6 AWP Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 June 7–13, 2019
Sunset Park pol scorns trolley, leverages it for new bus
copyright_William Alatriste
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ROBIN...
Of course, the Robin’s most
distinctive flaw — its single
front tire — gave the vehicle
a reputation as a rolling death
trap, and, while the gas-powered
trike would eventually
prove an evolutionary dead
end in terms of automotive
mechanics, it would earn an
enduring legacy as a staple
of English comedy.
The legendary British
jester Rowan Atkinson featured
a close relative of the
Robin, the three-wheeled Reliant
Regal Supervan III, as a
recurring character on his 90s
sitcom, “Mr Bean,” in which
the show’s namesake protagonist
routinely feuded with the
light-blue trike, usually rolling
the car before the end of
an episode.
And British car shows Top
Gear and Fifth Gear both produced
episodes featuring the
Robin — the car was rolled
in both shows.
But not long after the Robin’s
Top Gear appearance in
2010, Sell produced a parody
of the BBC car show in which
he drove a circuitous 50-mile
route from Queens to Manhattan,
into Brooklyn Heights
and then across the borough
to Floyd Bennett Field, before
heading back to Queens —
without rolling the car.
And throughout, New York
car lovers couldn’t get enough
of the strange British coop,
with locals stopping to take
pictures with their kids, as Sell
quipped about the Robin’s inexplicable
attraction.
“It’s kind of like your old
uncle that gets drunk every
Christmas, and p****** himself
on the couch,” Sell said.
“You’re not sure why you
like him, but you like him
anyway.”
And — don’t tell him we
told you — but the $5,000
Sell is asking for his Reliant
Robin may come as a steal,
according to a local car aficionado,
who said that collectors
have developed an appetite
for minis like the Robin,
which can sell for ten times
their listing price.
“Its a weird thing, the
collectors love micros and
minis,” said Lenny Shiller,
president of the Antique Automobile
Association of Brooklyn,
and owner of 65 classic
cars. “They’ve sold for as high
as $50,000!”
Continued from page 1
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
He’s not playing fare!
A Sunset Park councilman
with a long history of
trashing Mayor Bill de Blasio’s
multi-billion-dollar pet
trolley project — the Brooklyn
Queens Connector — is
now vying to leverage a public
review of the controversial
transit scheme to bring
express bus service to his
constituents.
“I think that it is a mistake
that Sunset Park isn’t part of
this conversation,” said Carlos
Menchaca at the first city
Council hearing to discuss
the trolley project at City Hall
on May 30.
As part of a public review
of hizzoner’s $2.73 billion
trolley proposal, the city’s
Economic Development Corporation
has commissioned
a study kicking off this fall,
called an Environmental Impact
Statement, that will include
an analysis comparing
hizzoner’s hugely expensive
trolley scheme versus
the city’s less flashy, but far
cheaper Select Bus Service,
which makes express stops
Nautical Purgatory, led officials
to shorten the route by
three miles, ending it in Red
Hook, Myers explained.
“It required the crossing of
the Gowanus and a bridge of
several hundred million dollars
to get the train there and
then it was a several mile run
that really didn’t attract the
level of ridership that seemed
to justify that cost and that
potential disruption of local
businesses,” said Myers at
the hearing.
But even before the trolley’s
Sunset Park stops got
the ax, Menchaca came out
strong against the mayor’s
streetcar scheme, saying rents
would skyrocket and locals
would be displaced along its
trajectory.
Indeed, the EDC’s early
projections forecast that increased
tax revenue generated
by higher property values
along the line could fully
fund the proposed tram, although
the city now admits
that increased property
taxes will only cover half
the costs.
Their new plan is to lean on
Uncle Sam for the remaining
funds, although some members
of the trolley task force
took the city’s claim that the
Trump administration would
be willing to shell out some
$1.3 billion for a city transit
project with a grain of salt.
The agency aims to start
the city’s Uniform Land Use
Review Procedure next year,
and officials set a start date
for construction at 2024 with
the hope to get the service up
and running by 2029, according
to a spokeswoman.
and includes other features
designed to decrease travel
times, according to the executive
vice president of the
city-run corp.
“We found with an apples
to-apples comparison
that you only see a capital
costs saving of 30 percent
by doing bus rapid transit
versus light rail or streetcar,”
said Seth Myers, casually
down playing an estimated
$800 million in taxpayer savings
at Thursday’s Council
hearing.
And Menchaca — who
chairs a five-member BQX
task force providing Council
oversight of de Blasio’s
rail scheme — says he wants
in, and is calling on officials
to use the trolley study as an
opportunity to bring Select
Bus Service to his scorned
constituents.
Myers, however, was reluctant
to oblige the Sunset
Park lawmaker, and said the
neighborhood should explore
more orthodox solutions for
enhancing local transit, directing
the councilman to
petition the Department of
Transportation.
“Using an EIS process for
the BQX may not be right forum
to have that conversation,”
the honcho said.
The mayor’s trolley scheme
originally snaked through
transit-starved coastal neighborhoods
along a 14-mile
route between Queens and
Sunset Park, but the high
cost of spanning the Gowanus
Canal, coupled with
low-ridership projections on
the other side of Brooklyn’s
Carlos Menchaca is leveraging
a public review of
a proposed trolly system
to add an express bus.
HELLO, TROLLEY!
THE STREETCAR PLAN
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