C RY D E R
P O I N T
NOVEMBER 8
Flushing LIRR stop becomes
brighter & more accessible
BY MARK HALLUM AND ROBERT POZARYCKI
EDITORIAL@QNS.COM
@QNS
With pomp and circumstance, elected officials
and Flushing community leaders celebrated
on Oct. 18 the completion of the new and
improved Flushing-Main Street station on the Long Island
Rail Road.
The lengthy overhaul included everything from new
LED lighting on the platforms and reconstructed staircases.
But the biggest aspect of the entire project is that
the station is finally in compliance with the Americans
with Disabilities Act (ADA), the federal law enacted 27
years ago.
The MTA accomplished that mission by building two
hydraulic elevators connecting riders from street level to
both the New York- and Port Washington-bound platforms.
Improvements to Flushing-Main Street were among
40 other LIRR stations receiving overhauls totaling $5.6
billion in state funds announced by Governor Andrew
Cuomo’s in August 2017.
Dee Barrett walks with a cane and has travailed the
stairs of the Flushing-Main Street station for years on
his bi-monthly trips between Queens and his home in
Pennsylvania. Even though it took the MTA decades to
make the station ADA compliant, Barrett does not hold
it against the the state agency.
“Unlike other places that don’t do anything, I’m still
pretty impressed with the MTA. They move how many
millions of people a day?” said Barrett, who also takes
New Jersey Transit to get to Flushing.
Former Borough President Claire Shulman said the
reinvigorated train station paired with the new housing
development nearly completed adjacent the tracks on the
south side will release the dependency of Queens residents
on cars.
“What it really does is it improves transportation, it increases
housing and it gets rid of the cars,” said Shulman,
who served as borough president from 1986 to 2002 and
now heads the Flushing Willets Point Corona Local Development
8 CRYDER POINT COURIER | NOVEMBER 2018 | WWW.QUEENSCOURIER.COM
Corporation.
One Flushing Housing has 231 affordable units and is
another upgrade for the neighborhood having previously
only been a parking lot when work began in 2016.
Another critical improvement the renovation brings is
easy access from westbound to eastbound tracks.
If a passenger needs to switch platforms, they no longer
have to go down to Main Street and around the corner
to 40th Road, or vice versa, to get to the opposite side.
A new ground-level passageway gives LIRR customers a
shortcut.
“It’s been here since 1854 and in 1913 the station was
elevated above street level, so it’s been part of this landscape
and this environment, a transportation outlet for
residents and businesses for more than 160 years,” LIRR
President Philip Eng said. “Out of our 124 stations across
Long Island Rail Road, Flushing-Main Street is one of our
50th busiest stations across the system.”
Eng added that about 2,200 straphangers pass through
the Flushing-Main Street station on an average day.
Photos by Mark Hallum and via Twitter/@MTA
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