It's No Teleporter, But the Mayor-Supported Streetcar Is Going to Be a Game Changer
Bummed the L train might not run for a year? Cursing the G train’s spotty service? The Mayor finally has some good transit news — he’s backing the Brooklyn Queens Connector, a high-profile proposal for a 16-mile waterfront streetcar line running from Sunset Park to Astoria. If built, it will be a transportation breakthrough for Brooklyn. But…
Photo of Mayor Bill de Blasio by Kevin Case via Wikipedia. Rendering from Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector via NYT
Bummed the L train might not run for a year? Cursing the G train’s spotty service? The Mayor finally has some good transit news — he’s backing the Brooklyn Queens Connector, a high-profile proposal for a 16-mile waterfront streetcar line running from Sunset Park to Astoria.
If built, it will be a transportation breakthrough for Brooklyn. But hold onto your Metrocards, the trek to streetcar utopia won’t happen overnight.
Running on tracks embedded along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront, the planned streetcar route would travel at 12 miles an hour and connect roughly a dozen different neighborhoods. The speed is only slightly faster than the average bicycle, but a 27-minute journey from Greenpoint to Dumbo is still faster than today’s mass transit options, the New York Times points out.
When we wrote about the plan for the Brooklyn Queens Connector last month, the reader reaction was supportive, if tempered by understandable city cynicism:
“I think this is pie-in-the-sky dreaming,” wrote one commenter who added, “though I’d really love this, as it’d be very convenient, and would take the pressure off the pedestrian surges going into Brooklyn Bridge Park.”
There have been a number of Brooklyn streetcar plans over the years as other major cities like Portland and Atlanta successfully adopted them. This particular waterfront route was first concocted more than a decade ago by urban planner Alex Garvin. Streetcar enthusiast and Midwood resident Arthur Melnick has also been pushing this idea for more than a decade, to no avail.
But with de Blasio’s backing and the support of a number of high-profile (and wealthy) New Yorkers — including Two Trees’ Jed Walentas — this latest proposal might not be so outlandish after all.
It speaks to the recent transformation of Brooklyn — and the city. People want to work near where they live — as the recent surge in Brooklyn office developments shows.
For someone living in Wallabout and working in Sunset Park, the streetcar would have a significant impact on commute time. And it certainly will knit together the burgeoning workspace developments along the route — Industry City, Dumbo Heights, and the Navy Yard — with expanding residential areas in Red Hook, Downtown Brooklyn, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Long Island City.
This can only be good for real estate values in those areas — not to mention the Mayor’s approval ratings. The timeline, however, might put a damper on even the most enthusiastic cheering.
Even if the plan makes it through the community review process and secures much-needed funding (the projected cost of the streetcar increased from $1.7 billion to $2.5 billion just over the past month), construction won’t start until 2019. And the streetcar wouldn’t begin taking riders until sometime around 2024, according to the Times.
If streetcar construction is anything like the construction of other mega-projects, we can probably tack on another two or 10Â extra years.
Sorry, L Train riders, the streetcar won’t arrive in time to save you. But the prospect brings more light at the end of the tunnel.
[Source: NYT]
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And…. DeBlasio should totally refocus his energies on the more pressing concerns of this City- homeless, housing, existing infrastructure, to name just a few. He has literally done nothing since he was elected- it’s embarrassing and just pathetic.
I’m confused and not in the know enough on this but would this run along Front Street in Dumbo and York Street as well, according to the map? How would it fit on the existing street? I like the idea of opening up Red Hook and the Navy Yard more to folks.
Basically, if you live near the water and would use this, you’re going to be in favour of this. If you dont, you probably see it as a waste of money. Personally, I’d love to see it happen.
why not have a more extensive ferry system along this same waterfront route? all you would need is boats and piers.
Mostly agree, but with a twist that expanding transportation options to further areas of town and surrounding burbs should be the priority. I’m very much pro more and better transport, but would like to highlight the contradictory logic at play here: if priority is still to expand available housing and especially affordable housing, one doesn’t do “good for real estate values” in areas of already highest current and prospective values while not doing anything for expanding/improving transport is areas with lower/underdeveloped real estate values.
That is the theory nationally. In New York City the fact of the matter is the bus routes are fairly fixed and no neighborhood is ever going to have their bus service suddenly disappear.
i am thinking about it, and i think this is a bad idea. there are far more pressing transportation and infrastructure issues that this $2.5b could be spent on.
no comment on “relentlessly negative” you clearly have made up your mind on the issue.
The G does not make Red Hook accessible. This would also help alleviate what is going to be tremendous strain on the F/G when development in Red Hook and Gowanus really gets going, which seems inevitable at this point. This seems to run closer to the Navy Yard, which is being built up. The Williamsburg waterfront is not particular close to the Metropolitan G stop. It’s also another option for the hoards of people who will be moving to Greenpoint with all of those developments – reliance on the G and nothing else there is a legitimate concern.
This can be done well, as Slopefarm points out. Something really needs to be done about transportation in Brooklyn with all of the development that is happening, and this seems far more feasible than other solutions.
NYC sure is known for its traffic management solutions! LOL