Study Finds Favor In Reactivating Rockaway Beach Line; Results Disputed -CONTINUED FROM PG. 1- creating a hybrid rail-park plan or leaving the line fallow. Goldfeder touted the plurality of respondents (33.9 percent) who favored re-introducing some form of rail service. The QueensWay came in second with 28.1 percent, followed by a hybrid plan with 18.2 percent and the as-is option with 10.2 percent. “Our best and brightest local Queens experts and students have produced the most comprehensive and unbiased study of the needs of our communities surrounding the abandoned Rockaway Beach rail line,” Goldfeder said. “Previously, we’ve had to settle for one-side studies by expensive, out-of-borough consultants paid, at taxpayer expense, to say that a park is the only option for the right of way,” he added, referring to individuals and organizations supporting the QueensWay plan. “Now ... we have a complete picture. The results of this study clearly show that reactivating the Rockaway Beach rail line is the best, most cost-effective way to decrease commute times, improve access to existing parkland and grow our small businesses in Queens.” Even so, the results were based on what turned out to be a small sample size. Surveys were sent to 5,000 residents and 800 businesses within a half-mile of the Rockaway Beach line and all of the Rockaway Peninsula, but only 363 valid resident responses (7.26 percent) and 44 business responses (5.5 percent) were received. “While these results demonstrate a preference for the transportation option, they are within the margin of error of the survey,” the report noted, “and so cannot be taken as statistically significant.” The margin of error was plus or minus 5.2 percent. The small return produced some surprising results, it was noted, as a higher percentage of residents living in Forest Hills, Glendale and Rego Park (39 percent) favored reactivation— while 36 percent of Rockaway respondents favored the QueensWay option. Proponents of rail reactivation have long argued the service would greatly reduce commute times for southern Queens residents and, in particular, those living on the Rockaway Peninsula. However, the report indicated that two-thirds of all respondents indicated they would use a reactivated Rockaway Beach line for their commutes. Nearly half of all business owners also stated restoring rail service would have a “significant positive” impact on their business. Many survey respondents also expressed concern that the QueensWay plan would attract greater vandalism and other crime to their communities. The report also sought to dispel the notion of the QueensWay filling a perceived void in parkland, noting that families living close to the line “have access to more parkland per resident per acre” than the average city resident. Goldfeder was joined by Queens College President Félix V. Matos and a host of elected officials offering support for reactivating the Rockaway Beach branch, including Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who serves on the Congressional Subcommittee on Highways and Transit; Representatives Gregory Meeks and Hakeem Jeffries; State Sen. Tony Avella; and City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez, who chairs the City Council Transportation Committee. “While this is only the beginning, I have always believed restoring the rail line would speed up the pace of recovery for residents and local businesses and create hundreds of jobs while laying the foundation for a transportation network that accommodates our future growth,” saidMeeks, referring to the ongoing rebuilding of southern Queens and the Rockaways following Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. “This study is an important step in the right direction toward increasing much-needed transit options for the residents of Queens,” Jeffries added. “The people of Queens deserve a more comprehensive mass transportation system, and this study could help bring about that result.” QueensWay response But the Trust for Public Land and the Friends of the QueensWay viewed the Queens College study as a confirmation of their own beliefs that local residents desire their proposal. “We are pleased by the immense outpouring of support from the community and local elected officials for the QueensWay,” said Marc Matsil, the Trust for Public Land’s New York director. “They all recognize it will provide safe access to recreation for the 322,000 people who live within a mile of it; will boost local business; will provide alternative transportation choices; and will help fill a significant park equity void.” QueensWay proponents claimed that the study “showed no major statistical preference” for rail. They also attacked reactivation as a costly proposal, as groups estimated it could cost up to $7 billion to bring train service back to the Rockaway Beach line. Moreover, train service would pose other qualityof life problems and “eminent domain” issues since other properties lie adjacent to, or even encroach upon the line. The Friends of the QueensWay also point to the availability of other transit options in the area, including proposed Select Bus Service for Woodhaven and Cross Bay boulevards. TIMES, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2014 • 26 Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder (at podium) traveled to Queens College on Monday, Nov. 10, to announce the results of an independent study regarding potentially reactivating rail service on the long-abandoned Rockaway Beach branch of the Long Island Rail Road between Rego Park and Ozone Park. voted for that Southern Manifesto, are an endangered species, a dying breed. South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas will not send a single white Democrat to Congress, if Mary Landrieu loses her run-off. The only Democrats in the House from Deep South states will be African-Americans. Tennessee, North Carolina and West Virginia are trending the same way. Republican dominance in the New South is partly explained by the conservatism of the region, which is in tune with the national GOP. But the rise of the black Democrat and extinction of the white Democrat is also traceable to the Voting Rights Act. Required by law and the Justice Department to create districts where African- Americans would be competitive, Southern legislatures began to draw up majority-minority districts where the black vote was so concentrated as to ensure the election of an African-American. The GOP offer on the table for black Democrats was safe seats in Congress they could hold for decades, to build up sufficient seniority to garner real power to use on behalf of their constituents. As Republicans took over legislatures, they not only followed the VRA mandate, they went beyond it. They created secure House seats for black candidates, which inevitably resulted in heavily white districts, tailor-made for conservative Republicans. Moderate and liberal Democrats were squeezed out as African-American Democrats colluded with conservative Republicans to carve up Southern states in a way to ensure the results we see today. As Hispanics, also geographically concentrated, begin to register and vote in greater numbers, Republicans will likely use the same strategy to carve out deeply Hispanic districts for them. Thus the end result of the Voting Rights Act is likely to be more districts represented by blacks, Hispanics and Asians. These will be largely Democratic and come to represent a plurality of Democrats in the House, as white Democratic Congressmen shrink in number. Moreover, by using naked race-based ads in the Nov. 4 elections, Democratic strategists are pushing us to an America where the GOP is predominantly white and the Democratic Party, especially in Dixie, is dominated by persons of color. As Jeremy Peters of the New York Times wrote in the paper’s lead story a week before the elections: “Democrats in the closest Senate races in the South are turning to racially charged messages—invoking Trayvon Martin, the unrest in Ferguson, Mo., and Jim-Crow era segregation. ... “The images and words they are using are striking for how overtly they play on fears of intimidation and repression.” The ads worked. But while Dixie Democrats rolled up landslides among black voters, Michelle Nunn, daughter of Sen. Sam Nunn, carried only 27 percent of the white vote in Georgia, and was wiped out. Ironically, as Republicans capture state legislatures across the South, they will wield their power as energetically to guarantee black Democrats get safe districts as the old Dixiecrat Democrats wielded their power to ensure that black folks could not vote. This weekend, 2 million Catalans went to the polls in Spain and in a non-binding referendum voted 4-1 to secede. This follows the vote by 45 percent of the Scottish people to secede from Britain. As ethnonationalism pulls at the seams of many countries of Europe, it would appear it is also present here in the United States. When political appeals on the basis of race and ethnicity are being made openly by liberal Democrats, as in 2014, we are on a road that ends in a racial-ethnic spoils system—and national disintegration. “There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism,” roared Teddy Roosevelt, “a hyphenated American is not an American at all.” Typical hate crime by a man unappreciative of our diversity. Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority.” Pat Buchanan News & Opinion -CONTINUED FROM PG. 4- HAVE YOU CHECKED YOUR CHILD’S HOMEWORK TODAY?
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