4 THE QUEENS COURIER • DECEMBER 17, 2020 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
NYCHA restores cooking gas service for Astoria Houses residents
Miller blasts DOT over Merrick Boulevard Bus Lane project
BY BILL PARRY
bparry@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
A former MTA bus driver and union
leader turned southeast Queens councilman
is railing against the city’s Department
Transportation regarding the Merrick
Boulevard Bus Lane project and the agency’s
“unwillingness to work with communities
of color.”
Councilman I. Daneek Miller launched
his broadside in a lengthy statement on
Wednesday, Dec. 9.
“Transit improvements are welcome and
necessary in southeast Queens, particularly
as we remain a transit desert, and our
commute times are some of the highest in
the city,” Miller said. “Th e Department of
Transportation’s recent plan for a Merrick
Boulevard Bus Lane could have been a
win for the community, but instead, it has
become another mode of punitive enforcement
while addressing none of the transit,
traffi c or accessibility issues that the residents
have requested for years.”
Th e DOT initially presented a plan that
was met with major objections from the
community, including 24/7 bus lane enforcement
and off set bus lanes along strips of
Merrick Boulevard plagued with illegal storage
of vehicles, double-parking and sidewalk
parking, which curbside bus lanes have
helped to address in other areas of the borough.
“We sent these concerns and recommendations
to Commissioner Polly
Trottenberg and scheduled a follow-up
meeting with DOT, MTA and NYPD representatives
to walk the sections of the corridor
where autobody shops misuse the
sidewalk and cause major traffi c congestion,”
Miller said. “During this meeting, we
watched in disbelief as DOT painted lines
along the corridor that they were purportedly
assessing with us for a curbside bus lane.”
Miller said the community requests were
and remain simple. Based on the needs of
residents, including those who were present
at a recent Community Board 12 meeting
during which the DOT proposal was
met with ire as it was presented to the full
board, the requests made it clear that the
adjustments to the proposal were still needed.
Th ose requests included curbside lanes
along stretches of the Merrick Boulevard
corridor, securing two moving lanes of traffi
c and disincentivizing the storage of derelict
vehicles, including on sidewalks, by local
auto body shops.
Rush hour enforcement of the bus lane,
as opposed to the 24-hour enforcement and
delayed implementation until concerns of
the community are appropriately addressed
and real community outreach accomplished.
“Despite our offi ce making these reasonable
considerations known well in advance
of the project’s original implementation of
mid-late October, DOT completely ignored
these considerations,” Miller said, adding
that this wasn’t the fi rst time the agency
ignored the community.
When the Jamaica Busway was announced
earlier this year, the community rallied and
urged the DOT to instead move the busway
to Archer Avenue, which would improve
bus speeds on the lines most frequented by
southeast Queens riders.
“Instead, we were told that a Jamaica
Avenue busway would speed up the line
further down into Brooklyn, and a busway
along Jamaica would be a benefi t to our
commercial corridor despite local businesses
coming out against the project,” Miller
said. “Once again, the department prioritized
businesses and outside communities
before the needs of our own, insisting it
knew better than our community of color
what is best for us.”
Miller said the “overwhelming display of
dismissiveness is incredibly disappointing,
but not surprising” of an agency that “notoriously
lacks diversity” and has “little sensitivity
for the challenges communities of
color have faced” in securing equitable infrastructure
investments.
“Improvement in already transit-rich
neighborhoods like Jackson Heights or
Flushing are commendable, but the DOT
has not done the hard work of ambitiously
making change for this predominantly
Black community that remains a transit desert,”
Miller said. “Th ey’ve done the bare minimum,
giving us speed cameras as our share
of Vision Zero while other communities get
high visibility crosswalks, curb extensions
and open streets.”
QNS reached out to the DOT and is awaiting
a response.
“To create fault lines over an issue so
minuscule to the department, but so impactful
on the everyday quality-of-life of southeast
Queens residents is misguided and
erodes the already fragile relationship the
agency has with our community,” Miller
said. “While we may have hoped for a resolution
before, aft er seven years of business
as usual, it seems more likely that southeast
Queens will have to wait for the next administration
for meaningful change.”
BY JACOB KAYE
jkaye@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Aft er surviving nearly three months
without cooking gas, residents of a New
York City Housing Authority (NYCHA)
building in Astoria fi nally had their gas
service restored on Th ursday, Dec. 10.
Tenants of 1-04 Astoria Blvd., a building
within NYCHA’s Astoria Houses, initially
lost cooking gas service on Sept. 23,
beginning a monthslong fi ght to get the
service restored. And while residents —
who were each provided with a hot plate
by NYCHA — may now have their gas
restored, for some, the fi ght is not over.
“While I am pleased these residents
now have service restored, this whole episode
represents an unacceptable failure from
NYCHA,” said state Senator Michael Gianaris.
“Rent-paying tenants deserve better.”
Th e outage, which did not aff ect residents’
heat or hot water, caused great disruption
to the lives of the building’s tenants,
they said.
“You know how long it takes me to
cook a meal? We don’t have kids at school
anymore; they’re home. Th e parents are
working from home. Th at’s three meals
a day and one single hot plate,” Kimberly
Elliot, a resident of the building, told QNS
in October. “You can’t even sit down as a
family and eat.”
Residents and elected offi cials also
called foul on NYCHA for what they felt
was a vague timeline for repairs. Weeks
aft er residents lost gas service, the housing
authority told tenants service restoration
could take up to 78 days from the
initial date of the outage. Under that timeline,
NYCHA met its goal with Th ursday’s
restoration.
“NYCHA staff have been working over
the past week to fi nalize gas restoration at
Astoria Houses,” said a NYCHA spokesperson.
“We appreciate the hard work of
all the vendors and our city partners who
helped make this possible.”
In response to the outage, elected offi -
cials have made calls to hold NYCHA
more accountable to its residents.
Recently introduced in the state Senate,
Gianaris’ NYCHA Utility Accountability
Act would prorate a tenant’s rent if the
tenant is faced with a gas, heat, water or
electric outage. Th e bill is currently in the
Senate’s Rules Committee.
Councilman Costa Constantinides,
who chairs the council’s Environmental
Protection Committee, used the opportunity
to urge the city to phase out gas
stoves in NYCHA buildings altogether,
and introduce more environmentally
friendly electric stoves instead.
“Th e latest outage highlights how dangerous
and unreliable natural gas is as
a cooking source. A single leak can disrupt
dozens of lives for months on end
— without a clear date on when it will be
restored,” Constantinides said in October.
“As we seek to rebuild and improve public
housing to make it more sustainable, I
agree that NYCHA must explore how it
can replace gas stoves with electric ones.”
Th e outage also generated an outpouring
of donations from community based
organizations, who turned out to provide
meals to aff ected residents, especially
around Th anksgiving. Organizations
like Frontline Food Queens distributed
prepared meals to residents over the past
few months.
“We called upon the Astoria community
to cook for the residents to show our
love and solidarity,” Evie Hantzopoulos, a
candidate for City Council and co-founder
of Frontline Foods Queens, told QNS
in October. “With less than two days’
notice to prepare, we fed an entire building
and then some, through home cooked
food provided by the community.”
Photo via Google Maps
Photo by Todd Maisel
/WWW.QNS.COM
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