RWD_p006

RT07212016

6 times • JULY 21, 2016 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com MTA cites mammoth workload for the 2019 L train shutdown City Council budget to improve local schools, parks and more BY ANTHONY GIUDICE agiudice@ridgewoodtimes.com @A_GiudiceReport Schools, parks and libraries across Ridgewood, Maspeth, Glendale and Middle Village will be getting some big bucks in the city’s new budget. Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley touted some of the budget’s highlights during her visit to the Community Board 5 meeting on Wednesday night at Christ the King Regional High School in Middle Village. Money in this year’s budget has been allocated for public park and library renovations, funding for a study on the Long Island Rail Road’s (LIRR) Lower Montauk line for the possibility of light rail, and more emergency services and police officers. Over $6.5 million in capital funds have been set aside to enrich the parks, schools and libraries of the areas. Half a million dollars will go into the feasibility study to bring a light rail commuter system to the Lower Montauk line, which runs from Jamaica to Long Island City. “In the New York City’s Council’s new budget, a significant amount of money has gone towards public safety,” Crowley said. “Unfortunately our response times for ambulances and EMS has been going up steadily each year, partly because we have more and more New Yorkers needing emergency services. But what we were able to do in this budget was allocate enough funding for 50 new tours, and a majority of those tours would be in Queens and the Bronx, which is good. So that should reduce our response times significantly.” Crowley announced that $12 million in funding has gone to the District Attorney’s office to help with the adjudication process and to combat the growing heroine and opioid epidemic facing the city. “In this budget we continued the commitment to expand our NYPD,” Crowley said. “Last year we had funding for 1,300 new police officers and we’re still committing that funding in this budget as well, as we reach that goal.” Crowley touted the success of her district’s participatory budgeting process from last year, which saw more than 2,500 community members vote on how to spend $1 million in funding. “That was a successful round of participatory budgeting, we had over 2,500 people come out to vote,” Crowley said. “We’re gearing up for our process next year, too. So please look out for that.” BY ANTHONY GIUDICE agiudice@ridgewoodtimes.com @A_GiudiceReport It’s going to be one “L” of a repair job. Representatives from the MTA presented a rundown of the extensive damage done to the nearly 100-year-old Canarsie Tunnel caused by Superstorm Sandy back in 2012, the work that needs to be done to repair it, and the viable options on how to get it done. It is well known that Superstorm Sandy dumped 7 million gallons of saltwater into the L train‘s Canarsie tube, damaging the 7,110-foot tunnel lining and its vital infrastructure and systems, such as the track and electrical equipment. Although the tunnel is currently safe to use, full repairs need to be made before it deteriorates further and becomes dangerous. “We’ve gone in and made some repairs, but we cannot continue to just put Band-Aids on this,” Judy McClain, senior director of Rail Service Planning with the MTA, told the members of Community Board 5’s (CB 5) Transportation and Public Transit committees during their joint meeting on July 19. “We need to ensure the safety of this tunnel — right now we believe it’s safe based on the extensive repairs that we’ve made — but we want to continue to have it safe. The only thing worse than doing what we’re going to plan to do, is to have it happen in an unplanned fashion. So we really need to move on this.” The MTA needs to install 14,400 feet of new tracks and 15,800 feet of the third rail, reconstruct 30,126 feet of the concrete duct bank — which houses and protects communication, power and signal cables — repair the pump rooms and two circuit breaker houses, replace communication, power and signal cables, install a new tunnel lighting system,and repair the concrete lining of the tunnel and the fire protection system. In order to get this work done, the MTA has presented two options: a full closure of the tunnel for a year and a half, which will last from January 2019 to July 2020, or to close the tunnel one track at a time for a three-year period from January 2019 to December 2022. “In addition to the repairs, just to make the tunnels sound and safe, we are actually going to be adding new capacity through the line by adding new substations,” McClain said. “We are going to be building three new substations that will enable us to run more trains and improve service.” Along with more trains, the MTA will also be making station improvements including accessibility and capacity upgrades. Bedford Avenue will be getting two new street-level stairways, platform stair capacity upgrades, an expanded mezzanine, new elevators and turnstiles, all at the Bedford Avenue entrance. At the Driggs Avenue entrance there will be two new street stairways, a redesigned mezzanine area, new platform stairway and turnstiles. The members of the Transportation and Public Transit committees all agreed that the best option would be to shut the line down for a year and a half, get the work done, and get service running again as quick as possible. “It’s a Band-Aid, you’ve got to just rip it off, get it over with and get it done,” said Richie Huber of CB 5. The MTA has been invited by the local elected officials to hold a public meeting in Queens, and are looking to do that in September. Photo courtesy of Metropolitan Transportation Authority Flickr/Patrick Cashin The MTA laid out the workload for the upcoming L train shutdown. RIDGEWOOD TIMES/Photo by Anthony Giudice Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley visited Community Board 5 to give an update on this year’s City Council budget.


RT07212016
To see the actual publication please follow the link above