FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 • THE COURIER SUN 21 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 • TIMES 13 oped oped FOR MORE NEWS VISIT QNS.COM Check out this picture of Ridgewood’s Grover Cleveland High School as it appeared in October 1931. The inaugural class of high school students were led by principal Charles Tonsor, and he was so beloved in the school community that a nearby street would later be named for him. Send us your historic pictures of Queens by email to editorial@ qns.com, share them on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/qns, or mail printed pictures to The Ridgewood Times, 38-15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361. All mailed pictures will be carefully returned to you! letters & comments PITCHING IDEAS TO SOLVE THE I recently attended meetings held by several of the civic organizations in our neighborhood including Community Board 2. Currently, the most compelling issue concerning our neighbors is the city’s decision to create a homeless shelter in the Quality Inn hotel located on 53rd Street and Queens Boulevard. This action was taken in the middle of the night without consulting the community. This reckless act is a failure of leadership and has endangered both shelter residents and the surrounding community. While local politicians maintain the position that there is nothing they can do, the members of the Sunnyside GOP Club have decided on several courses of action. First we seek to have the Public Advocate’s Offi ce fi le a suit enjoining the city from further operation of a homeless shelter at this location. A hotel room without adequate facilities like a kitchen is no place to raise a family and is an affront to shelter residents. They deserve better. Second, we ask the city why shelter residents should be warehoused in unsuitable hotel units at a cost of $3,000 a month per unit, while NYCHA dwelling units remain unoccupied, abandoned and boarded up because they have been allowed to decay into a state of disrepair? If properly maintained these units would provide shelter residents with a decent place to live at a nominal rate and cost the tax payer far less to subsidize. I’m sure most shelter residents are decent folks who fell on hard times because of the current state of the economy. We should do our very best to get them into affordable housing. Making NYCHA more effi cient is the way to go. However we also have a growing population of mentally ill homeless people in our community who must be addressed with diligence and compassion at the same time. Part of the state’s Departments of Correction and Health existing budgets should include creating and operating these institutions to safely and humanely provide for the mentally ill. This would address the problem while providing the mentally ill due process through periodic review. Marvin Jeffcoat, Grand Old Party Republican Club, Sunnyside RIDGEWOOD PLAZA PROJECT DOESN’T SOLVE ANYTHING Regarding the new pedestrian plaza on Wyckoff Avenue in Ridgewood: Yes, great job in cutting off direct access to Wyckoff Hospital for those south of Myrtle Avenue. Very dangerous. This is a major north-south connection for many motorists. The problems at this intersection — for the most part — were corrected by traffi c installations. No study was done after these were installed, so safety is an unknown factor. The pedestrians need to be educated. You walk in front of a moving vehicle. They can’t stop. You can’t block all roadways and then say it is making it safer. Roads were made for passage and in this case why didn’t the hospital say more about blocking the main road to its doors? QNS user Betty Cooney THE LOSS OF GOLFING KING The golfi ng world has lost one of the great ones. Arnold Palmer, who was professional golfer for more than 60 years, has gone to that big golf course in the sky after living for 87 years. His gentle demeanor and profession attitude were two very important caveats that he possessed during his long and colorful career. He will be missed very much by all who knew him, especially his family and the millions of fans who enjoyed watching him play. May he rest in peace. John Amato, Fresh Meadows A LOOK BACK COST OVERRUNS PLAGUE BIG MTA PROJECT BY LARRY PENNER The U.S. Department of Transportation and the MTA recently signed off on an amended funding agreement for the East Side Access project, which will eventually link the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Station. Neither Senator Charles Schumer nor Andrew Cuomo held a standard sidewalk press conference to celebrate the event. Here’s why. After years of negotiations, the MTA and USDOT FTA came to an agreement that would refl ect the true current cost and schedule. Both the cost went up and fi rst revenue day of service slipped once again. Taxpayers now have to pick up the tab for a $12 billion project. Riders will have to wait until Dec. 31, 2023, before boarding the fi rst train to Grand Central Terminal. Take a trip down memory lane to understand how the MTA has repeatedly increased the budget by billions and pushed back the fi rst day of service by years. On several occasions, the MTA has blamed Amtrak for being responsible for additional delays on the East Side Access project. This includes failures to provide both suffi cient track outages along with Amtrak Force Account (employee) support. Since 2001, the total direct cost for MTA LIRR ESA to Grand Central Terminal has grown from $3.5 billion to $4.3 billion in 2003, $6.3 billion in 2006, $8.4 billion in 2012, $10.8 billion in 2014 and now $12 billion today. Based upon past history, who knows if the fi nal cost will go up again over the next seven years by a billion or more. The anticipated opening day for passenger revenue service date has slipped on a number of occasions from 2011 to December 2022 and now December 2023. Over the next seven years, will both this date and budget hold? No one should be surprised if it ends up in 2024 or later. The MTA has repeatedly missed every budget and schedule for this project. No one at the MTA will acknowledge that the real project cost may be over $15 billion. This includes other items which are considered indirect and carried off line from the offi - cial project budget. These are fi nancing charges, additional capacity improvements at Jamaica LIRR station ($450 million), along with numerous capital improvements east of Jamaica. Without all of the above, the LIRR will not be able to achieve 100 percent utilization of this investment including the promise of 24 trains per hour during peak service periods. Larry Penner is a transportation historian and advocate who previously worked 31 years for the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration Region 2 NY Offi ce. Check out this picture of Ridgewood’s Grover Cleveland High School as it appeared in October 1931. The inaugural class of high school students were led by principal Charles Tonsor, and he was so beloved in the school community that a nearby street would later be named for him. Send us your historic pictures of Queens by email to editorial@ qns.com, share them on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/qns, or mail printed pictures to The Queens Courier, 38-15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361. All mailed pictures will be carefully returned to you! COST OVERRUNS BIG MTA HOMELESS CRISIS RIDGEWOOD PLAZA PROJECT DOESN’T SOLVE ANYTHING MOURNING THE LOSS OF GOLFING KING
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