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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, JUNE 9, 2019
Menchaca scorns BQX project
Sunset Park councilman pushes for new, cheaper express bus service
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
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
fi rst 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 fl ashy, but far
cheaper Select Bus Service,
which makes express stops
and includes other features
designed to decrease travel
times, according to the executive
vice president of the cityrun
corp.
“We found with an applesto
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 fi ve-member BQX
task force providing Council
oversight of de Blasio’s rail
scheme — says he wants in,
and is calling on offi cials 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
Nautical Purgatory, led offi -
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A short drive thru the Battery Tunnel from Manhattan
cials 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 offi cials set a start date
for construction at 2024 with
the hope to get the service up
and running by 2029, according
to a spokeswoman.
TROLLY DODGER: Carlos Menchaca is leveraging a public review
of a proposed trolly system to bring express bus service to Sunset
Park. Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector