By Bill Parry
The advocates behind the Brooklyn Queens Connector project, a 14-mile streetcar line along the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront, unveiled a sleek prototype for the project Monday and urged Mayor Bill de Blasio to move forward with plans for the $2.5 billion project and make it a top second-term priority.
The 46-foot-long Citadis 405, constructed in and shipped from Nice, France, made its debut at the Brooklyn Navy Yards in front of a crowd of supporters that included Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, NYCHA leaders and representatives of the waterfront business community.
“We wanted to crystalize for New Yorkers what this type of mode could look like and feel like on our city’s streets,” Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector Executive Director Ya-Ting Liu said. “It’s very hard to see what it’s like from an artist rendering unless you’ve recently been to a European city to have an understanding of what a modern streetcar or light rail looks like.”
The prototype is an open gangway design with 23 seats and space for more than 100 passengers. The line would stretch from Astoria to Sunset Park in Brooklyn.
“Today we can start to imagine what’s possible, and now is the time for the city to make this a reality,” Liu said.
The city is engaged.
“We are in the midst of a brass-tacks, block-by-block assessment of engineering costs and revenue projections for the innovative new streetcar,” City Hall spokeswoman Melissa Grace said. “We look forward to engaging with New Yorkers as the project unfolds, and we work through the details and pursue a competitive bidding process for all elements of the project.”
Construction could begin in 2019 with service scheduled to begin in 2024, but first the project must go through a prolonged public approval process beginning with multiple community boards along the corridor.
“I think there are a lot of questions still moving forward on the routes and where they would be located and its effects on parking spots,” Katz said. “While Queens is expanding and building so much and folks are coming from all over the world to settle down in the borough, it’s good that we’re having a further discussion on how we are going to transport people from one area to the next.”
Katz said the public approval process had an unofficial start at the unveiling with many community leaders and tenants associations from western Queens in attendance.
“The Astoria Houses have long been forgotten by the city when it comes to transportation and only recently, thanks to new ferry service, is this beginning to change,” Astoria Houses Tenants Association President Claudia Coger said. “But our residents need more reliable options. This is an issue of economic justice and it is why we have been so adamant about the need for the BQX. Mayor de Blasio should move this project forward now to provide relief to the thousands of working families in the Astoria Houses, and the many more along this increasingly important corridor.”
The event was held at the Brooklyn Navy Yards, which would be one of 30 stops along the route, and which is set to add 10,000 jobs over the next three years, but is hard to reach by subway, especially from Astoria.
“The growth of our emerging job hubs is stifled by the severe lack of transit connecting them with our workforce,” Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said. “To be sure, there are key details that need resolution before this project can advance. I am confident that the city can work productively in a community-led process on issues such as route design, financing structure and MTA fare integration. The BQX is a bold idea, and New York City lives and breathes on bold ideas.”
The project has been targeted by the anti-gentrification movement as a boondoggle for real estate developers, and many small business owners along the corridor are concerned with the potential loss of parking space on the corridor. Coffeed owner Frank “Turtle” Raffaelle was excited about the project after seeing the prototype, and thinks it could be a game changer for the Long Island City waterfront.
“It’s incredible. It’s amazing and I think the Queens community is incredibly supportive of this,but the devil is in the detail, especially the funding,” Raffaelle said. “I think the community will come out and support this because it will produce tourism for the outer boroughs like never before in the past.”
Long after the event was over, the 81-year-old Coger was still looking at the streetcar prototype, smiling broadly, thinking how it would connect residents of the Astoria Houses, which sits isolated on a “derelict” peninsula jutting out over Hallets Cove.
“It’s awesome and it’s beyond my most vivid imagination,” she said. “Really, I’m glad I can actually stand here and actually see it because I know it would make such a difference in Astoria, especially on the peninsula.”
Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparr
