8 TIMES • AUGUST 25, 2016 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com Is MTA ‘punishing’ Woodhaven over bus plan? BY DOMENICK RAFTER [email protected] @RidgewoodTimes Select Bus Service still tops the list of concerns for Woodhaven residents, and one elected offi cial thinks the neighborhood’s opposition is leading City Hall to “discriminate” against the community. Though the Woodhaven Residents’ Block Association (WRBA) meeting last Saturday at the Emanuel Church of Christ was more lightly attended than most of the group’s other meetings, the residents who were present did not hold back their vocal opposition to the proposal. Assemblymen Mike Miller, who is opposed to the plan, expressed frustration toward Mayor Bill de Blasio, whom he suggested was not open to hearing Woodhaven’s opposition to the SBS proposal, which would redesign Woodhaven Boulevard to include dedicate bus lanes and reduce the number of traffi c lanes to three in each direction. “I can get a better response from this table than the mayor,” Miller said, knocking on the wooden folding table where WRBA’s executive committee sat. He suggested than the de Blasio administration was targeting Woodhaven residents purposely due to their opposition. “They made changes to the SBS plan,” Miller explained. “But they changed the whole plan except for Woodhaven. I felt they discriminated against us because we fought it so hard.” Some of the main sticking points that the WRBA had against the plan were the elimination of left turns at Jamaica Avenue — which the city Department of Transportation removed from the plan — bus stops on the medians between the main road and the service roads and the reduction of the number of traffi c lanes to three in each direction. Vance Barbour, a member of the WRBA board of directors, said he was most concerned about the median bus stops. “The bus went right up onto the curb, crushing the barriers we’re told would protect people waiting for the bus here,” he said. “If that happened here, there would be a lot of victims.” Alexander Blenkinsopp, WRBA’s communications director, noted that Community Board 9 would “likely” have a presentation on the project at its Sept. 13 meeting. He added that, according to several reports he’s heard, the off-board fare collection system, where riders get a ticket before getting on the bus to speed up boarding, has been malfunctioning on other SBS lines. “And this is one of the more lessobjectionable parts of the plan,” he noted. RIDGEWOOD TIMES/Photo by Domenick Rafter Assemblyman Mike Miller (left) says the MTA is punishing Woodhaven residents for their opposition to the Select Bus Service plan for Woodhaven and Cross Bay boulevards. Nonpro t wants to turn former Ozone Park coffee factory into a homeless shelter BY DOMENICK RAFTER [email protected] @RidgewoodTimes A transitional facility has been proposed for a former coffee factory in Ozone Park, according to a letter given to Community Board 9. The facility is being planned by a nonprofi t group called Breaking Ground, which seeks to help homeless people with immediate needs, such as food, bathing and short-term shelter. Still early in its planning stages, is center is slated for the former site of Dallis Brothers Coffee at 100-32 Atlantic Ave., which technically is in Ozone Park but just steps from the neighborhoods of Richmond Hill I don’t think having facilities like that is a bad thing, but we have to make sure we get all the information we need and follow up.” --WRBA President Martin Colberg and Woodhaven. The coffee manufacturer moved to Long Island City several years ago. At the Aug. 20 Woodhaven Residents’ Block Association (WRBA) meeting at Emanuel Church of Christ — four blocks from the proposed site — Assemblyman Mike Miller said the facility is “not the type of homeless shelter you’re used to hearing about,” but rather aimed at helping homeless and needy people “grab a shower, some food and get back on their feet.” The concerns about the facility come as the city seeks to open a homeless shelter at a Maspeth hotel, and plans are still alive — as they have been for several years — for another facility to house homeless people in Glendale. The plan at the Ozone Park site aims to “enhance our services for the street homeless in Queens, which will benefi t that group as well as the borough as a whole,” Breaking Ground’s Assistant Vice President for Quality Assurance John Lee wrote in the letter to CB 9, which the WRBA’s communication director, Alexander Blenkinsopp, read at Saturday’s meeting. WRBA President Martin Colberg stressed patience, saying that there needed to be more information about the facility before any possible organized opposition. “I don’t think having facilities like that is a bad thing,” Colberg stressed. “But we have to make sure we get all the information we need and follow up.” Breaking Ground is scheduled to present their proposed to CB 9’s Health Committee Tuesday night. The nonprofi t has sites in Brooklyn, Bronx and Manhattan and several outside the city including one in Rochester, one in the Hudson Valley and two in Connecticut. Lighthouse ORTHODONTICS Assembly of God WWW.GLENRIDGEORTHODONTIST.COM 71-29 68th Place (bet. Myrtle Ave. & Central Ave.) Glendale, N.Y. 11385 1-718-456-1203 Rev. 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