The Politics of QueensLink
The abandoned right-of-way of the Rockaway Cutoff, or Rockaway Beach Branch, is an attractive target for reuse by some groups. Area railfans have wanted to do something with it for years, and I was mostly negative about these plans, but more recently, QueensLink has emerged as a serious plan to extend the subway along the Rockaway Cutoff, to connect neighborhoods in southwestern Queens to one another and to Manhattan, where current connections do not exist (in the middle) or only serve Midtown Manhattan indirectly and slowly (in the south, via the A train). The right-of-way is wide enough that most of it can also accommodate additional infrastructure, in the case of this plan a bike trail.
The problem is that this more serious plan is still not getting much political play. This is not because of the typical reasons people may think of, such as high costs or NIMBYism. Rather, a competing plan for the same corridor, Queensway, wants to turn it into pure parkland, and is backed by a power broker with opinions and connections. The QueensLink advocates have asked for and been so far refused planning money for an environmental impact statement, which step is in better infrastructure environments apolitical; instead, Mayor Eric Adams is connected with a Queensway backer and thus favors Queensway.
The QueensLink project
QueensLink is a subway extension, with a short tunnel to get from the Queens Boulevard Line’s local tracks to the Rockaway Cutoff. Where there is room, a bike trail is included on the same corridor.
As this is a former rail mainline, the connections to the crossing subway lines are not great – the subway placed stations at major street intersections, leading to long walks at the Jamaica and Liberty Avenue transfers. In contrast, the connection to the LIRR is good: there is no station there today, but there used to be one, and it could be reopened, especially now that the Atlantic Branch is retooling to be more useful for urban service, with more stops, higher frequency, and perhaps integrated fares.
The subway connection makes this proposal viable. I previously criticized a proposal to run commuter rail service on the Cutoff, since it would crowd out the busy LIRR Main Line. In contrast, QueensLink has the new branch using the Queens Boulevard local tracks, which are undersubscribed even at rush hour, to the point that it may even be possible to run three rush hour services on the same tracks and not just two like today. The G doesn’t run to Forest Hills, for good reason, but the new service would vacate space at the Forest Hills terminal of the local tracks to the point that it could potentially be viable.
At the Transportation and Land Use program at Marron, we’re building tools to estimate not just costs for public transit construction but also ridership, and it’s likely that QueensLink will be next on our agenda right after the Interborough Express. I can’t give more than first-order estimates now, but it’s notable that the closest parallel bus corridor, Woodhaven, has high ridership: it carries four local or SBS routes and four express routes, with 31,000 weekday boardings among them. Then there’s the possibility of faster service to JFK Airport via QueensLink. It’s not going to be the Second Avenue Subway of Queens by ridership, but because only a short tunnel is needed, it’s not going to come close to Second Avenue Subway in costs either.
QueensLink and Queensway
The alternative to QueensLink isn’t doing nothing, as is usually the case. Some political players have eyed the corridor for a trail project called Queensway. The idea of Queensway is to create more parkland in the area, including a hiking and bike trail; as the map above shows, there is no shortage of parkland there. There’s an obsession of urbanists in the United States with linear parks, in imitation of the High Line; one attempt at imitation even wanted to build a park underground in a former streetcar terminal and called it the Lowline.
I want to dwell on the politics of Queensway, because I know I have a lot of readers in the general neoliberal and rationalist communities, including specifically in New York, and the political support for it is not what their first instinct might be.
Often, it’s the case that public transit projects are supported by broadly developmentalist interest groups, who are also fairly YIMBY, and tend to be rooted in professionals and office workers commuting to city center, and opposed by NIMBYs, who tend to be rooted in longstanding neighborhood residents and small business owners. Neighborhood NIMBYs often like parks, because they’re local improvements; when we studied the Green Line Extension in Boston, we saw some local interest groups demand money for a trail as a precondition to supporting the light rail line.
And this is not at all what is happening with the Rockaway Cutoff. Local interest groups are not consistently anti-QueensLink and pro-Queensway. Some are, but in at least one case, a local advocate came to argue on NIMBY grounds against Queensway, which would bring pedestrians to their backyard, and for QueensLink, since the passing train would not cause unwanted impact and would serve the area. On net, YIMBYer groups are more pro-QueensLink – for example much of the community at the northern end of the corridor, in Community Board 6, which due to its location on the subway has a more pro-transit and pro-development orientation. But it doesn’t boil down to these class interests pitting professional workers against small business owners, at all. Rather, it’s rather random, boiling down to individual power brokers for Queensway.
What autocrats want
I highlight the randomness of the interest groups for Queensway, because it relates to the broadly autocratic style of some leaders, who the de facto system of government in New York empowers too much. In the 2010s, Andrew Cuomo liked the idea of Queensway, and if he wanted something, anyone who wanted to stay in the good grace of the local power system had to support it. The backward air train to LaGuardia, hated by transit activists in the city from the start, is such an example – while Cuomo was in power opposition was restricted to people outside city and state politics, like the technical advocacy community or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Then Cuomo left office and because nobody really wanted it, this project died. Queensway survives, I think partly because it’s not a multi-billion dollar investment, and partly because some power brokers do like it and have attached themselves to Mayor Eric Adams, such as political operative and lobbyist Travis Terry.
The point of this is not that Adams wants Queensway and therefore it will happen. Rather, it’s that, in a system with a democratic deficit like New York, professional decisions often boil down to which random advocate happens to have the ear of the autocrat. I keep contrasting this with the situation in Berlin, in which bike lanes and pedestrianization have been put on hold and even been reversed under Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) – but Wegner ran on this agenda in the election and CDU came first, and the pivotal party, SPD, chose to enter a coalition with him and not with more left-wing parties under a known-quantity (and disgraced) leader in Franziska Giffey, whose conservative-for-SPD politics and poor relationship with the left was well-known. I dislike this outcome, but voters knew what they were getting. In contrast, in New York, Adams did not run on any explicit agenda of not building public transit, or even on support for interest groups that oppose transit (again, the Queensway support is more individualized than neighborhood-scale NIMBYs). He just makes abrupt decisions, often sniping the judgment of the city’s own civil service, based on what one favorite asks.
The way forward
In healthy infrastructure construction systems and also in Germany, the planning is not politicized; the yes/no decision on what to build must be made by politicians, but the menu of options with their costs and benefits is prepared by the civil service. In contrast, in the United States, even the choice of which projects get an environmental impact study is politicized; QueensLink advocates are asking for money for an EIS, which in the United States is where planning is done, but even that is stalled politically.
The problem is that the message this behavior by the city and state sends is that New York is too messed up to invest in. Private actors who make investment decisions need some amount of political stability and predictability. A political culture of caprice, in which everyone must constantly follow political gossip to have any idea what the autocratic mayor or governor (or in some countries president or prime minister) will do, or else be swamped by otherwise inexplicable investment decisions, screams “go elsewhere, we don’t want you.” Even turning an EIS into a big political ask screams the same thing: “we can’t do, so merely studying is an achievement by itself and you must pay fealty.”
New York’s current system deters investment, not through taxes or union empowerment, but through opacity and unpredictability. I don’t want to turn the question of one right-of-way in Queens into an existential issue that it is not, but on the margin, stonewalling on QueensLink because some politically connected actor personally wants Queensway reinforces this system that repels investment, whereas treating the EIS as an apolitical step and then based on the results of further planning building it or not based on broad interest agreement signals that New York can and wants to build things. It’s the city’s choice.
Pedestrian Observations 
Just because it was built in a fit of 19th Century railroad mania, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea today. Or ever was a good idea.
It’s a suburban service in a massive city on an existing right of way. That typically makes a lot of sense.
The second railroad was going to out compete the first railroad. Most of it was abandoned for lack of interest in 1955 and the remaining portion in 1962.
”Suburban” service? Forrest Hills and Richmond Hills have a population density above 32k, Ozone Park is greater than 16k. That’s hardly suburban.
Fair enough! But that just makes the idea of building it even stronger!
Household size was bigger which means it was likely even denser when it was abandoned for lack of interest over 60 years ago.
There are masses of railway lines and stations that were closed due to lack of use that are now attracting millions or tens of millions of rides a year.
Hell Thameslink is a relatively recent reopening that is now getting hundreds of millions of passengers a year.
It wasn’t abandoned because of lack of interest, it was abandoned because a trestle across Jamaica Bay burned down and the LIRR didn’t want to pay to replace it. So they sold the line to NYC which had the money to rebuild it and convert the line to the Rockaways to subway service. It was quickest to connect that portion to the Fulton Line (today’s A service) because it was elevated. There was always a plan to also connect to the Queens Blvd Subway even predating the sale, and there were two bellmouths for this option built past 63rd Drive station. But a surface-subway connection was more expensive than a surface to elevated connection so the Fulton Line connection was built but the Queens Blvd one was not.
The QueensLink portion in discussion had its ridership drop only after the remainder of the line converted to subway and the LIRR started reducing service frequency (this was also when suburbanization and the automobile were at their peak, and ridership was down everywhere).
As Matthew Hutton noted, transit demand has skyrocketed since its nadir in the 50s-80s. The four station on the Jamaica line and Fulton line bracketing this stretch see about 3M passengers annually. The remaining stations on the Rockaway Branch (at a far lesser density) add to another 3M or so. Clearly no interest in subway ridership is this corner of Queens.
If there was so much demand why didn’t the LIRR rebuild the trestle? The section in question had service to Penn Station for years, after the trestle burnt down. And the LIRR was able to abandon it for lack of interest.
If you put trains in every dual contract or IND bellmouth you’d need 12 tracks of subway on 2nd Ave. and 8th Ave. There are lots of other things the MTA could do that would serve more people and do it more cheaply.
typical person that has done no research , the queens blvd line has plenty of space for more trains , have you ever driven on woodhaven blvd during rush hour? what should take 5 mins can take up to 2 hours , how much co2 emissions does this cause. all you liberals want electric cars ,, wake up .. build a subway where the path already exists and get all those cars off the road..
Take a shot every time this bot says “19th Century railroad mania”
There are a lot of sunk costs in that route that if you chose an otherwise better route you need to pay. It may have been a stupid route when it is was built, but the fact it they built it and now we have it. If you want to build a different route you would have the expense of obtaining the land, tearing down what is there, grading the land, and building. Most of the above costs are free for this. That means that even though it is overall much less valuable than the better route it doesn’t need very many riders to be worth today’s costs. Don’t use it as an example of how we should start building every marginal route, but that doesn’t mean we should throw it away.
You’re underselling the momentum behind it. It got 118 MM from the DoT via reconnecting communities (highway removal, yes the irony is apparent to me) money.
https://meng.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/meng-meeks-and-velazquez-announce-over-117-million-federal-funding
But… it wasn’t ever a highway!
any transport facility that obstructs the community counts. Whether an inactive embankment should really count is another Q. To provide a well meaning example a disused rail yard also counts and would obviously divide and impact a community.
Okay, now I’m curious if railyards ever genuinely divide communities the way highways did. Wendell Cox ranted once about the railyards of Zurich Hbf and how they divide the city, and then someone from the pro-transit community, I think Michael Setty, pointed out that that railyard was built before Zurich urbanization got there, so the community organically developed separately on both sides; it’s not the same as how there was an intact if poor community in the South Bronx and then the Cross-Bronx divided it in half.
The Cross Bronx isn’t in the South Bronx and while it wasn’t rich in the early 60s it wasn’t poor either.
NJ Transit received a Reconnecting Communities grant for a pedestrian bridge under the Long Branch rail yard/station. I assume Long Branch developed around the rail station, but I’m not sure when the yard was built. A bit of googling says that the current station was built in 1988 with a sound wall that prevents access from the west side. Evidently, the community felt it was enough of a barrier to apply for this grant.
“From the wrong side of the tracks” is an old expression (rarely used anymore though, last I heard it was song lyrics from the 1960s) which says the divide existed at least.
However I’m not sure that the rails divided the community vs they ran along the division. There is a reasonable argument that the divide existed before the the railroad because in those days the factory owners would live high on a hill (where winds blew the pollution from their factory away – and they choose the hill based on winds). The factory would have been built close to the water for easy access to water transport. Workers live in the places left over. Then the railroad came through and they needed to get close to the factory but wanted to stay on high ground and so they choose a route that was also the existing dividing line.
The Rockaway Beach Branch is older than the communities around it. It never divided those communities; it built them. Far different from the BQE or Cross Bronx that bulldozed homes and actually divided existing communities.
Well, what do you know, Grace Meng supports QueensWay and got them $118 million of misappropriated funds because her District Director was a QueensWay member (https://www.thequeensway.org/about-us/#:~:text=Greg%20Lavine). So once again, QueensWay is getting its way only because they have personal connections to chose in charge.
“QueensWay will provide more needed greenspace in our borough and ensure many benefits to the public including upgraded infrastructure, additional transportation options, and connecting neighborhoods. In communities like Queens, greenspace is limited and transportation projects, have historically disconnected diverse neighborhoods and discouraged walkability, and QueensWay stands to help change this.”
What a weaselly way of appropriating anti-highway language against mass transit.
Trains and buses have a weird habit of getting people to actually walk; cars do not.
This language might lay the ground and provide a guide for politicians on how to oppose other transportation projects.
your probably overselling them. They’re house members on irrelevant committees to the DoT. There’s a decent chance this was awarded with nothing more than some pro forma involvement. These people are not Chuck Schumer.
“In healthy infrastructure construction systems and also in Germany, the planning is not politicized; the yes/no decision on what to build must be made by politicians, but the menu of options with their costs and benefits is prepared by the civil service.” <- It’s funny because I remember saying something similar on a twitter debate recently.
Someone was saying that our new major, Collboni (from what would be our SPD) is a cheater because almost all the projects he presented that he would complete during his 4 years had already been planned by previous majors. My reply was that all the projects of a certain relevance require a lot of time, they are actually developed by the civil service, and what politicians do is to prioritize one over another, cut the red tape of what others started, and start what others will inaugurate.
For example, the so-talked Superblocks, they quietly entered the urban planning in the city under major Hereu (would-be SPD). Then the project continued under Trias (would-be CDU), and I read about the Superblocks for the first time in Trias’ pet newspaper as a project that could be done if he got re-elected. Then Colau won instead (would-be Anne Hidalgo), she started implementing Superblocks, and Trias started his big campaign on how Colau is destroying the city with them. Now Collboni, with his “moderate approach, whatever that means” is saying that he will not remove the Superblocks that are built, but he will not create new ones for a while.
“the connections to the crossing subway lines are not great – the subway placed stations at major street intersections, leading to long walks at the Jamaica and Liberty Avenue transfers.”
If QueensLink’s purpose is to “to connect neighborhoods in southwestern Queens to one another and to Manhattan” then connections to existing subway lines isn’t relevant. However, it’s 500 feet from the old Brooklyn Manor station to the Jamaica Ave 104th St stop. Connection to the Liberty Ave Line is completely irrelevant because the the existing A-train service via the Liberty Ave Line would not be discontinued.
“At the Transportation and Land Use program at Marron, we’re building tools to estimate not just costs for public transit construction but also ridership, “
I should think projected ridership tools should come before those for construction cost estimation. There’s no sense in going through construction cost estimation for scanty projected ridership.
Let me suggest two metrics that should be included in your ridership projection tool: service duplication and net distance to subway reduced for non-duplicate stations.
Here’s an example that shows QueensLink’s duplicate service.
https://public-transit-time-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/share/QueensLink/QueensLinkDuplicateService.pdf
As can be seen, among the 97K living within 1/2 mile walking distance to the proposed QueensLink stops, 87% already enjoy walk-to-subway access. This leaves only 12K residents who would actually gain walk-to-subay access. They are all concentrated around the old Parkside station, that has been rebranded as Metropolitan Ave.
Here’s an example of how much distance-to-subway QueensLink would save:
https://public-transit-time-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/share/QueensLink/QueensLinkParksideWalkDistance.pdf
As can be seen, walking mean/median walk to subway distance is around 0.85 miles for the 12,428 residents who live within 1/2 mile of the proposed Parkside stop and beyond 1/2 mile of an existing subway stop. The maximum existing distance is 1.23 miles. This is much lower than other areas in Queens that really lack subway access.
“I can’t give more than first-order estimates now, but it’s notable that the closest parallel bus corridor, Woodhaven, has high ridership: it carries four local or SBS routes and four express routes, with 31,000 weekday boardings among them.”
That’s a misleading statistic. A bus line stop must be within walking distance of a proposed station to be relevant. Including boardings at bus stops that are far from the proposed stops unrealistically inflates justification for demand. One must segregate the boarding figures by bus stop, and use only the relevant stops.
Here’s a link that shows the area around the Q53 bus stops relates to QueensLink’s stations:
https://public-transit-time-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/share/QueensLink/QueensLinkQ53Bus.pdf
As can be seen, the Woodhaven Blv buses don’t provide any net gain for QueensLink’s stations that are already within walking distance to an existing subway stop. This leaves Parkside. The total that’s covered by a 1/2 mile radius from the Q53’s Metropolitan Ave stop is 6.7K. This low number should not be surprising because much of the area includes St. John’s Cemetery. Only 5K, are actually within walking distance of the proposed Parkside station.
In the absence of boarding statistics by individual bus stop, a reasonable estimate would be the 31K total boarding times the ratio of the population gaining walk-to-subway access to population along the bus route. This ratio is 5K / 200K or 2.5%. The arithmetic comes to 775. That’s a better measure of how relevant the Woodhaven bus route boardings would be to projected QueensLink ridership.
One of the advantages is that the G can be extended so that connects better with the existing subway lines. That’s not a small win.
The purpose of subway lines should be to connect with people who are not served by subway lines. It should not be to connect to existing subway lines.
Surely the aim should be to increase passenger numbers overall and to provide useful service to more people?
Circumferal routes make it easier to not own a car too – and make other interventions such as low traffic neighbourhoods, emissions restrictions and congestion charges more politically viable.
“Surely the aim should be to increase passenger numbers overall and to provide useful service to more people?”
That’s precisely where QueensLink fails.
Here’s a link that shows how many Queens residents currently lack walk-to-subway access and the degree to which QueensLink would provide such access.
https://public-transit-time-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/share/QueensLink/QueensLinkQueensCoverage.pdf
You will note 1,250,523 Queens residents live beyond walking distance to a subway station. QueensLink will provide such access to 12,428 of these residents. That’s about 1% of the problem for a considerable expenditure.
There’s also the question the distance to the nearest subway stop for those who live beyond walking distance.
This previously posted link:
https://public-transit-time-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/share/QueensLink/QueensLinkParksideWalkDistance.pdf
showed the mean/median distance to be 0.85 miles for those within QueensLink’s walk-to-stop service area but beyond 1/2 mile to an existing station.
The Queens-wide figures are much worse. The mean is 1.7 miles, while the median is 1.3 miles. This difference suggests there are many people who live well beyond the 1.3 mile median. This is proven with the percentile figures that are shown in the link. Approximately 55% of Queens residents without walk-to-subway access live further from a subway entrance than does the resident with the worst case for a resident within walking distance of a QueensLink stop.
“Circumferal routes make it easier to not own a car…”
In order for a circumferential (or any) route to reduce automobile use, it’s necessary to consider trip origin-destination figures, as well as population, workers, and jobs within walking distance of each station. There will be no automobile use reduction, if the proposed line does not go from where people live to their destination.
I’m reminded of a cartoon that appeared in the New Yorker, shortly after Word War II. It showed two people in an open car, approaching NYC and the newly constructed Belt Parkway. The caption read: “I didn’t want to go around New York City.”
To be fair London Overground gets the better part of 200m rides a year primarily linking suburb to suburb and often having pretty weak connections with the radial lines.
It’s not just about how close an existing subway station is, it’s about where it goes. North-south Queens buses in these neighborhoods alone get 40k+ daily (paying) riders and you’re telling me there isn’t demand for what would be the ONLY north-south subway in Queens? Tell me you’ve never taken the Q52/53 without telling me you’ve taken the Q52/53 before. You’re also talking about no destinations when it connects JFK and the Rockaways on one end to LIC and midtown on the other? Please.
“North-south Queens buses in these neighborhoods alone get 40k+ daily (paying) riders and you’re telling me there isn’t demand for what would be the ONLY north-south subway in Queens?”
Accuracy: Here’s a link to the MTA’s official average weekday rider counts from 2018 to 2023.
https://new.mta.info/document/137116
The Woodhaven Blv buses are the Q11, Q21, Q52 and Q53. The Q52 and Q53 are combined. You will note that the average weekday totals ranged from 28K in 2018 to 17K in 2023. Your 40K number of “paying passengers” is 235% greater than the actual weekday count, provided by the MTA.
Relevance: As I pointed out earlier, the stop-by-stop boarding and exit counts are necessary to determine how total count’s usefulness. If, the major boarding and exit stops were Liberty and Jamaica Aves, then the routes are simply feeders to the existing subway. The routes, despite their length are not corridors. This information is lacking.
Relevance to QueensLink: Just because origin-destination figures might indicate a demand for north-south transit in Queens, does not localize the demand to the QueensLink ROW. Geographic specific origin-destination figures might indicate such north-south transit demand along the Springfield Blv corridor. QueensLink would be of no help, if that were the case.
It’s very clear you’re not from Queens…
The MTA themselves said reactivation just to Howard Beach would serve 37,000 daily riders. That was with only 3tph in their comparative evaluation as part of 20-Year Needs. They have been intentionally sandbagging this extension (on an existing right-of-way mind you) for years.
I say 40k+ daily paying riders on north-south buses in these neighborhoods because I’m including those on Lefferts (Q10) and 111th (Q37). These are feeder routes to the Queens Blvd line which I would argue are within a short walk, bike, bus or quick subway (Jamaica or Fulton) ride away from new QueensLink stations. I also include the Q41 which would be serviceable with QueensLink’s connection to the Jamaica Line. I also include the roughly 2,500 express bus riders on the QM12, 15-18 and 42 as these buses only exist due to poor connections to midtown in neighborhoods with no suitable alternative.
Bus riders are not the only ones a north-south subway would target. Many in Queens own cars simply because subway service is so sparse. The Rockaways are no different with roughly 60% of households owning one. Not only does this parallel Woodhaven/Cross Bay Blvd for it’s entire length, I’d also argue it parallels the southern half of the Van Wyck Expressway with a connection to JFK airport via Howard Beach creating a faster and more enticing alternative than the overcrowded and soon-to-be-widened Van Wyck.
Now, there’s also the benefit of added levels of service which both Queens Blvd and the Rockaways would see as a result of a boost in capacity. To be clear, an extension does not JUST have to fill its usefulness in growing ridership at new stations, it can also benefit riders at EXISTING stations. QueensLink would eliminate the Rockaway shuttle providing direct services to both branches of the Rockaways (no more un-timed transfers at Broad Channel), and bring additional service to the Queens Blvd local, currently limited by 71st Av. Time and time again, it has been proven that increasing service grows ridership. QueensLink is no different.
There’s also the issue of redundancy which you have failed to mention. Service along the Jamaica, Fulton and Rockaway lines are often cut back due to resiliency work and upgrades as they are some of the oldest and most vulnerable lines on the network. That work is not expected to slow down anytime soon and there will come a time when extensive structural repairs are eventually needed. Having redundancy in additional high-capacity transit corridors like QueensLink helps to ease the burden of possible long term closures.
Your homemade analysis simply doesn’t take any of that into account. I trust the hundreds I’ve spoken on the ground just last year who’ve told me this would change their life. I also trust that when the MTA says a bare bones version of reactivation would get ~37k daily riders, that the real number for what is really being proposed is much higher.
“It’s very clear you’re not from Queens…”
I’ve lived in Queens for slightly over 80 years. I currently live in Queens. The only period when Queens wasn’t my sole residence was the 7 year period, when I went to college in Cambridge Mass in the 1960’s. I received undergrad and graduate degrees in electrical engineering, while in Cambridge.
I have heard many different assertions as to which Queens neighborhoods have the worst public transit, during this time. Most of these assertions lacked the mathematical rigor that I learned during my engineering training.
“The MTA themselves said reactivation just to Howard Beach would serve 37,000 daily riders. That was with only 3tph in their comparative evaluation as part of 20-Year Needs.”
The number is 39,200 according the the comparative evaluation.
https://future.mta.info/documents/20-YearNeedsAssessment_ComparativeEvaluation.pdf#page=21
You will also note that the number of new riders falls to 2000. If you flip down one page, you will see that the LIRR option numbers fall to 14,500 and 300.
I have technical problems with how these estimates were obtained. The estimates start with the number of residents who are within walking distance of the proposal. The MTA determines this by extending a 1/2 mile wide buffer for the proposal’s length. It then counts the population of the census tracts that intersects this buffer.
Here are two problems. First, there has to be a station for any proposal to be usable. Suppose stations were 2 miles apart. The MTA’s method would include areas that are well beyond walking distance to a station. Second, they are using census tracts which are a larger area than a block-by-block analysis. They do this because some useful demographic census data is available only at the census tract level. Using census tracts also systemically overestimates the number of residents within walking distance.
I avoid these pitfalls by using a 1/2 mile radius around proposed station locations and including census blocks whose centroid lies within this circle.
The dropoff between daily ridership and new daily riders confirms that this proposal mainly benefits those who already have reasonably good access to existing subway stations. There are many Queens neighborhoods with many more Queens residents that lack such access. I lived in two such neighborhoods for 11 years. Their needs should be prioritized before improving access for those who already live within subway walking distance.
“I say 40k+ daily paying riders on north-south buses in these neighborhoods because I’m including those on Lefferts (Q10) and 111th (Q37).”
Thank you for that clarification. That does bring the total up to 40K. Here’s a simple exercise with Google Maps’ distance measurement tool. Draw a 1/2 mile line. Place one end on a bus stop between Lefferts Blv and Park Lane South of the abovementioned routes. This is QueensLink’s new service area. Rotate the other end. You will find that it intersects a station on either the Jamaica or Liberty El’s. This means that these bus routes are also feeders for existing subway lines other than the QBL.
“I would argue are within a short walk, bike, bus or quick subway (Jamaica or Fulton) ride away from new QueensLink stations. “
Here’s a link to a Citibike location map.
https://citibikenyc.com/explore
How many docks do you see within QueensLink’s service area? Citibike’s expansion to areas that are beyond subway walking distance would be a giant leap to reducing private car dependence.
“Now, there’s also the benefit of added levels of service which both Queens Blvd and the Rockaways would see as a result of a boost in capacity.”
Time for some engineering truths. The service level capacity of tracks with intermediate stations is slightly above 40 tph. This is based on train operating characteristics (train length, train speed, service braking rate, emergency braking rate, acceleration, signal reaction time) and station dwell time. N.B. only signal system reaction time enters into the equation. Service level capacity for a line is also governed by terminal layout. Terminals where incoming and outgoing trains cross at grade have a lower capacity. This is why lines will have multiple terminals, a loop layout or a layout that minimizes the time a train spends on a crossover. This is why the Third Ave El in its heyday operated 42 tph on the peak reverse track. Half the trains operated to/from South Ferry while the rest operated to/from City Hall.
Operating close to service level capacity requires an amount of operational planning and supervision that is currently lacking at NYCT. The best they can currently do is 30 tph or a 120 second headway. The 30 second difference between 120 and 90 (40 tph) is due to lack of train supervision.
“bring additional service to the Queens Blvd local, currently limited by 71st Av.“
That’s an operational shortcoming. Continental is a relay terminal. NYCT implemented a policy not permitting passengers to stay on trains during a relay. This means that terminating trains must be fumigated before leaving the terminal. This fumigation process adds the extra time to prevent 90 or even 120 second headways. The reversal track configuration beyond Continental features two crossover tracks. That’s more than sufficient for the terminal service level capacity to equal incoming service levels.
“There’s also the issue of redundancy which you have failed to mention.”
Redundancy usually provides greater reliability to existing service. I’m more interested in providing service to areas in Queens where none exists.
QueensLink’s contribution to reliability is fairly limited. If there’s a single track failure, then the 4 tracks along Fulton St between Euclid and Hoyt would provide redundancy. A single track failure between Euclid and Aqueduct could be addressed via wrong railing between these two stations. A single track failure between Hoyt and Jay Streets could be addressed by wrong railing beteen Jay St and Clinton-Washington Sts. The redundancy is already in place; it’s a question of whether NYCT wants to use its existing capabilities.
It’s not the ones along the former Rockaway Beach Branch of the LIRR. It’s so good they stopped using the LIRR. . . .
My apologies on assuming your origins, you just seem to have an inclination to believe that the neighborhoods of south-queens have sufficient rail access as it is. That’s usually an opinion reserved for those who don’t live in the borough.
“I’ve lived in Queens for slightly over 80 years”
This checks out. Your argument is essentially: There are other areas of Queens which deserve a subway more and new QueensLink stations don’t serve enough new riders who are not already served by the existing system.
Instead of nitpicking my points, consider that this is not an either-or argument. It’s an existing right-of-way. One of the last in the city. Meaning it would be one of the most affordable possible extensions the borough has to offer. You can have your preference as to where you would like a subway to be extended to based solely on the most new riders it would serve, but this is unused rail infrastructure that parallels a heavily used north-south corridor in the heart of the borough, and would serve communities that still see some of the longest commutes in the city despite already having rail access… (The Rockaways)
We should be clear that nearly all of Queens deserves better rail access. It has the highest population per mile of subway of any borough. But that doesn’t mean that areas served by rail can’t be better served with, again, existing infrastructure. I will say, again, it is not just about how close an existing subway station is, it’s about where that subway can take you. It’s why around the world, circumferential lines are well-ridden despite connecting up with existing lines in suburban areas. It gives you freedoms that many of those in Queens currently don’t have to travel to different parts of the borough, not just to Manhattan. Currently, the only way you can do that in south-Queens is by car, or by slow, infrequent buses.
But honestly, unless you’ve actually talked to residents of these neighborhoods who ride the lines you’re saying are sufficient, your argument is moot.
The the ROW that was converted into Kissena Corridor Park is much longer. And would serve a part of Queens that are much longer bus rides to the subway.
The Rockaways have a realllly long commute, to Manhattan, ( they let people in the Rockaways work someplace other than Manhattan ) because they are realllly far from Manhattan. And really really far from most places. Because it’s far far away from almost everything else. It’s the way it works most places in the Universe.
“consider that this is not an either-or argument”
Unfortunately, high construction costs mean that Queens will get one subway expansion project, at most. So, it becomes a question of doing the most good for the most people. QueensLink fails on that score.
“It’s an existing right-of-way. “
That’s irrelevant, if very few people served by an existing right-of-way. The Rockaway Branch’s connection to the mainline dates from 1912. The Liberty and Jamaica Ave El’s were not extended beyond the Brooklyn City Limits until the late teens. Their stops killed any chance that the Rockaway Branch would serve as a commuter line. It was strictly a summer vacation line.
“Queens deserves better rail access. It has the highest population per mile of subway of any borough.”
Yes, but Queens’ poor rail access isn’t uniformly distributed. QueensLink is an example of providing new service to an area that is comparatively well served.
Well, it’s a good thing you’re not the only person who live in Queens.
@Stephen Bauman, at the MTA’s exorbitant current construction costs of $2.5 billion/mile, there are 0 greenfield subway expansion lines feasible in Queens. That’s why projects that are currently feasible due to extensive existing ROWs, like the IBX or QueensLink, should be built, because the alternative is nothing. If in the future, construction costs come down, of course many more greenfield lines (e.x. Northern Blvd) across Queens serving many entirely new riders should be built, but that is not currently economically and politically possible.
@adirondacker12800, the Kissena Corridor Park ROW would have been excellent for a 7 or Port Washington branch, except it has now been built over. The Rockaway Beach Branch has not, not yet. QueensWay is currently been funded to do exactly that, and would make building QueensLink much more costly and politically infeasible to build later, just like it is likely politically infeasible to reactivate the Kissena Corridor Park ROW now that it has been built over.
Also, the Rockaways are indeed far from Manhattan. But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t benefit from faster commutes. Remember that many families in Far Rockaway were displaced there by Robert Moses’ highways destroying communities and building new housing for them in the farthest place from Manhattan in the city he could find. And Far Rockaway is not actually that far away. It is 25 km from Midtown. Many people commute from much farther, from Long Island, from New Haven, from Philadelphia, etc. In China, people commute 300 km from Nanjing to Shanghai, a 1 hour ride on 1 of 5 (currently 3, but 2 more are under construction) high speed lines between the cities, and yet 30 minutes faster than a ride on the A from Far Rockaway to Midtown.
It hasn’t been built over, it’s a park. I’m sure suggesting digging a subway through it would cause much moaning, sobbing, wailing, lamentation and perhaps even rent clothing. It’s not built on because it’s a park. But railfans are deeply fascinated with the second way to get to Far Rockaway instead of the second way to get to Hempstead. The people in Fresh Meadows can schlep on the bus forever so that people in southwestern Queens can have a third subway line.
This would be a much better argument if the fastest trip to midtown from the woodhaven and Jamaica stop wasn’t take the Q53+ and transfer to the QBL at Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Ave. The current set up of the A and J makes them the
(Your comment got cut off for some reason; I presume you mean that the current setup of the A and J makes them actually slower to Midtown, but maybe you mean something else?)
correct. My apologies.
“This would be a much better argument if the fastest trip to midtown from the woodhaven and Jamaica stop wasn’t take the Q53+ and transfer to the QBL at Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Ave. “
???
The printed schedules on the MTA’s website don’t include the stops of interest. Their trip planner gets confused on the J/Z line and the Woodhaven Blv station. So, it’s necessary to use the GTFS schedules. Here’s what the schedules show for today: 9 May 2024.
Transfer time between bus and subway stops have not been included, nor wait times.
The running times indicate that any Q53+ time savings is an illusion that isn’t borne out by the schedules.
using time square is a ridiculous choice when it’s far off center from midtown’s job centroid. And I didn’t use the MTA’s trip planner I used Apple Maps which is quite good. Anyways it’s 48 minutes to grand central from the woodhaven J stop right now… via the bus, M, E and 6.
“I didn’t use the MTA’s trip planner I used Apple Maps which is quite good.”
I did not use the MTA’s trip planner. I used the GTFS schedule, which is the primary source. It requires a bit of programming to use. I wanted to provide a reference that non-programmers within this forum could use. As I explained, neither the printed schedules nor the MTA’s trip planner provided sufficient specificity. That’s the reason going to the GTFS schedules. It’s the source upon which both the MTA’s trip planner and Apple Maps are based.
” Anyways it’s 48 minutes to”
That shows a weakness in Apple Maps. Running times differ throughout the day. I guess Apple used a single time to simplify their programming and storage. I guess it’s “good enough for government work,” as we used to say when I was doing consulting work for the government.
I chose the min and max times between each segment origin/destination. I added up the min’s and max’s to provide a trip duration range.
@Stephen Bauman, actually, Apple Maps uses GTFS-RT, not the static GTFS schedule. It should be more accurate than the GTFS schedule.
so a bunch of people have already responded to you and I’ve read the replies you wrote. The Crux of your argument as I understand it is that this project doesn’t significantly increase the population in the subway walk shed, and that most of the woodhaven bus stops are too far away to include that in an estimated ridership prediction.
what I’m going to try to argue is that the network effects of reactivation will make many existing trips faster, and by extension will facilitate a lot more trips that are either currently not being taken or are currently using a different mode. I’m going to do this by first sharing a personal experience with a different circumferential line, and then bring some specific examples of trips that would be made faster by this line.
I live in Bushwick and until recently had to commute every day to midwood for a job. The route I took was the L to the C to the Franklin shuttle to the Q. The Franklin shuttle exists entirely to connect subway lines to each other. The only stop not directly connecting to another subway line, park place, sees one of the lowest ridership in the system. For me, taking a route that included the shuttle was not convenient. It required a long transfer at Broadway junction and climbing quite a few stairs at Franklin av, not to mention that transferring in and of itself is inconvenient, even if cross platform. I also didn’t live or work anywhere near the shuttle. However, it was still faster than the next fastest alternative by at least 10 minutes, and than the “convenient” alternative even more than that. If the shuttle didn’t exist, the fastest route would be taking the bus to downtown Brooklyn, walking a few minutes to Atlantic terminal and transferring to the Q. I would be taking the bus despite living walking distance from the subway.
Right now, I live in Bushwick on the L line and I like to shop at the Queens Center Mall. I don’t often shop there because getting there with public transit is a shlep and a half. I could go into Manhattan (I don’t cause it takes forever) or I could take the M to the bus to queens boulevard. When I lived closer to the J, I would take the J to the woodhaven busses. This is a trip that would be made so much easier if the Rockaway Beach branch was reactivated. I would make this trip a lot more regularly, and I imagine a lot of other people would do the same.
i know someone who lives in Belle harbor on the Rockaways, and I would sometimes visit them, albeit from an entirely different part of Brooklyn. Traveling to them today, or the beach, from anywhere in queens north of the A train walkshed is a very very long trip that in many cases includes riding one of the woodhaven buses. Reactivating the Rockaway Beach branch would mean that I could wake up late, travel from Bushwick to queens center, do some shopping, travel to the Rockaways, spend some time at the beach and go home, with enough time to still cook dinner. I imagine there are a lot of people in queens that would love easier access to the beach, or to my friend wou is a really nice person.
There are a lot of people today on the Rockaways, especially far Rockaway, that take the A train every day and end up in various places in Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx. Many of these people would have shorter trips if the Rockaway Beach branch would be reactivated. They would probably use public transit more if the Rockaway Beach branch was reactivated
Many people in southeast queens (for the relevance of this discussion, specifically along linden boulevard and Rockaway boulevard) that don’t live anywhere near the subway but still take the bus to Jamaica or various A stops and take the subway to Manhattan. These are some of the longest commutes in the city. Many of these commutes will be made faster by the reactivation of the Rockaway Beach branch
Rescued from spamfilter, sorry.
Any other planned line in a different metro area would quickly pass through the planning stage and be knocking on the door of congress to fund this line. The ability of connectng Nothern Queens to JFK and the Casino, giving a quarter million residents better access to jobs, would be a no brainer.
“giving a quarter million residents better access to jobs,”
As noted in this link:
https://public-transit-time-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/share/QueensLink/QueensLinkQueensCoverage.pdf
The population within walking distance of QueensLink is 97K. Precisely where are the remainder of “quarter million residents” to be found.
I think they mean due to transfers from the Broadway/Queens, people will be able to get to the casino and Far Rockaway? I don’t think it would make JFK access better for those folks. Not sure how many jobs there are in those locations, but I think the overall network effect for non job trips is probably more important for queenslink anyways.
All along Queens Blvd from Rego Park to Queens Plaza, which would see a 50% increase in service at local stations, and thus have better access to jobs.
“@Khyber Sen, actually, Apple Maps uses GTFS-RT, not the static GTFS schedule. It should be more accurate than the GTFS schedule.”
Are you sure?
There are problems using NYCT’s GTFS-RT feeds for trip planning.
First, trip update messages (times for future but not passed stops)are not available until 30 minutes before departure from its originating terminal. This makes it useless for planning an evening return trip in the morning. It also means that some transfers might not be available, for a current trip. For example, take the A from Far Rockaway to 8th Ave and transfer to the L. The travel time from Far Rockaway to 8th Ave is more than 30 minutes. This means the trip planner would not know when the next L was departing 8th Ave, when the A departed Far Rockaway.
Second, trip update message changes are irregular. GTFS-RT messages are broadcast every 30 seconds. However, the position field for the Vehicle Position message is not used. The vehicle position is given by a stop_id and 1 of 3 status values: “in transit to”; “incoming at” or “stopped at”. In practice, the trip update departure time is changed when the status becomes “incoming at”. This is usually around 1 minute before arrival at a station. It’s the reason the arrival time signs in stations count down gradually and then suddenly indicate a train is 1 minute away.
The MTA does publish GTFS schedules hourly, to reflect changes that are not included in the normal 3 to 6 month publishing cycle. Perhaps, this is what you meant.
THye need to connect the 7 to the F along Main Street