A street car named expired!
De Blasio says his time’s run out on pricey BQX
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
The fate of the controversial
Brooklyn-Queens Connector
light rail will be determined
under the next mayoral
administration, according to
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who cited
coronavirus-related delays
for the decision to punt on the
project.
“Obviously we’re going to
continue to do the work to prepare,
but the decisions will
have to be made by and large in
the next administration, given
the time that’s been lost here,”
de Blasio said at his Sept. 3
press briefi ng. “Everything’s
been slowed down by the reality
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of the coronavirus.”
De Blasio’s $2.73 billion pet
Thursday, September 17, 6pm
project to build a streetcar service
along an 11-mile corridor
through mostly wealthy waterfront
neighborhoods between
Red Hook and Queens was
scheduled to start public hearings
in May, with a draft environmental
impact statement
due for 2021, but COVID-19 disrupted
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that timeline.
Hizzoner did not have an
updated schedule for the pricey
transit scheme, but he urged
his yet-to-be-determined successor
to implement the proposal,
saying it would provide
another alternative mode of
transportation to car travel —
and would complement other
initiatives like busways, ferries,
and bike-share programs.
“I think light rail is part
of this equation, it has been
all over the country, very successfully,”
Hizzoner said. “So,
again, a lot of the decisions will
have to be deferred to the future,
ONE NIGHT ONLY
but the more we can build
out mass transit in this city the
better off we’re going to be.”
Yet, even as de Blasio hopes
to keep the project alive beyond
his term’s January 2022 expiration
date, some transit advocates
speculate that his deferral
will likely spell doom from
the streetcar’s future — as a
new administration will take
offi ce during a massive budget
PRESENTS
shortfall, and will be wary
of pushing the embattled plan
through a public review.
“It probably means that it’s
not going to happen, because
it’s really only been kept alive
by the mayor’s insistence of advancing
what was his project
that only a few developers were
pushing,” said Transportation
Alternatives deputy director
Marco Conner DiAquoi.
Opponents of the idea have
argued that the city should
put its limited resources into
other, less expensive ideas, like
more bus lanes — such as some
form of Bus Rapid Transit,
which would cost $800 million
less than the BQX for the same
route, according to the city’s
own estimate.
Backers of the proposed
tram — which includes business
and real estate bigwigs,
but also tenant leaders of several
public housing projects
along the route — have countered
those arguments, saying
the greater upfront cost
of the BQX would provide an
economic return through
higher property prices and
more tax revenues along the
tramline.
“The project is estimated to
create $30 billion in economic
value over the coming decades,
which is over 10 times its capital
cost,” reads the pro-BQX
Rain Date: Thursday, 9/24
website, Friends of the Brooklyn
Queens Connector.
A rendering of the BQX on Berry Street in Williamsburg. NYC EDC
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