Monday, January 28, 2008

Stop the Q45!

Dear Crappy,

As "Stop The Q45" committee and residents of Glendale, we are staunchly opposed to the rerouting of the Q45 bus from it's current terminal location at Eliot Ave. to the quiet residential streets of Glendale.

As we have attended numerous meetings with the local community board 5 and property owners over the past two months, we have observed that nothing has been done in terms of stopping the proposals dead in their tracks. Most recently, Norman Silverstein, a current MTA Bus board member, attended the transportation meeting for community board 5. He had showed the members of the board and the residents of Glendale, 6 new proposals for the bus rerouting. Attached to this e-mail are the proposals Mr. Silverstein showed at the meeting as well as the original proposals (and will be happy to forward them to anyone who writes and requests them). We have greatly opposed the 6 original proposals from the MTA back in October and every time we suggest that they turn the bus around in the Shops at Atlas Park, we are quickly cut off and ignored. Why? It is after all owned by the current MTA Chairman and has enough space to make the turn around. The fact that they want to reroute down private residential streets is going to cause numerous quality of life issues for the residents of Glendale.

Finally, we are tired of the MTA thinking that we will not "make noise" and go down without a fight. We are trying to get the word out to every blog, newspaper and television program in our area. We would appreciate you placing this information on the blog as it will help us win the fight!

To let your voice be heard, please contact us at stoptheQ45@aol.com. You can remain anonymous.

Sincerely,
The "Stop the Q45" committee

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Living on the 45 route, I thought to myself the 45 is a short route, it would be nice to have the 45route extend to the Mall. My wife hearing this, expressed her opinion that the 45 if extend will never be ontime as it dependably is to the minute and that no one on the route currently would ever go to Atlas Mall anyway - it would be a wasted trip. She advised I visit Atlas Mall. I did and was shocked at the few people there. Ordinarily, I drop my son off to the Movies and never really ventured in. The place as nice as it looks, is virtually a ghost town. If there are 3 buisnesses that were busy are Borders boos, Chilli resturant and the Movie house. My take is that despite the high quality construction and pleasant layout, they have failed miserably in attracting tenents that appeal to shoppers. My opinion is that the Q45 plan is to save Atlas Mall from itself and the Q45 is not the answer. Reading the post, it seem Atlas itself will not permit buses to cross through the property to turn-around! That's outragious - they want the Q45 but not provide the means to turn -around and instead run through the tiny neigboring street - shattering the little quiet the area has since the Mall opened. The Q45 extention plan is a waste of tax paper money of which would be better of spending on electric or hybrid buses that polute the air in our neighborhoods.

Anonymous said...

What are the NEW proposed routes? I am curious what else they could have come up with. Can you link them to this blog?

I agree that the Q45 bus route should not extend to Atlas Mall. The neighborhood just can't handle it!

Anonymous said...

Maybe the Atlas Mall should pay for a shuttle that brings people there instead of rerouting all the publicly funded buses.

Anonymous said...

letting this bus run up 80th street is a recipe for disaster

when they were building the mall i thought it would create a traffic nightmare but since not too many people visit it i guess not.

80th street is already really crowded and the q29 goes there directly from jackson heights or queens center mall already


chili's? that is garbage food get a real restaurant not some 2000 calorie a plate crap

Anonymous said...

I would like to see it extended--as it would give me better access to the express trains, and Jackson Heights in general.

But what I would really like to see is the parking on Cooper in front of Atlas Park eliminated. I think it would make traffic flow better and safer.

Anonymous said...

Dear anoymous,
We all are free to give our opinions, and I am sure that and 2 other people may need and want to take the extra long route to Jackson Heights. Do you live on the any of the proposed bus routes. I hope so, and I hope they put a bus stop in front of your house. As far as eliminating parking on Cooper Avenue. I would like to see parking eliminated in front of your house. Why should the residents have to pay the price for someone else's greed and wealth. Why don't you ask Mr. Hemmerdinger to provide free parking for his cusatomers. Why don't you ask him to put bus stops in his shopping mall. Why don't you ask him why he is not concerned with the taxpayers in his area. Oh forgot to mention, he won't be paying any taxes for the next 13 or 14 years. Nice 15 year tax abatement.

we are not against providing service to residents. But this proposal is only for the purpose of bringing people to Atlas. There is no reason for it to continue past Atlas Park and be forced down our streets. Our streets are being used for turnaround purposes only. He doesn't want the busses clogging his street, only ours.

Anonymous said...

I'm impressed that the residents of Glendale are finally waking up.
Now that you have some fire in your bellies it's past time to start working against the over development in your community.
When I travel down Myrtle Avenue
and see what's taken the place of Durow's and the cute little Episcopal Church at 71st & Cooper
I could just cry.
So please stay active. The bus is the least of the problems facing your neighborhood.

Anonymous said...

Why don't you ask Mr. Hemmerdinger to provide free parking for his cusatomers?

Here you go - you hit the nail on the head. The Mall charges $3 for parking and worse if you don't have exact change you can't leave the parking lot as the cheapskates refuse to hire folks to collect the $3! Nobody wishes to pay $3 to visit the mall and all look to park locally, clogging up private driveways and congest Cooper Ave with parked cars. You would think Atlas would open the gates to park free and allow buses to run through the property to turn around to attract customers. The truth is the residential blocks were factored in to absorb us cheapies for free parking by Atlas and that even if the Q45 were extended it would not attract even 2 people to go to a Mall which has few stores opened and in the middle of nowhere. I predict the Mall will cease to exist by spring 2009. It is bankrupt in so many ways - a truly flawed project of un-precedented stupidity.

Anonymous said...

Solution: A Chinese bus Co with very nice white buses stops between 80th Street and 69th Street poaching fares at each stop of the 45 along this section. Why doesn't Atlas Mall not hire this Co to bring people to Atlas Mall as a free shuttle?

Queens Crapper said...

Why buy the bus when you can have daddy reroute the buses for free?

Anonymous said...

Why buy the bus when you can have daddy reroute the buses for free?

Crappy this is why your the best!

Anonymous said...

how about our elected officials. this is definately a quality of life issue. What do they think and what have they done????????????????

Anonymous said...

Here is some information for those who are interested. The MTA has come with 6 more proposals that would affect the areas of cooper ave., 73 Pl. 71 st etc.

Our group will be spreading the word on sat at 9:30 Am. We have also started a petition. Please contact us at stoptheQ45@aol.com if you would like to carry a petition and or help with flyers on Sat morning. We do want to alert our friends in MV that if this does go through, there will be 2 bus lines on 80th St from Furmanville to Metro and then it will become 3 bus lines from Metro to Cooper. Heaven help us all!

Stop the Q45 said...

For those of you how don't already know the routs for the MTA's 12 proposals, contact STOPTHEQ45@aol.com and request copies of the routes.

You can also request copies of petitions so that you can get signatures from your neighbors so that they can become involved. How many property owners, residents and extended family members know which streets will be affected??

How many New York City TAX PAYERS know that the MTA is trying it extent service that has not been requested by anyone with the rider ship??? How many New York City TAX PAYERS know that the Q29 already connects Jackson Hts. to Glendale??? How is it that the MTA's Fulton is Out-of-Funds, but the costs associated with extending the Q45 are somehow not a factor???

If the MTA continues to add redundant, un-requested bus service in Queens County, will the residents and business owners of Queens County be faced with "Congestion Pricing" Taxes and penalties similar to what Manhattan residents are now facing????

The MTA should be streamlining services and removing redundancies, not creating them to service a business entity situated between a cemetery and some rail road tracks. The developers neglected the three "L"'s and are now trying to have the Tax Payers fund the redistribution of the residents of Queens County.

It would have been easier just to seek out new light manufacturing companies to build that sector of the economy just as other states are doing.