The Daily News today features a story about a group of Queens residents called the Rockaway Beach Branch Greenway Committee who want to see the old abandoned Rockaway LIRR route turned into a park just like the High Line in Manhattan. A feasibility study is in the works but is already meeting some resistance from community boards.
Rocky path to building cycle track
Can't we hear what the study says before we make up our minds?
The same article also mentions the Sunnyside Gardens landmarking controversy and says that Councilman Eric Gioia "lives on the outskirts of the Gardens." Is that what he told you, Nick and Don? No, he left the neighborhood a year ago for a luxury high rise apartment along the LIC waterfront.
Gioia provided a Friday morning funny: He said he believes there is broad agreement that the community does not "want to see our neighborhood overrun by overdevelopment and greedy developers who knock down small houses and build things that are out of character with the neighborhood." If he loses his next election, he can still make a living doing standup at Caroline's.
14 comments:
The new park: city is going to build it and maintain it and the community is going to enjoy it ... oh wait ... this is Queens. Sorry, out here we are used to such poor services that it will look like Flushing meadows before it’s done.
Of course, we are used to all that tax money being spent on a dizzying merry-go-round of dubious projects as the machine chases votes or perhaps spent on an endless series of development projects that intends to make each community an attraction to developers not unlike pieces of meat in a butcher shop.
It takes a little training for your typical community board to understand that the city can provide real infrastructure improvements for quality of life. Maybe a mandatory orientation by attending some community board meetings in Manhattan?
As a former Rego park resident, I feel that the abandoned ROW should be restored as a railway line, easing congestion on Woodhaven Boulevard.
It is possible to have both a park and a restored rail line by following the examples of Park Avenue and Riverside Park- both built on top of active railway trenches.
Of course both of these examples are in Manhattan, such an ambitious project would never be approved for Queens!
Well it might be approved now that the public has a real forum to make their desires known like Queens Crap. If more and more people are aware of places like this, the public image sensitive elites will respond to pressure.
Pure and simple.
So spread the word!!
A Queens "High Line" type park? Gimme a break! They must all be "high'"on drugs! Or is it too much salt air! With all the other real preservation priorities that have gone with the wind in Queens (Trylon Theater, Hacket Bldg. etc.) this is how government decides to waste taxpayers' money? Oh, wait a minute folks, this is intended to augment future projects like, "Arverne By The Sea". Too much "underutuilizesd land" left in the Rockaways that's ripe for overdevelopment. Now, wouldn't a nice "greenway" be the right touch. You pigs!
I'd love to see a bike path built there. Many studies have shown that this is exactly the right kind of thing to build in order to make a viable, livable community. All over the country, and in most of New York, greenways have had great results on quality of life. And, don't forget, property values.....
All the open land has already been overdeveloped so now we have no choice but to create park land out of railroad tracks. Sad.
No, we still have our waterfront and the Sunnyside Railyards and our anger.
The possibilities are endless.
You get the borough you deserve. Nobody in queens wants a bike path, really. Queens likes cars. big cars. It's all about cars in Queens. Largest percentage of drivers into manhattan come from queens. People in Rego Park drive to the Queens Mall, for god's sake. If Robert Moses were still alive, he'd find a welcome home in Queens. THe high line in Chelsea? That's fancy-dan manhattan froufrou. That's not for Queens, where real folks drive real cars on eight lane roads from neighborhood to neighborhood and love doing so. absolutely love it.
Just another "corridor" to get "mugged" in! Maybe they'll steal your 12 speed! Will the city charge a toll to use the "bike path"? Why not! How else are they going to have the funds to to provide safety patrols! Aren't there more important issues to discuss? Really!
No one wants a bike path? They just spent MILLIONS of YOUR tax dollars last year for a bike path to follow the senic route of Vernon and 20th Avenue (well its not a path really, just a line about three feet from the curb for the bikes to stay in -- I guess it was a special paint for them to spend that kind of money).
You can imagine why that was spent for that corridor, and yes, you are right, its not for the bikes.
Please, the city has no problem spending $150 million on the High Line and no one is questioning how it will be policed. The funny thing is, the deal may be threatened. That pesky MTA!
If Dennis Gallagher can pull some money from Manhattan's high priced "High Line" project and steer some of it to Queens and buy the endangered historic St. Saviour's site for Maspeth to use for new parkland he'll come out a hero! Come on Dennis, talk to Bloomberg. You're both Republicans and see what you can do for us. We'll love you for it and we will never forget it! And if there's any money left over, what the hell, I'll cave in and go for that bike path in the Rockaways. After all it's in Queens and I don't want to spoil anybody's party.
(well its not a path really, just a line about three feet from the curb for the bikes to stay in -- I guess it was a special paint for them to spend that kind of money).
No it is not for bikes to stay in...it is for cars to stay OUT of. Check out www.streetsblog.org
It is my opinion that the old Rockaway branch should have been utilized for what it was originally designed for. This could easily have been revitalized into a true one seat ride from JFK to Manhattan. Since this did not occur and, instead, the multi million dollar Airtrain boondoggle was constructed (in turn destroying the quality of life in an already congested part of Queens)we should now use it for the alternative transportation purpose of cycling. I routinely give up the use of my car when the weather permits me to do so but the hassle of trying to navigate the city's streets among all the ill attentative, cell phone using, speeding, vehicle users really makes me go back to the confines of my own vehicle.
Cars are the idolatry in Queens because there are few safe and convenient alternatives.
Post a Comment