Brooklyn Queens Connector Streetcar: Here's What We Know So Far

Images via Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector

UPDATE, Feb. 16: New Brooklyn-Queens Streetcar Would Whisk You From DUMBO to Red Hook in 20 Mins, Mayor Says

Original story below.

BROOKLYN, NY — Mayor Bill De Blasio unveiled a $2.5 billion plan Thursday to build a 16-mile streetcar line along the Queens and Brooklyn waterfronts.

The rail line would be called the Brooklyn Queens Connector, or BQX.

And if the mayor has his way, the line will pass through Astoria, Ravenswood, Long Island City, Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn Navy Yard, DUMBO, Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Gowanus and Sunset Park.

A map of the streetcar’s proposed route posted by the New York Times (and included above) suggests it would follow the coastline from Astoria down to Sunset Park, but not exactly hug it.

The Times is calling the BQX “a sleeker and nimbler version of San Francisco’s trolleys.”

Here’s everything else we know about the BQX so far, courtesy of the NYC Mayor’s Office.

• The BQX will be one of the largest urban streetcar systems in the United States — with an expected weekday use rate of almost 50,000 travelers when fully constructed.
  

• The BQX would run along a 16-mile corridor through Astoria, Ravenswood, Long Island City, Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn Navy Yard, DUMBO, Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Gowanus and Sunset Park.
  

• The route ties in several “innovation clusters” in which the city has made significant economic development investments, including the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn Army Terminal, and the Cornell/Technion campus on Roosevelt Island via a ferry connection.
  

• The BQX will link to 13 NYCHA developments with more than 40,000 tenants — roughly 10% of the City’s public housing residents.
  

• The fare on the Brooklyn Queens Connector will be the same as a single-ride Metrocard.

• The preliminary estimate for the purchase and installation of the system is approximately $2.5 billion. The City will raise capital through the creation of a Local Development Corporation (LDC) with the authority to issue tax exempt bonds. The City is expected to pay off this debt by capturing a percentage of the increase in property values of existing and new development along the corridor.
  

• The combination of the Brooklyn Queens Connector, the Citywide Ferry System, CitiBike, traditional subway and local buses, will create a rich 21st century multimodal transportation system that enables these neighborhoods to continue to grow and thrive in a sustainable manner.

• The de Blasio administration will begin engaging communities along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront this year to develop a conceptual framework and expects to break ground on the project in 2019-2020.

City transit-watchers have already found some reasons to be skeptical of the BQX.

Ben Fried at Streetsblog NYC thinks the streetcar is more of ”an expensive way to connect waterfront neighborhoods and destinations to each other” than a real solution for Brooklyn’s average commuter. And while Benjamin Kabak at 2nd Ave. Sagas doesn’t hate the plan intrinsically, he argues that “we need to see a rigorous defense that justifies $2.4 billion in light of competing needs.”

What do you think? Worth the cash, civic energy and years of construction hell?