Queens

The MTA is reviving the H designation for a free Rockaways shuttle service. (Photo via Mike Kocurek)

Once upon a time, the MTA referred to the Rockaway shuttle which operates between Broad Channel and Rockaway Park as the H train. Although the train still carries this designation internally, to the world, that shuttle appears as a gray S on subway maps. As the Rockaways face a lengthy rebuilding process, though, the H train is returning, this time as a free shuttle operating between Far Rockaway-Mott Avenue and Beach 90-Holland station, making all intermediate stops via the Hammels Wye.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced this free service this afternoon, and it will begin tomorrow morning at 4 a.m.. It will run every day from 4 a.m. to 1 a.m., providing a transfer to the shuttle buses that run between Mott Avenue and Howard Beach. According to the Governor’s office, the train runs only those Beach 90-Holland because points further west “suffered extensive damage to signal systems and cannot yet accommodate passenger service.”

“The A train tracks from Howard Beach to the Rockaways were almost completely destroyed by the storm, and replacing them is a tremendous undertaking,” Cuomo said in a statement. “While that work continues, this new shuttle service will help improve travel for people in the Rockaways who are still recovering from Sandy’s effects.”

The rolling stock for this new shuttle service arrived via flatbed trucks. Transit loaded 20 R32 cars onto these tracks and placed them on the rails at Rockaway Park-Beach 116th. There are some pretty dramatic photos of the operation available here. Raw video footage comes after the jump.

“Transit has responded with unprecedented creativity to restore subway service to Rockaway customers,” said MTA Chairman and CEO Joseph J. Lhota. “This partial restoration of service is an important step for the Rockaways, but our work won’t be done until the A train is fully restored.” It will still be months before the A train is fully restored.

Washouts from Sandy have exposed old LIRR infrastructure (left) along the A train near the Rockaways.

A SAS tipster sent in some dramatic photos of the damage Hurricane Sandy caused to the A train line. These photos show the approach to the Broad Channel station, and in many photos, old Long Island Rail Road infrastructure has been exposed. As you’ll see, it’s going to take some work to restore these tracks, and service between the Rockaways and the rest of the subway system will likely be suspended for a while.

Tracks over water.

Old LIRR infrastructure underneath newer NYC Transit tracks.

Washout.

New rolling stock for the A train includes a boat.

Debris on the tracks.

Warped tracks.

The long view.

Despite two new baseball stadiums and a basketball arena, New York City’s appetite for sports venues has seemingly not been sated as rumors are swirling of Major League Soccer’s interest in Queens. Looking to expand into New York City proper, the U.S. professional soccer league has its eye on a parcel of Flushing Meadows Corona Park, and although these plans have a long way to go, the MTA has a role to play yet.

Stories and support for a Queens soccer stadium have been percolating out of Albany for much of the summer. The story took off earlier this week when Fredric Dicker of The Post ran a piece relying heavily on a few anonymous sources. MLS, he alleged, is nearing a deal for the stadium. The catch is that the city would have to give up at least nine acres of park land in Flushing Meadows, and the MTA would have to sell some of the land it owns near the LIRR tracks and Corona Yard.

According to Dicker’s sources, the $300 million stadium would be entirely privately funded, and already, I am growing skeptical. Red Bull Arena in New Jersey, built a few years ago, cost around $250 million and takes up over 12 acres. It’s a 25,000-seater that is rarely full. Will MLS not require tax breaks as the Yanks and Mets did with their supposedly privately funded stadiums? (The Mets, of course, have raised an entirely different set of issues as the Wilpons are not keen on surrendering parking for any Willets Point developments to a soccer stadium.)

For a full round-up of the political issues surrounding any such stadium, check out Neil deMause’s takedown in The Village Voice. As MLS officials subsequently noted, it could be years before a stadium rises in the park, and talks should be characterized as “exploratory.”

So what’s the MTA’s role in this mess? They own some of the land MLS is eying for the stadium. As two Daily News writers noted yesterday (in a piece in which they sadly called the MTA the “Metropolitan Transit Authority”), city and state officials in Albany will require adequate replacement parkland should the nine acres vanish, and they could call upon the MTA to cede such land. The MTA and local politicians though have a different view of it.

“We’ve got to find land in roughly the same area,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said of the parkland. “There is land on an MTA site, which everybody said, ‘Let’s get that.’ I have not talked to Joe Lhota, and I don’t know how practical it is, and how much Joe needs that land for other things. Before we go spending or taking away Joe Lhota’s land, maybe we should ask him.”

Dana Rubinstein of Capital New York did just that, and Lhota, a fierce defender of his realm, will not give MTA land for nothing. “If we have a piece of property that’s not determined to be used for a future transit need and we own it and it’s available yes, we’re in the business of shedding assets to help us financially,” he said. “And under the law we can sell assets as long as it’s a fair market value.”

For years, we’ve watched a parade of MTA higher-ups sell off authority land for next to nothing. The sweetheart deal the Authority gave Bruce Ratner for his Atlantic Yards development has rankled politicians and Brooklynites for years, and even the Hudson Yards deal had to be further incentivized for the MTA to realize any money. Lhota though seems to get what’s at stake. The MTA isn’t in a position to give up its assets without drawing value for them, and if the time comes to sell some land in Queens for a soccer stadium, the MTA should maximize its revenue. That day though may be a long time coming.

Remember Karen Koslowitz, the City Council representative from Queens? A few weeks ago, she railed against the Rockaway Beach Branch line and the various plans to reactivate it. She was awfully vehement in her defense as well.

“It will affect the neighborhood in an extremely negative way,” she said. “The train will burden residents who have built their homes close to those tracks. We cannot allow another train to come through our neighborhood. It’s an intrusion on private property.”

As we know, the Rockaway Beach Branch line came up in relation to the now-dead plan to build a casino in Ozone Park. As one of the many proposed transportation improvements that would benefit both the casino and the Rockaways, rail advocates had pushed an unlikely plan to restore service to this idle right of way, and Koslowitz did not like it.

But now that the casino is dead, and with it, a chance to redevelop part of Queens and lots of jobs, what does Koslowitz think? “Queens is being shafted all the time,” she said earlier this week to The Times. “Other boroughs are getting things. They are promised and it happens.”

Maybe other boroughs get things because they want things. While the Second Ave. Subway has been disruptive to the East Side, most people recognize the need for it. Meanwhile, Manhattan has embraced its various projects, and although the battle has been a raucous one, Brooklyn too will soon have its own infrastructure upgrades and fair share of new projects. In Queens, even redevelopment a bunch of chop shops in the shadows of Citi Field has been a battle.

Meanwhile, Queens advocates say they are going to keep fighting. But as Dana Rubinstein, just as some Queens politicians such as Assembly rep Phillip Goldfeder were lining up behind the project, the rug was yanked from underneath the dormant rail line. The Rockaway Beach Branch line will lie fallow, and rails-to-trails advocates will try once again to make sure that we forever lose the transit option.

Eventually, if New Yorkers want something — infrastructure, transportation improvements — they will have to be reflective about it, and they will have to question their political choices. We cannot have politicians who want all of the benefits of a new project without giving up something. In this case, the ask wasn’t even particularly onerous, but representatives such as Koslowitz couldn’t even accept that. Living in a city — a thriving urban area — is about trade-offs, and transportation improvements benefit everyone even if a handful of people may have to live with a train running in the distance.

For transportation and government junkies in New York, Friday evening — always the best time for bad news to drop — was chock full of surprises. A judge put a temporary kibosh on Mayor Bloomberg’s Outer Borough street hail plan while Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that the current iteration of his convention center/casino complex had died. We’ll get to the taxi story later; right now, I want to look at the second chances the city and state will have in Queens.

The story, as we know, was one of backroom dealings and fast promises. During his State of the State speech, Gov. Andrew Cuomo dropped a bombshell. Genting had agreed to the framework of a deal that, pending a constitutional amendment, would have allowed them to build a massive convention center and casino complex in the Ozone Park area. The Javits Center would have been knocked down for a denser, mixed use development, and the plan would have brought table gambling and larger trade shows to New York City.

Transportation was vaguely a part of the plan as well. Genting had promised upgrades, but details were scarce. Transit advocates had hoped to see an ambitious plan to reactivate the LIRR’s dormant Rockaway Beach Branch line while whispers surrounding a super express A train had everyone worrying. Now, it seems, we’ll get a reprieve and a do-over as the plan has collapsed.

During a radio interview on WOR on Friday with former Gov. David Paterson, Cuomo dropped the news. “The conversations haven’t really worked out,” he said. Genting, which pledged to compete for any future project, issued a similar statement. “Uncertainties and difficulties regarding the constitutional amendment, competitive landscape, tax rate and infrastructure support made any decision difficult,” the casino giant said in a statement.

With the Genting proposal in its current form dead, Cuomo will press forward with a proper competition. “They,” he said of the casino industry, “all want to come to New York, and they all have all sorts of exciting ideas — ideas that we didn’t even think of. They want to be here. They’re excited.” According to The Wall Street Journal, interested parties include MGM Resorts, Caesars and Las Vegas Sands as well as Genting.

Despite the fact that industry giants are skeptical of plans to build oversized convention centers anywhere, let alone miles away from the city’s main attractions, Cuomo seems intent to move forward with some sort of competition. This gives transportation advocates to have a louder say, and they need to have a louder say. Any plan to build an attraction center in an area underserved by transit cannot simply rely on vague promises of future improvements. Whichever company wins the competition must make concrete promises to improve rail access to the area.

So what should those improvements be? The Rockaway Beach Branch activation deserves a serious look from everyone involved. It can provide a high-speed link to the convention center and a faster ride for people from parts of Queens who are far from the job centers of Manhattan. Improvements in service along the A line should also be a requirement, and a cohesive effort to streamline bus service in that area of Queens should be on the table as well. The company that wins should also be required to finance these improvements and subsidize some of the operating costs that will result from higher demand. If the area is as lucrative as Cuomo promises it to be, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Perhaps I’m aiming too high here. Perhaps a private developer won’t be so keen on entering the area with these requirements. Still, a convention center and a casino in Ozone Park would be truly disruptive to the area and would present an opportunity to improve transit in an neighborhood that needs these improvements. We can’t let that chance slip away. Who knows when it will come around again?

A school bus parking lot now occupies a part of the Rockaway Beach Branch right of way.

Over the past few months, reactivating the Rockaway Beach has because the cause célèbre for 2012 amongst rail activists. It’s a long shot that may benefit from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s desires to bring a giant casino to the Ozone Park area, but it’s certainly rankling and inspiring Queens residents along the long-dormant right of way.

Recently, I explored how the project’s proponents were making a compelling case for the Rockaway Beach Line. It’s not particularly tough to figure out how reviving a dormant right of way that crosses numerous subway lines and could provide a fast ride to Midtown Manhattan from some rather isolated neighborhoods would benefit the city, but it’s an argument that needs to be heard.

It needs to be heard because elected officials are now the ones parroting NIMBY talking points. Enter Karen Koslowitz, a City Council member from Forest Hills. A few weeks ago, she railed against the rail line at a Community Board meeting. The Times-Ledger was on the scene:

“It will affect the neighborhood in an extremely negative way,” said Koslowitz. “The train will burden residents who have built their homes close to those tracks. We cannot allow another train to come through our neighborhood.”

“It’s an intrusion on private property,” she said.

The Regional Rail Working Group Rockaway Subcommittee, a transit advocacy group, released options for the line in February. The options include a plan that would build two stations at Rego Park and Aqueduct Race Track. The revived railroad line could potentially be used to shuttle passengers from Penn Station to Resorts World Casino and a proposed convention center at Aqueduct in South Ozone Park.

“The city is closing schools and shutting down after-school programs,” Koslowitz said. “I would like to know where the money is coming from to rebuild this railway.” Koslowitz said she plans to fight “tooth and nail” against the reopening of the railway and pledged to “bring it up at Council meetings.”

The Queens Chronicle had a few more choice quotes from Koslowitz. “We will protest, even if I have to lie down. We don’t want this in our community,” she said. “The Rockaways need transportation, but not on our backs. We don’t need another train running through that doesn’t service our area.”

It’s hard to wrap my heard around such patently absurd statements from someone elected to represent a neighborhood on the City Council. How does a New Yorker argue so vehemently against increased rail access? How does a politician not understand that rail is what drives the city and what will determine our economic success and future viability?

Koslowitz’s individual arguments aren’t accurate either. Nothing about reactivating an unused but hardly secret right of way is an intrusion on private property, and while people who foolishly built homes abutting rail road tracks may not like it, better rail access would actually improve the neighborhood in an extremely positive way. Furthermore, many of the homes along the right of way were built before the old Rockaway Beach Branch was deactivated. Koslowitz is treating trains as though it is an invading species intent on ruining her idyllic New York City neighborhood, and her words — “we cannot allow another train through here” — are extremely off-putting and historically inaccurate.

Finally, Koslowitz seems to have no grasp on the funding situation in play. If the MTA is tasked with reopening the Rockaway Beach Branch, the state would fund the construction, likely via some incremental financing scheme arranged with Genting, the planned casino operators. She can fight tooth and nail in the City Council, but when it comes to MTA projects, she’ll be facing quite the uphill battle.

Ultimately, we may all be arguing against nothing. The MTA isn’t exactly prioritizing this reactivation, and silence has enveloped the Genting plan. The state hasn’t shown a willingness to see this through, and only locals are fighting over it. Still, Koslowitz and her words are why we do not have an ambitious plan to improve rail access in New York City. NIMBYs are forever fighting against the transportation that has made New York what it is today.