Queens desperately needs a new mass transit line. If you don’t believe us, drive-or take a bus-down Woodhaven and Cross Bay boulevards at just about any time of day.
Outside of the Van Wyck Expressway, Woodhaven and Cross Bay boulevards are together the major north-to-south artery serving Queens. It is the only artery connected to the Rockaway Peninsula and Broad Channel.
Most of all, it is full of traffic-on weekdays and weekends, in the morning and afternoon, in midday and evening. The only thing more crowded than the roadway are the four bus lines that serve it-the Q11 and Q21 locals and the Q52 and Q53 limiteds, the latter pair, of which, serving the Rockaways.
This is a situation that cries out for something more than expanded bus service or even the Select Bus Service which the city Department of Transportation proposed for Woodhaven and Cross Bay boulevards. Southern Queens desperately needs some kind of rail service-and fortunately, there’s room for it in the long-defunct Long Island Rail Road’s Rockaway Beach branch.
But a group of park advocates known as the Friends of the QueensWay want to turn the long-abandoned and now overgrown rail line into a bike path and nature trail. They envision it as an outer borough High Line Park, a wonder of nature and engineering that will attract tens of thousands of visitors every year.
As beautiful as the idea seems, the QueensWay vision is tone deaf to the urgent and pressing transportation needs of Queens residents. They need a faster way to get around-especially a faster way to get to Manhattan. This rail line-within walking distance of Woodhaven and Cross Bay boulevards-is the perfect opportunity to address that need, get some cars off the main drag and reduce overcrowding on buses.
Ideally, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority would resurrect the Rockaway Beach line as part of the subway system, possibly extending it below Rego Park to the subway lines running beneath Queens Boulevard. That idea, however, would cost billions and incur the wrath of Woodhaven, Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, Forest Hills and Rego Park property owners who live near the line. It won’t be an easy build; it won’t be a popular build.
The Rockaway Beach branch, however, intersects with several other rail lines and leaves plenty of options to connect Queens residents to Manhattan without causing major inconvenience.
There may be opportunity to link a subway spur on the Rockaway Beach branch with the J/Z line above Jamaica Avenue, enabling a one-seat ride to Lower Manhattan. The MTA could rebuild Rego Park’s Whitepot Junction and reconnect the Rockaway Beach branch to Manhattan via the Main Line.
The defunct branch also provides the chance for the city to build its first light rail line, which could switch over to Woodhaven Boulevard in Glendale and run along Queens Boulevard over the Queensboro Bridge to midtown Manhattan.
Queens residents need a modern, 21st century transportation system more than a nature trail where trains once ran. The opportunity is before us, and it’s time to seize it while we still can.
