One group desires a streetcar on the waterfront of Brooklyn and Queens.
According to the Daily News, Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector, an organization whose members include transit experts and community and business leaders, recently commissioned a study to illustrate the viability of a fleet of streetcars to link 10 neighborhoods, starting at Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and ending in Astoria, along a 17-mile route.
With many new residential and commercial towers dotting the waterfront, the group aims to make travel easier for those who work in the outer boroughs. The study estimates that 15.8 million passengers would ride the streetcar by 2035.
Beginning at 59th Street in Sunset Park, the streetcar would snake through several Brooklyn neighborhoods before hitting Long Island City via the Pulaski Bridge and stopping at 27th Street in Astoria. It would make a total of 7 stops in the two waterfront neighborhoods.
The study shows that the project would cost $1.7 billion to construct and then another $26 million a year to keep it running. But it would also bring $3.7 billion of new tax revenue.
“We’re always open to new ideas that can help build the 21st-century transportation system New Yorkers deserve,” a spokesperson for Mayor Bill de Blasio told the Daily News.
