12 JUNE 22, 2017 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
EDITORIAL
No more excuses — fi x this mess!
If you’re one of the thousands of
THE HOT TOPIC
STORY:
Mets draft Bayside High School
baseball star who’s also the son of an
Amazin’ legend
SUMMARY:
Daniel Alfonzo, a Bayside high
school student and son of former
Met Edgardo “Fonzie” Alfonzo, has
been draft ed by the New York Mets.
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66,279 people (as of 6/19/17)
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SNAPS
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(subject: Queens Snaps).
Queens residents who rely on public
transit to get around every day,
your commute is about to become truly
soul-crushing.
Summer began on June 21, but in a
couple of weeks, we will experience
what’s being called the “summer of
hell.” That term refers to the impending
Penn Station trackwork that will
reduce Long Island Rail Road service
systemwide. The Port Washington
branch alone, the sole rail link between
Manhattan and northeast Queens, will
lose at least four trains a day.
However, the summer of hell isn’t
just limited to the Long Island Rail
Road. In July, the M train between
Middle Village and Bushwick,
Brooklyn, will be closed for two
straight months — that’s right, two
months — as the MTA embarks on a
major bridge reconstruction project
in Middle Village. When M line
service is restored in September, it
will operate as a mere shuttle train
between Metropolitan Avenue and
Myrtle-Wyckoff Avenues. The rest
of the line in Bushwick will be closed
another 10 months to rebuild a track
viaduct.
Then there’s the N train in Astoria and
Long Island City, which will be closed for
many weekends in August for — you
guessed it — track improvements. Local
businesses are scrambling to find ways to
make up for the expected loss of visitors
from across the other side of the East River.
More New Yorkers than ever rely
upon it to get around, but the system
itself is being held together by outdated
infrastructure and obsolete
technology.
Year aft er year of the MTA, the city
and state kicking the infrastructure
improvement can down the road is
fi nally catching up to the system. It’s
breaking down before our very eyes,
and it’s hazardous to our socioeconomic
health.
The city, state and the MTA need to
declare an emergency and immediately
begin raising capital toward fi xing
our train and bus lines. One Queens
lawmaker, state Senator Michael
Gianaris, has proposed a temporary
tax increase on wealthy New Yorkers
toward infrastructure repairs. It’s a
good start, provided that the increase
is indeed temporary — and that the
money is used toward its intended
purpose.
Additional funds could potentially
come through a small, temporary
fee for ridesharing customers. Considering
the tremendous growth in
ridesharing in recent years, customers
ought to pay just a little more to ensure
we properly fix our public transit
system.
Our transit system is broken and in
need of a major overhaul. We’re out of
excuses; the bill has come due. Now
we have to fi nd a way to pay for it, lest
our economy and our city come to a
standstill.
