Debate resonates in New York City's Queens borough over how to best use an abandoned 3-and-a-half-mile rail corridor. Parkland advocates envision an outer-borough version of Manhattan's heralded High Line, while transit boosters want to revive rail service abandoned 52 years ago.
Decisions over how to best use the corridor will affect future infrastructure needs and funding.
It runs north-south from plush Forest Hills — once the home of the U.S. Open tennis tournament and where some streets are private — to the gritty junkyards and self-storage lots of Ozone Park, where part of the subway A train route braches off to the Rockaway Peninsula.
Signs such as "CA$H 4 JUNK CARS" adorn railroad trestles along the route, which winds past Little League fields, schools and a factory-turned-apartment complex; adjoins massive Forest Park; and intermingles with major thoroughfares such as Woodhaven Boulevard and Metropolitan Avenue.
Park enthusiasts want to earmark 47 acres of city-owned land for what they call QueensWay, a green oasis loosely modeled on the heralded High Line through lower Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. According to Andy Stone, New York director for the Trust for Public Land, QueensWay
"You can't replicate the High Line. The High Line fits Manhattan nicely, but it doesn't in any way reflect what's directly below," Stone said. The trust is championing the project along with the civic group
"An important question is who are the stakeholders and how will we meet their needs?" said Stone. "What are the adjacent land uses? Broadly speaking, we're looking at a series of neighborhood parks."
Meanwhile, transit advocates, led by Queens state Assemblyman Phillip Goldfeder, say the borough needs north-south public conveyance. Subway and commuter rail lines now run through the borough east-west.
The defunct rail line, for which construction began as far back as 1877, used to branch off the main line of the Long Island Rail Road at Rego Park and head south through Ozone Park and across Jamaica Bay in the Rockaways. Maintenance became too expensive for LIRR after track fires on the trestles near Jamaica Bay in the 1940s and 1950s, and ridership dwindled. The city acquired the property in the mid-1950s and converted the southern portion into the subway system's A train Rockaway branch. Rail traffic for the rest of the corridor closed for good in 1962.
Debate over what to do with the corridor also reflects ongoing transitions in the area.
Proposals for Queens range from a soccer stadium at Aqueduct Race Track -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo's call for a convention center there gained no traction -- to a highly controversial proposed Astoria Cove development, which involves five mixed-use buildings on the Hallets Point peninsula and is before the City Council.
While differing on priorities, each side agrees that southern Queens needs both better parks and transit.
"I think the QueensWay's great for Queens -- the borough is hurting for open space -- but that doesn't in any way diminish the need for better transit," said Jonathan Bowles, executive director for Center for an Urban Future, a New York think tank.
Goldfeder, a Democrat and lifelong Queens resident, said the borough is begging for alternative transit.
"I understand the desire for the QueensWay. However, when you look at the greater good, there's no doubt it's got to be transportation," Goldfeder said beneath an Ozone Park rail trestle as his voice competed with the rumble and screech of an A train veering off to the Rockaways, where he grew up and lives.
Adding to the transit angst in Queens was the city's recent decision to discontinue its $5 million-per-year ferry service from the Rockaways to Manhattan. The ferry made its last run Oct. 31. The city began it after Hurricane Sandy knocked out A train service across Jamaica Bay two years ago, which has since been restored.
A study released Oct. 14 pegged the QueensWay cost at $120 million. The Governor's Regional Economic Development Council and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation funded the study.
QueensWay backers tout the economic benefits, pointing out estimates that the High Line has provided roughly $2.2 billion in new economic activity to Chelsea. They estimate 1 million visitors per year to the QueensWay. According to Stone, Trust for Public Land has raised $1.4 million in support of the QueensWay, including nearly $500,000 in state park funds and a recent $200,000 contribution from Tiffany & Co. foundation.
In addition, said Stone, cycling paths could qualify QueensWay for federal non-motorized transportation grant money.
City Hall support remains an open question. Mayor Bill de Blasio last month announced his own community parks initiative. Its first phase will target 35 community parks through a $130 million capital investment that promotes the full re-creation of the parks, $7.2 million in expense funding for fiscal 2015, and $36.3 million in capital funding from the Department of Environmental Protection for green infrastructure improvements at these sites.
De Blasio's office has been noncommittal about QueensWay. "We look forward to continuing conversations with stakeholders about the future of this asset," said his deputy press secretary, Wiley Norvell.
Queens borough President Melinda Katz, who lives in Forest Hills, is also hedging.
"The borough president is still studying the issue and has not yet taken a position on the proposed QueensWay project," said Katz's press officer, Michael Scholl.
QueensWay would become the latest in a trend of rail line conversion that includes a proposed Rail Park in Philadelphia and the 606 project in Chicago, named for the common first three digits of that city's area codes.
While High Line-type projects are in vogue, Stone said park advocates must strive to beat back any "fad" stereotypes.
"It's so challenging to raise public money that you really have to demonstrate a compelling reason," he said while driving along Yellowstone Boulevard near the corridor's northern stretch. "It has to add value. A lot of faddish ideas will fall by the wayside."
Supporters say the QueensWay plan includes six park zones within the corridor, reflecting diverse surrounding communities. At its northern tip, adjacent to the Forest Hills Little League field, a wide area could host woodland activities and children's play spaces. Another spot, adjacent to the Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School complex, could offer educational opportunities.
Jamaica Avenue offers connections to shopping and other street-level activities. An elevated viaduct in Ozone Park at the southern extremity lacks trees, but would offer multifunctional use.
While Queens is home to Forest Park and Flushing Meadows, a dearth of parkland exists in its south, Stone said. QueensWay, he said, could nicely integrate with smaller neighborhood parks.
Both Stone and Goldfeder tout their plans as helping get cars off the road.
While Queens Boulevard has long carried the "boulevard of death" moniker, Woodhaven Boulevard, which meanders north-south through much of the borough, is as dangerous, if not more so, for cyclists and pedestrians. The city's Department of Transportation and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority plan to add Select Bus Service, which includes dedicated bus lanes among other features.
Goldfeder's office is awaiting the findings of a lengthy feasibility study by Queens College about the best use for the corridor. The report is due by mid-November.
New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, a native of Long Island's Nassau, favors rail restoration.
"Restoring service on the Rockaway Beach branch would be a less costly way to speed commutes between South Queens and Manhattan, improve travel within the borough and promote economic growth," DiNapoli said in a late July
The Queens Public Transit Committee is calling for an immediate cost-benefit analysis, environmental impact statements and an engineering analysis for both LIRR and MTA subway options.
The LIRR option would resume operations between Pennsylvania Station and Aqueduct and potentially from Grand Central Terminal when the East Side Access megaproject opens around 2019. This option would require new stations at Rego Park and Aqueduct — the latter to allow transfers to the A train and to the Airtrain, if extended from Howard Beach.
Under the subway option, the Rockaway branch line would connect into the Queens Boulevard subway line east of 63rd Drive. The Rockaway Park shuttle, under this scenario, would then become a full-time subway route operating into midtown Manhattan.
Goldfeder is generating support through an online petition.
"Nobody has said we don't need transportation," he said. "When Gov. Cuomo recommended a convention center at Aqueduct, people got excited about a rail line. When it was off the table, it was on the back burner. Now that there's talk about a soccer stadium at Aqueduct, suddenly people are talking about it again.
"Whatever we build, we need accessible transit."
