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 multibillion
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 city-run 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
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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 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
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