http://ltvsquad.com/2015/10/22/disas...the-mall-plan/
Published on: October 22nd, 2015 | Last updated: October 29, 2015 Written by: Ray Cevoli
There have been some recent news stories about the NYC city council trying to plan some better transit options around NYC – one of those ideas is to revive passenger train service along the ‘Lower Montauk’ tracks through Queens.
The idea
City councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley is pushing for a light rail train that would connect a mall in Glendale to LIC.
I couldn’t find an actual map of her idea online (is it just me or is that a not a huge red flag?), so I drew one up myself. It contains a few other items that we’ll discuss below.
Q: What is the ‘Lower Montauk’? What is it’s history?
A: This route was once a vital part of LIRR service to long island. It runs from LIC to Jamaica station, where it meets up with the main line and Atlantic avenue branches.
There is an excellent video outlining this route’s history to be found on youtube – I highly recommend it.
Q: When did passenger train service end?
A: This route had rush-hour only passenger service that was discontinued in 1998.
Q: Why did the LIRR stop running passenger trains here?
A: Service was discontinued for 2 reasons: 1) At the time, ridership was only 1 or 2 passengers per stop. and 2) the federal government required the MTA to have ‘high level’ platforms that are handicap accessible (the ADA requirements). The cost of upgrading these stations was estimated at the time to be somewhere between $260,000 to $2.25 million per station. The cost for so few riders just plain didn’t make sense at the time. Though perhaps if the money was spent, more people would have know there were stations here?
Nearly all of the stops along this route were barely recognizable as stations. Most were dirt patches next to the tracks, maybe with a station sign on them. There were no ticket vending machines, much less a concrete pad to stand on. As one of the regular commuters from Glendale stated at the time: “You don’t realize how many people walk by and say, ‘There’s a station here?””
The train service here was also very limited – to rush hour only trains and only in one direction (towards LIC in the morning, and the reverse towards Long Island in the evening).
The lack of station infrastructure combined with extremely limited service handicapped this route from being useful to most commuters. There was also a reported fear back in the 1970s against having rapid transit on this route. Indeed, one concept for the 63rd street tunnel was to run the F train down along these tracks. I’ve heard rumors that there were actual protests against this plan by those living near the tracks, lead by Geraldine Ferraro. (see the comment by Larry Littlefield for here reference – this was before my time, so I’ll have to research it more – by all means comment below if you were around back then and can add to this).
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Let’s back up though and look at Crowley’s actual plan:
“Crowley proposes that the line would start at The Shops at Atlas Park, where there are 1,300 parking spaces available, with stops heading west, terminating at the Hunterspoint Avenue LIRR stop, which has a train depot to store and turn trains around.”
Let’s go to the maps again:
She is proposing to run trains only from Atlas Park to… Hunterspoint Ave? Is Crowley really proposing that trains run down to LIC yard, then back up to Hunterspoint Avenue? What would the point of that be? Does she know that there is no other physical connection to route trains on the Lower Montauk tracks to Hunterspoint Avenue?
Just look at the map and the photo above of the Montauk Cutoff – the only way to get a train from Glendale to Hunterspoint Avenue station is to go into the yard at LIC and reverse back to Hunterspoint. This isn’t just a misprint – other publications have stated Hunterspoint would be the end station at end of the line in LIC – NOT the existing LIRR LIC station located next to Borden avenue.
How can anyone take her idea seriously if she doesn’t know this?
The Mall Terminal: Cronyism at its worst
Also – why terminate the route at a mall? It doesn’t service the potential ridership from Jamaica and the old Richmond Hill station at all. This is literally building a rail line to nowhere.
Of course, there is a good reason in Crowley’s mind to go to the mall: Half of the Atlas property is owned by Gina Argento-Ciafone, who is a Crowley-Crony. This is NYC politics afterall – where some real estate developer or another is always looking to the government for schemes to increase the value of their holdings.
The mall half of Atlas Park is owned by Macerich, a huge company that owns many malls across the USA. I’m sure they’d love to cash in on the 1300 parking spots they have available for rent. $200 a month parking passes would be a quarter of a million dollars in revenue every month. Or maybe Gina would build one huge parking lot and get the cash instead?
Thus, the only reason for terminating this proposed light rail line at Atlas Park is money for cronyism.
Sadly, it doesn’t just end there:
Crowley doesn’t know who currently dispatches these tracks
Just read this gem of a quote: “Crowley responded by saying that companies are looking to increase the amount of freight, and if the community does not recognize this track as a benefit then it might be taken over for freight transportation.”
Again, Crowley doesn’t know what is happening along these tracks. The LIRR has given full operational control over these tracks to the freight railway. (For there part, the freight operator, New York & Atlantic railway – has publicly stated that all of this is an issue for the MTA to sort out, under the expectation that the federally protected interstate commerce inherit in rail freight operates will not be infringed upon).
But wait, it gets even worse: (Read more....)
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