – on a much, much leaner budget – would be of use to Queens residents while the reactivation discussion happens in earnest with a 10-20 year timeframe for first-shovels-in-the-ground. I wouldn’t bet any money that NYC/NYS would make it through that process without the plan going deeply awry, but a reversible park may be the only agreeable, viable use of this land in the next 15 years.
Does anyone know who allowed residents to build shops underneath a the elevated track? It’s private property of city not theirs.
delete “the”
One of the main problems with heavy rail mass transit in many other cities is that the default routings mandate extremely indirect travel towards or into the main business district(s) when people are trying to go from one outer area to another, and when vehicular traffic in those areas is already heavy enough to make bus options unappealing.
That’s a big problem for east Brooklyn and east-central Queens. The G as built was simply another one of John Hylan’s BMT-killers (the Myrtle el and the proposed BMT Brooklyn-Queens el in this case). While the G has definitely seen its usage climb in the past 15 years as the near-Manhattan neighborhoods of north Brooklyn and LIC have revived, even if the line still went to Forest Hills, it’s far too close to Manhattan to be of much use to those living in, and trying to travel to, other parts of the boroughs, let alone going from southwestern Queens and the Rockaways towards the east side of Midtown Manhattan.
Reviving the Rockaway Branch has the potential to both make Midtown access to those areas easier and make North-South trips in areas away from Manhattan much more doable in ways it is not right now.
Funding is the thing. If it can get funded soon, build rail. But I’d rather have a park in the next 2-3 years than maybe a railway in 20 or 30
They cited a budget of around $120 million for the park. It’s probably feasible to reactivate for less, especially if they don’t insist on overbuilt stations.
You are joking … the right of way cannot be reactivated for less than $1B because you need completely new rail bed, rails and ties (assuming that the elevated structures are structurally sound). Then you only need to remember that you cannot build a new station that is not ADA accessible, so each and every station needs at least $150M just for the platform, canopy and two elevators to the high platforms.
I would like this to be a line — subway or LIRR, but the money is not there. Simply put gas is too cheap and traffic is not bad enough to make people be willing to pay more for transit.
No, I’m not joking, and you’re making numbers up. NJT rebuilt part of the abandoned Lackawanna ROW for around $6M/mile. This would cost more, maybe twice as much for rails and infrastructure, but not $280 million (!) more per mile.
Stations can be concrete slabs. They aren’t underground, so the ADA fixings (ramps, maybe elevators) aren’t that expensive. Actually, everyone is assuming the railbed and all structures need complete replacement (including me), but it’s a worst-case scenario.
They are doing this sort of thing with old rail lines up in metro Boston, a place that is as broke as we are. But with fewer thieves in government than the once was, I guess.
The majority of the cost of this thing would be building the interlocking to re-attach it to the Rockaway Line and, more expensively, building the connection to the QB line.
That line was built with all kinds of bellmouths for future spurs that were never constructed.
I’m not sure the Rockaway interlocking is a multimillion dollar proposition either. QB might be more expensive, as I haven’t seen any good account of what provisions were made by the IND.
Actually, the biggest problem with the project probably has little to do with direct project costs, and everything to do with capacity on the QB line. But even without that connection, it’s probably a worthwhile project!
More than enough capacity on the Queens Blvd local line (where the Rockaway Line would connect) currently. In fact, that capacity is currently limited by the number of trains that can be turned around at 71 Ave so it makes perfect sense from an operations standpoint.
So would sending a local down jewel to 164, improving access to QC. Would replace a bus that gets 4k riders per mile.
The park won’t increase land values nearly as much as a subway would. If you are worried about locals getting priced out you would oppose the rail line, not the park.
Queens already has a linear park. A remnant of the Vanderbilt motor parkway. It’s great. I wonder why they never compare the Queensway to that.
Queens Blvd may have capacity. What about the lines in Manhattan? People from the Bronx or Astoria are going to get really really annoyed if they get less trains so trains can go to the Rockaways a different way.
6th (M) and broadway (R) both have capacity. But would they actually run more of either? Or route one to Rockaway and send the G to forest hills, or reduce service on the last couple QB local stops?
Ah yes, never open the Second Avenue Subway so that people in Woodhaven have a different way to get to Manhattan. Sounds like a plan!
I didn’t mean for a whole new service. Just to bump up frequencies on the R or M. How will the Q to 2nd change that?
The short term prospects for the Second Avenue subway is for the Q train to go up Second Avenue. I suspect they are still going to have to run as many trains as they are now to Astoria whether they decide to call them all N trains or maybe revive the V. There’s gonna be more trains running in Manhattan, someplace other than on the new tracks.
2012 60th street carried 23 tph peak, 53rd carried 24. I just had in mind maybe an extra two tph through one of them. But even without that the R or M to Rockaway at existing frequencies isn’t horrible. Forest hills loses service, but how many are riding a local from the express stop to Manhattan? If they need better service to QB local stops then you can send the G to forest hills. The M to Rockaway is probably better for forest hills anyway.
Actual cost of reopening a station, including full accessibility: $6.5 million. And that’s in Boston, which has the same cost control problems as New York in most circumstances.
The station in Union NJ on the Raritan Valley line was 25 million. It has elevators. It’s unclear how much of the 25 million was for the gauntlet tracks and parking lots. And how much of it was for other upgrades outside of the station area. How ’bout TF Green Memorial Car Rental facility? Wikipedia says 23 million of the 336 million was for trains.
The brand new Arthur Kill Station under construction in Staten Island costs only $15 million, which includes a parking lot, elevators, and other amenities. I am sure that a new station on an embankment would only cost 2-3 million more, and some of that money can come from not building the parking lot. It should be less expensive to build the stations on the rockaway beach branch line since the line isn’t in active use so all the work can be done without worrying about rail traffic.
Given the MTA’s inability to keep costs down, the need to acquire land, and rebuild bridges over roadways (not to mention multiple years of lawsuits from neighbors), I wouldn’t be surprised if rail reactivation costs get into the billion dollar range.
Where do these memes come from? Seriously, is there some brainwashing medium I’m not aware of that teaches people to think we’re completely helpless to do anything that involves rail? There is little or no need to acquire land. Assuming bridges even need to be replaced, this probably a matter of either rehabbing them or replacing them with simple re-enforced concrete structures that probably cost in the six figures. There might be ten or fifteen such bridges, and it’s unlikely they all need to be completely replaced.
I can believe the MTA would inflate costs magnificently, but at least get the fundamentals right.
Where do these memes come from? Seriously, is there some brainwashing medium I’m not aware of that teaches people to think we’re completely helpless to do anything that involves rail?
When critical thinking started vanishing, there became a void & it was filled with paranoia, religious nuts & total distrust of government. If you want proof, just look at the news & online coverage on Ebola.
How in the world could there ever be a rational discussion on public transit when myths trump overwhelming facts. Part of the problem is some how we transitioned from a WE society to a ME one & you have been seeing the fruits of that in past years in nearly all policy decisions.
there was a proposal to turn the high line into another subway extension. could have been done a lot cheaper than the 7 extension. but all the ME’s who live and work in the area killed that idea. no one wants train noise by their house
^ There are a bunch of reasons why this comment is stupid
1) there is no practical use for the High Line as a subway line. It would be completely disconnected from yards, maintenance facilities and the rest of the subway network….
2) ….unless the 7 extension fed it, in which case you’d need the 7 extension PLUS the high line development. And I don’t even know if this is technically feasible
Besides, 7 tail tracks pretty much extend down to the 20s and probably could be extended south of 14th street easily enough if that route really needs service.
3) even if there were a practical reason to re-activate, the area is dense enough to justify underground construction
4) even assuming it could be done, so what if it could have been done cheaper than the 7 extension? You can be for or against the 7 extension, but the 7 extension is a separate project that would serve a completely different area
5) another zombie idea about rail that just won’t die: noise isn’t a big problem for a electric rail on a private, straight, above-ground at-grade ROW. Rickety 19th century els are loud, yes. But a typical, modern implementation probably can be quieter than normal car traffic.
I’m in Chicago this week, where I lived back in the early 2000s, and I was shocked to visit the Loop this week and hear how quiet it is vs. how it used to be, and indeed, vs. New York el’s. I’m not sure if this is because of their new train stock using the Loop, or whether they’ve insulated the tracks in recent years, but the noise of a train passing overhead, or going around the curve at Lake and Wabash, barely rises over the sound of a truck driving by.
By which I mean you hear it and it cuts through, but it wouldn’t even interrupt a phone conversation. I was shocked.
I’ve missed my train in Europe because I didn’t hear it coming while I was standing on the platform reading a map or a schedule or whatever.
If you visit the CTA’S projects page – you’ll discover just how many renovation/ expantion programs are currently ongoing. Everything from new cars to extending the Red line south to 130th from 95th/ Dan Ryan.
Won’t this line further overload 74th Broadway? How much to make woodhaven an express stop?
More than is practical. I could derail this and talk about other stations, but I won’t.
wonder what $120 could do for Flushing Meadow-Corona Park. This park is so in need of care, but somehow we want to tke away transportation options for a park that no one is saying how & whom will be paying for the upkeep. Sorry, this is a crazy idea.
Amen!
How did such a basic route as the rockaway line get closed in 1962?
I grew up with it as a park…Thank you.
Peter Dizozza 917-915-7635
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How do you connect the right of way from White Pot Junction to the Queens Blvd. subway? It appears to me that you will have to dig a very expensive tunnel to get that last half mile of track.
On the Queens Blvd subway line the bell mouths for a connection to the Rockaway Line already exist. They were part of the original construction of the line back in the 1930s. A future connection to the Rock Line was always on the drawing boards. The bell mouths are clearly visible, several 100 feet east (subway north) of the 63rd Drive station. The provision was for connections to/from the local tracks only.
It’s true. However, the original designers of the QB line built a bellmouth just east of the 63 Drive station that was to be used to connect with the Rockaway Branch. So there’s certainly some infrastructure already built there. It’s just a matter of tunneling from the LIRR Main Line to that bellmouth which is a little more than a quarter of a mile. There have been much more complicated tunnel work done in the last twenty years.
Thanks Jeff and Capt Subway,
I’m looking at the old ROW using Google satellite and see what appears to be a school bus storage yard, several ball fields, and pools in the old ROW. It looks like the NIMBYs would have a field day in blocking this.
Also, would reviving the old LIRR Woodhaven station and making a transfer/connection be feasible?
It also looks like a connection can be made with the J/Z, but it would require building another station between 104th St and Woodhaven. Wouldn’t those stations now be too closely spaced?
Walking transfer. Not ideal, but cheaper.
“I’m looking at the old ROW using Google satellite and see what appears to be a school bus storage yard, several ball fields, and pools in the old ROW. It looks like the NIMBYs would have a field day in blocking this.”
Start charging rent, retroactive to when the ROW began to be illegally used, until/unless they relinquish it back to the train tracks.
The distance between the trestle over Jamaica ave and the 104th street station looks to my non-engineering eyes like you you could build an enclosed connection up to attached to the elevated track so that it connected to the end of the 104th street station platform. It’s about a 2-block walk, but that’s no worse than some tunnels (and much cheaper).
The old LIRR Woodhaven station is directly underneath the Atlantic Ave trestle station remnant. It used to have an enclosed staircase go down into it. I don’t know what kind of demand or value it would be in reopening that station, but the pictures I’ve seen of it are fascinating. Looks just like an old IND train station. That whole stretch on Atlantic avenue would pick up, especially if they extend the slower speed limit to it down there. There’s opportunity there. Though it might be best if they left off reopening that LIRR station till the train above is running. If we’re ever fortunate to see this in our lifetime, I’d just want them to account for reconnecting the two stations in their planning of the aboveground platform.
The cognitive dissonance with the ‘Friends of the Queensway’ talking points are just mind-boggling.
If this project were fully funded, the city and the MTA would do eminent domain and seize via the courts the physical property of any development that enroached upon the Rockaway Beach LIRR.
The city used eminent domain in the building of the Second Avenue Subway, the 7 train extension and Columbia University used eminent domain in it’s expansion. The courts always side with development for the public good.
IIRC, the city owns the land, so all they need to do is evict whoever encroaches. They don’t need eminent domain.
So then let’s see what the Queens College report says. Goldfeder was hoping that the Queens and Brooklyn Congressman would be able to secure federal funding for Rockaway Beach LIRR reactivation. The first step in this would be the Queens College study, so once it’s release assuming the study has favorable outcomes, it’s a hugely important part in lobbying for funding for restoration of this service.
And the fact that all the city has to do is evict whoever enroached on the ROW makes it all the quicker and cheaper.
I wish people understood that the High Line didn’t start the West Side’s condo boom. That was coming either way, the plans were in place. The property owners wanted the High Line to be taken out. The park was a grassroots solution to keeping some element of public space and the old neighborhood intact. But the process was already started.
Yes, and it can’t be both ways here: It may be a failure and not attract people, or ignite a tourist and high-end condo trap, but not both.
London-Heathrow, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Hong Kong Int’l, Tokyo-Narita, Zurich Int’l, even O’Hare: virtually every major world capital/business hub’s international airport has a direct, ONE-SEAT, train ride into town which requires little more than an elevator or escalator ride from the terminal to the platform. But not JFK. I can’t believe that the RBBL isn’t being considered by our politicians as our golden opportunity to develop a one-seat ride from the central terminal area into Penn Station (and eventually Grand Central), and finally bring us up to same status as other world capitals. “There’s no political will” is one lament that is often used, but is it that the MTA has done such an atrocious job managing new construction, between bloated budgets which still get blown, and interminable delays, that we’ve collectively just given up hope of ever expanding our rail infrastructure? How was Gov. Cuomo able to steam-roller his new pet (Tappan-Zee) bridge through at warp speed?
To quote the film Wayne’s World – “Wwe’re not worthy!” “Wwe’re not worthy!”
I like to blame the Port Authority for that failure. I may be wrong about it though.
$22 Tappan Zee tolls, and it would be even higher if they had done the right thing and put down a Metro-North rail crossing.
The biggest work destination for people who live in Rockland County is Rockland County. The second biggest is Manhattan. They will have excellent rail access to Manhattan when new tunnels are built to Penn Station. The third biggest destination is Bergen County. The fourth is Westchester. Most of the employment in Westchester isn’t within walking distance of a train station existing or proposed.
The PA is indeed partly to blame, or rather the inability of the MTA and PA to ever work together for the collective good of the region. Airtrain was the compromise solution only because it (PA project) does not trespass on MTA turf!
It was a rational decision that transferring to the people mover at Jamaica or Howard Beach was much cheaper than transferring to the people mover at Federal Circle. And served many more people.
There’s no reason why such a connection would use the Rockaway branch. It would be much easier to connect AirTrain to the LIRR mainline just west of Jamaica, and run trains on LIRR/AirTrain tracks to Penn Station and eventually GCT.
and how do the people who use the subway or the LIRR to get to Jamaica get to the Airtrain?
The line splits and some of the trains end in Jamaica, not Manhattan.
That would be great, if the trains are compatible, the MTA agrees to let PA trains run on their tracks, and the unions agree to let fully automated trains on their turf. Not saying it’s impossible–but it will be a challenge to get that done.
It would be a mostly political challenge.
So they’d be running half empty trains, not such a bad thing with driverless vehicles, or running half as often. Sounds great!
Trains half as often to Jamaica, yes. The vast majority of riders would prefer Manhattan to Jamaica as a terminus.
Except for the ones that live in Queens or Nassau and maybe Suffolk. Most of the people who work at JFK don’t live in Manhattan. So that a minority of the people who do want to go to or from Manhattan have a one seat ride.
…but most of the people who visit New York visit Manhattan and not Jamaica.
They don’t all stay at the Hotel Pennsylvania either. Or whatever it’s being called these days. Or are they busy converting it to condos or something? Taking Airtrain to Penn Station and changing to the E to get to a hotel isn’t all that much different than getting on the E in Jamaica.
Long Island and Manhattan are not the only sources or destinations of passengers in the NYC area. All of Metro North and NJT territories are more accessible from Manhattan than Jamaica.
Metronorth territory is easy to get to from Penn station? What share of people flying to or from JFK are heading to njtransit territory?
Easier than from Jamaica? Just a little bit, yes. (I used to take the New Haven Line the whole way, take the 4 to Broadway-Nassau, transfer to the A and ride it out to Howard Beach, then take a shuttle bus—walking across town to Penn for a one-seat ride to JFK would have been a *smidge* more pleasant.)
MN territory is easy to get to from GCT, where LIRR (and this proposed system) will have direct connections in a few years.
EWR airport is undoubtedly more convenient than JFK for NJT territory, even with a JFK-Manhattan connection. But JFK is dominant for international flights, and any increase in competition between JFK and EWR would be good for consumers.
“walking across town to Penn for a one-seat ride to JFK” – but this wouldn’t be necessary, once East Side Access is finished you’d have a direct connection at GCT.
How often can you fill up trains between the airport and grand central or Penn? Do you figure 4 tph to each? Any less and wouldn’t it be faster to transfer at Jamaica? What frequency does that leave for Howard beach and jamaica trains? Would this mostly be an off peak service? During peak wouldn’t it be better to run new haven/Hudson trains to the few available Penn slots?
You don’t need to fill it up. It only needs to be a useful station stop for commuter or intercity rail, same as White Plains or Ronkonkoma. Ideally it would be part of a longer line (methinks NJT or/and Amtrak would the low-hanging fruit).
Lop, you ask good questions. I’m not sure what frequency could be justified, especially due to the question of splitting between GCT and Penn. Using station and track space in the peak is one issue, and needing a driver on all trains (you can’t run automated on LIRR track) would make this service rather expensive to implement (though you could get away with charging a high fare – Heathrow Express costs 17 pounds or more per trip!). But all these issues are equally present with a Rockaway service to JFK. Compared to that possibility, I think this is better in every possible way.
8 gaziilion trains an hour because people who can afford to stay at the Waldorf or the Plaza are going to get on the bus to Grand Central so they can take the train to JFK. Which they don’t do now because changing trains in Jamaica is too scary.
It seems to me the only value this idea has is because it’s a smarter place for NYC-bound trains from the south to terminate. An airport might even be a fairly cheap and quick place to build a terminal. Secondarily, Amtrak<->major international airport access does make some sense. Properly configured, it might even be able to receive trains from every useful direction (east, west, and from the north). Bonus: some intercity rail service for Long Island.
No, changing at Jamaica is not scary, but it does take away a lot of the convenience of rail-to-air transfers.
JFK isn’t Peoria with 11 gates in one terminal. What’s the radical difference between changing to the people mover at Jamaica or changing to the people mover at Federal Circle?
PHL has good access to the NEC. How many people are using PHL.EWR has decent access. Why aren’t there thundering herds of international passengers using those airports.
And no the three times a week service to Obscuristan isn’t a good reason to spend billions of dollars to bring mainline trains to JFK. Anyway Little Obscuristan isn’t near an Amtrak station.
Why does it need to have an ocean of people? Something like JFK can terminate trains conveniently from an operational standpoint while having better-than-an-average station as far as usage goes. It’s cheaper direct Manhattan access than, say, bringing AirTrain to Manhattan on new infrastructure.
And a glaring advantage is baggage can be checked at and maybe even received from the station, which is very unlikely to be feasible at Jamaica.
Without hordes of people ready to use it there’s no reason to spend billions of dollars to build it.
JFK is not Peoria. How are you going to get checked baggage from Penn Station or Grand Central to the airplanes?
Uh, yes there is reason to spend it. I’ve already stated it twice: it improves operations by moving terminal operations somewhere saner. That doesn’t have to be to the airport, but the airport is probably a better place than most.
There is never any reason to spend billions unless you’re talking about long distances or underground construction, neither of which is in question here. There is already an LIRR spur within spitting distance of the airport.
Dumping people at the airport fence isn’t a good way to get them to use your train. Those pesky pesky Long Islanders will get really really pissed when their train gets permanently cancelled so that outta towners who don’t want to change to the people mover at Jamaica or Howard Beach get to change to the people mover at Federal Circle. JFK is not Peoria where every gate is steps away from where you are standing. Building a station within each terminal isn’t going to be cheap. And they would still need a people mover because JFK isn’t Peoria. Parking lots, car rental agencies, kiss-n-ride, cell phone parking, hotel shuttles are not in the terminals.
Your complaints about this are borderline incoherent. Who the fuck said anything about dumping people at the airport fence? Dump ’em at a terminal. Pick the easiest to get to and centralize check-in and plane-to-train baggage reception there.
There is no need to get rid of AirTrain. There is no need to build a second station at every terminal. There is no need to cancel any trains to add a few airport-bound trains per hour on a relatively underutilized branch line. There is no reason to think AirTrain wouldn’t remain useful.
The fact that this isn’t Peoria is exactly why rail access makes sense to do properly.
Walking from the LIRR ROW to the airport isn’t a very good option. How do they get from the existing railroad tracks to the terminal without spending lots and lots of money building tracks there?
Why don’t you ask how they do it in Hong Kong? I just checked my bags at the downtown train station and didn’t have to deal with them until I arrived at the next city.
Of course, you don’t really need ANY construction for GCT/Penn baggage checking. The airline personnel could roll a cart of already-checked baggage through Jamaica just like you could.
I didn’t say they wouldn’t spend lots of money either. It’s probably a nine figure proposition, not something that needs to cost “billions.”
If there’s some money for a park/recreation type project in Queens, I’d much rather it go toward a bike and pedestrian-way hung off the side of the Throgs Neck bridge. That should have been there from day one but we all know Robert Moses blah blah blah.
I’ve just heard that there’s an effort to add one to the Verrazano. A “study” is to completed in . . . 2016.
What about the Bronx-Whitestone bridge? It’s more direct than the Throggs Neck and it ends in a big park.
Thanks for at least not dismissing the idea out of hand. I just personally like Throgs Neck bridge for its spectacular views. There is a small park at the Queens side, and Pelham Bay Pk is not quite two miles on the Bx side. But I’d be glad to see it done on the Whitestone, which did have a “footpath” when it opened–a sidewalk so narrow as to be an insult. Or, we could think big and request both. With a route between on or near the shore, that would make a terrific loop. Why not think big? It doesn’t seem to be on anyone’s radar, anyway. Depending on the approach (no pun intended) taken by the study for the VB, perhaps the same could go for TN and WB.
I agree that a path on either bridge is a great idea. The fact that so few ways exist to get from Queens to the Bronx without a car is pretty pathetic.
Let’s reactive the Rockaway Branch Line. Quite frankly, the idea of a Queensway Park is absurd. Queens is not Manhattan. The Highline is in an area that is already overtaken by tourists and visitors. Its next to the river and it gives pedestrians a unique view of a very attractive prime location, ensuring many visitors. Not so with the proposed Queensway Park. We need the Rockaway Branch Line. These selfish NIMBY’s already opposed an extension of the “R” line to LaGuardia Airport [because God Forbid a train that is beneficial to everyone goes near their “residential” neighborhoods], now the NIMBYs are trying to derail this too. Enough! Let’s do what is beneficial to the majority of New Yorkers!
the right of way should be be converted into a 2 lane one direction highway replacing one direction (3 lanes) of woodhaven/crossbay blvd. 2 of those 3 lanes should then be used for a light rail line that should continue along Queens Blvd to Queens Plaza or maybe even over the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan.
The 3rd lane could then be a bike/walkway.
In short i am trying to give something for everyone and putting the bike/transit lane where they can better used.
Two grade separated lanes should be able replace 3 general lanes.
Obviously connections on both ends, queens blvd segments, and on off ramps would have to be worked out.