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Though McSorley said she is grateful to
the MTA for visiting Astoria and listening
to business owners, she said the agency
offered no solutions.
Businesses have asked the MTA to
increase the construction staff to finish
the work sooner.
They also requested a shuttle bus to
try to recreate some of the foot traffic.
The MTA pointed out that the Q102 bus
stops along 30th Avenue, but shop own-ers
argue that a dedicated shuttle would
create more foot traffic.
“NYCT directly addressed this concern
by adding service to the already existing
Q102 bus, which runs exactly along the
train line,” said MTA spokesperson Shams
Tarek. “We are continuing to monitor the
service needs and will adjust appropri-ately.”
Shahraj Khan, who runs Astoria Wire-less
at 28-60 31st St., said business has
decreased by about 50 percent since
the station shut down. The construction
equipment and MTA cars also take up
curbside parking, making it even more
difficult for potential customers to visit
his business. He heard about the project
15 days before it began.
“People get longer notices when they
get fired,” Khan said. “A project, something
this big, should have had at least a three-
to six-month notice.”
He called the Feb. 1 meeting “sad.”
“It was sad because they pretty much
just brought us all together to tell us
how they’re going to screw our busi-nesses,”
he said. “They had no solution.
They weren’t even willing to negotiate.
Without saying it directly they just said,
‘Get over it.’”
Frank Arabascio, who runs Redken
Salon at 36-17 30th Ave., said that de-pending
on the week, business is down
20 to 25 percent even though his hair
salon is about seven blocks away from
where the construction is taking place.
“The shuttle bus is a solution,” he said.
“Not the best, but it’s a solution. It’s being
ignored. Businesses are still going to have
that walking traffic that they depend on
with the shuttle bus. Whichever way you
walk is where you’re going to get your
coffee, your newspaper.”
Arabascio said he is glad the MTA held
a meeting because it has started a chain
reaction of businesses speaking to each
other, to elected officials and to the press.
Since the MTA is planning to conduct
similar repairs to the Broadway and 39th
Avenue stations later this year, Arabascio
said he wants to inform businesses in
that area so that they can better prepare.
“We have six months to warn them
and possibly do something about it,” he
said. “If we can tell them in advance the
pressure on the MTA, win or lose, has
got to be coming beforehand.”
Elected officials in Astoria recently
slammed the MTA when they announced
26 MARCH 2018 I LIC COURIER I www.qns.com
last week that the Ditmars Boulevard sta-tion
would also be repaired. Though the
station will not shut down while upgrades
are being made to the infrastructure,
officials said they are worried that busi-nesses
will suffer and that the repairs are
mostly “cosmetic.” They also argue that
the MTA should make elevators a priority
during these shutdowns.
MTA officials said the work is not mere-ly
cosmetic and that the stations need
critical infrastructure upgrades since they
are 100 years old. Work includes repairing
and replacing structural columns, beams
and girders, repairing the underside of the
mezzanine and more.
“Ditmars Boulevard and the other
nearby stations on the N/W line are more
than 100 years old and have not received
comprehensive overhauls until now,” the
MTA said in a statement. “The longer
much-needed repairs are delayed, the
longer the repairs will take and the more
urgent they will become. The extensive
repairs these stations are receiving are
essential for public safety – to characterize
them as merely cosmetic and unnecessary
is absolutely incorrect, and irresponsible.”
Konstantinos Platis at his diner, Tastee Corner.
