Brooklyn Queens Connector: City Officials Pitch Streetcar to Skeptical Residents

Image via Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector

ASTORIA, QUEENS — City officials held a public “visioning session” on the proposed Brooklyn Queens Connector (BQX) streetcar in Astoria Monday night — the first of what they promised would be many outreach efforts to gather feedback on the $2.5 billion proposal.

The next public meeting will take place May 19 at 6 p.m. at the Red Hook Recreation Center, located at 155 Bay St.

The leaders of Monday night's meeting — Maria Torres-Springer, who heads the New York City Economic Development Corporation, and EDC staffer Lydon Sleeper — tended to stick to existing arguments in favor of the BQX. They said the project would address critical transportation needs in a rapidly developing part of the city, while connecting residents in Brooklyn and Queens to growing job hubs in both boroughs.

According to 2014 census data presented at the meeting, 58 percent of residents living along the BQX’s proposed waterfront route do not own a car, and 67 percent use public transit to get to work.

But many of these commuters currently live more than half a mile from a subway stop, officials said, and need a more efficient way to travel between boroughs.

City officials argue the BQX will cut down many New Yorkers' commute times. Image courtesy of the EDC

After Torres-Springer and Sleeper had spoken Monday night, residents were broken up into groups and given the chance to share their thoughts on the project's utility and design.

The tone of the event was certainly less tense than another BQX-themed meeting in Sunset Park — the last stop on the BQX route — earlier this month.

At that meeting, Sunset Park residents levied various criticisms and concerned at the mayor's proposed waterfront streetcar.

Residents called for the creation of Sunset Park jobs within walking distance of local homes, instead of a rail line that, they feared, would bring workers from other communities into their neighborhood to staff big businesses like those in Industry City.

When approached by Patch about these concerns Monday, EDC head Torres-Springer promised that while her organization may be aggressively pitching the BQX idea, other city officials plan to spend the next several months analyzing alternatives. They'll be releasing a report with their findings this coming fall, she said.

For her part, though, Torres-Springer argued that Sunset Park residents "should have access to other growing [job] hubs” along the streetcar's proposed route, such as the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Long Island City, Queens.

She called the Brooklyn and Queens waterfronts the “spine of New York City’s new economy,” and argued that a light-rail system down said "spine" would make more sense than, say, dedicated bus lanes.

Bus lanes might be cheaper to implement, the head of the EDC said, but each train car can carry about twice as many passengers as a bus — a critical perk for a system that would transport an estimated 50,000 riders on weekdays.

Torres-Spring also argued a rail system would increase property values along its route. This, she said, would allow the city to fund the BQX using a cut of rising property values along the rail line.

Astoria residents and city officials discuss the BQX. Photo by John V. Santore

Also present at the meeting was Ya-Ting Liu, recently named executive director of Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector. Liu's organization was behind the project’s first feasibility study, and is currently advocating for its construction.

While developers like Two Trees are well-represented in the Friends group, Liu noted that many non-developers are also members — including Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, and Thomas Wright, president of the Regional Plan Association think tank.

(Jordan Band, a spokesman for Friends of the BQX, said the group will “soon” launch a website listing all of its members. He would not, however, provide an exact launch date.)

Liu, who is also a top member of the New York League of Conservation Voters, said the looming L Train shutdown should serve as "a reminder of how precarious the current [public transit] system is.”

In contrast, she said, the BQX is “an opportunity to bring 21st century, state-of-the-art infrastructure into the city.”