Shulman: Queens New Century Fueled By Past

Queens Borough President ClaireShulman delivered the first State of the Borough report of the new millenniumwith a long list of completed accomplishments, and an even longer roster ofmulti-million dollar projects that were ready to begin including a call for 23new schools.
"We begin the new year, and newcentury, encouraged by the success of the past," said the boroughpresident." She called queens "an economic engine which helps powerthe greatest city in the world."
She told an audience Monday thatQueens was on a firm economic foundation, with a variety of major ongoingprograms: building of the boroughs first new hospital in 40 years, scheduledconstruction of 23 new schools, a billion dollars for infrastructureimprovements, and expanding investments in the private sector.
The borough president told 500elected officials and community and civic leaders at the Queens Theater in thePark that continuing low unemployment rates and thriving local commercialcenters during the past four years have helped to keep the borough a magnet forretail and commercial development
Major accomplishments cited byShulman included:
EDUCATION
Shulman said that 23 new schools,providing an additional 35,000 seats for borough youngsters, will be builtduring the next five years.
This means that space-starved Queensstudents and teachers will be getting new educational facilities at anaccelerated annual pace: an average 4 1/2 new schools to be built, providing7,000 additional seats, each year.
In addition, she reported that theSchool Construction Authority is supervising classroom additions to existingschools that will provide more than 6,200 seats.
Shulman said she has established a"War Room" in her office to maintain an oversight monitoring of everynew school, addition, or renovation.
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
The Transit Authoritysconstruction of the Queens Boulevard/63rd Street Connection is on schedule. Theproject will provide relief for 200,000 daily Queens riders who use the E and Flines, by running 15 additional trains per rush hour between Queens andManhattan.
Work is scheduled to begin on theentire block of the massive 74th Street/Broadway and Jackson Heights/RooseveltAvenue station complex. The $125 million project is designed to accommodatepassengers at one of the Transit Authoritys busiest centers, which links theIRT Flushing No. 7 line with the IND E, F, R, and G lines, as well as with localbus lines.
Work is scheduled to be completed onthe Queensborough Plazas 7 and N lines. The $11 million project will includelighting and electrical upgrades, as well as station, canopy, and staircaseimprovements.
Since ridership on the boroughsfour privately-owned bus lines increased by 10 percent to 70 million passengersduring the first nine months, the city Department of Transportation is providingthem with 154 clean fuel natural gas buses.
BOROUGH ECONOMY
Queens is no longer just a bedroomcommunity to Manhattan: More than 1,900 borough factories today produce goodsworth almost $6 billion annually. A four-year study showed that its rapidlyexpanding economy is providing local breadwinners with a nearly 17 percent lowerunemployment rate than the rest of New York City (5.6 percent vs. 6.5 percent).
Shulman cited her EconomicDevelopment Networking Council, which assisted more than 125 companies and 4,000individuals to investigate business opportunities in Long Island City, Flushing,College Point, Elmhurst, and Jamaica.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Upgrading Queens infrastructureinvolved repairs along its 2,443 miles of city streets, most parkways andexpressways, local sewer and water supply systems, and bridges. Costing morethan $1 billion in city, state and federal funds, the projects ranged fromfilling 19,992 potholes to re-designing the complex, multi-laned, Long IslandExpressway/Cross Island Parkway interchange.
Some of the high profile projectswere:
Completion of the key phases of the$100 million Carson Street storm sewer project, which funnels water fromchronically-flooded southeastern Queens into Thurston Basin, near KennedyAirport. Only lateral storm sewers remain to be installed to speed the drainingprocess. This project is ending a nearly 40-year saga of flooded basements andcancelled home insurance policies.
Scheduled to begin shortly, the $72million reconstruction of the adjacent Queens Boulevard and Honeywell Avenuebridges over the Sunnyside railroad yards, in Long Island City, promises tocreate major rush hour tieups.
Construction of the citys thirdwater tunnel through Woodside, Maspeth and Sunnyside. Costing $371 million, the60-mile tunnel will link upstate reservoirs with water taps in the Bronx,Queens, and Brooklyn in 2020.
Currently city crews are working on21 ongoing street and sewer projects, and another 56 projects are eitherscheduled to start, or are in design.
HEALTH AND HOSPITALS
Construction of the giantstate-of-the-art Queens Hospital Center, in southeast Queens, is proceeding onschedule. It is boroughs first new hospital in 40 years. Powered by supportfrom Mayor Giuliani, the health facility is scheduled to be completed in thespring of 2001.
In addition to providing qualityhealth care, the medical center will feature three centers, aimed at providingcare for womens health, cancer and diabetes.
Shulman also listed the expansion ofsix additional medical projects in Queens: a new dialysis center in Long IslandJewish Medical Center; expansion of North Shore University Hospital of ForesetHills medical-surgical departments; the pediatric emergency department ofJamaica Hospital will quintuple in size; the Catholic Medical Centers St.Johns Hospital has created a new Geriatric Evaluation and Management Program;the New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens broke ground for a new $72million pediatrics, maternity, and emergency facility; Peninsula Hospitallaunched a new obstetrical program.
OTHER REPORT HIGHLIGHTS
More than 17.5 million books andother materials were circulated annually by the Queens Borough Public Library,for an average of 45,479 items per day, counting Sundays and legal holidays.
Incidences of crime were reducedby 8.6 percent (from 50,433 to 46,120).
More than 1,900 Queens factoriestoday produce goods worth almost $6 billion.
 A total of 675 T.A. andprivately-owned buses carried 70 million Queens passengers during the first ninemonths of 1999.
The number of fire-relateddeaths in Queens dropped 11 percent (from 35 to 31), even though the number offires increased 7.5 percent (from 614 to 664).
 The 84-acre Meadow Lake inFlushing Meadows-Corona Park is New York Citys largest lake.
There are more than 300,000street trees in Queens.