Implementing express bus service along Woodhaven Boulevard, from Ozone Park to Elmhurst, would alleviate the traffic congestion that has long plagued one of the busiest, and most dangerous, corridors in the borough, area leaders said of the plan pushed by city Department of Transportation officials during a meeting at JHS 210 in Ozone Park last week.
Calling implementing select bus service – or SBS – on Woodhaven Boulevard, as well as Cross Bay Boulevard, a “big priority,” DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg has said such a plan could make life much safer – and easier – for residents who use the corridor that is time and again named one of the most dangerous spots for pedestrians in Queens. City officials kicked off their public meetings on the proposal at JHS 210 last Wednesday, during which they said they have a short-term plan to implement targeted bus lanes and a long-term proposal of installing SBS.
According to a plan presented at the meeting, the city aims to dedicate one lane for buses and right turns from Metropolitan Avenue to Eliot Avenue along Woodhaven Boulevard from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. Additionally, officials said they would like to install a curbside bus lane northbound approaching Liberty Avenue and southbound approaching Rockaway Boulevard, which would also be in effect 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Parking would still be allowed in the curbside lanes when they are not in effect.
29 comments:
The thirty thousand weekday users of this corridor will appreciate the improvement.
I have an idea: revive the LIRR Rockaway Line. It runs parallel to Woodhaven Boulevard.
I have an idea-- NOT the Rockaway Line. No reason to greatly burden Rego Park homeowners to accommodate people who moved to FAR Rockaway, presumably with their eyes open.
This is the least expensive, best alternative to providing a faster commute. People need to stop whining about a historic rail line which no longer exists. Can't revive something if it's dead and buried.
I gotta be honest, I don't think this will make commuting along Woodhaven much faster. The traffic is the main problem.
The buses would get their own dedicated lane during rush hours. If you don't think this will make it faster, you must never have taken an express bus into the city in the morning. It's fast.
If the buses get their own lane, I'm all for it. As for the LIRR Rockaway Line- either build a noise wall or underground beneath the right-of-way. Noise problem solved.
Be careful what you wish for. They will take away a traffic lane for a bus lane. Once you loose a traffic or parking lane its hard to get it back. Traffic will be even more congested so a few buses can have an empty lane to use.
If you want an example of how its a bad idea look at the Nostrand Av & Rogers Av Bus Lanes recently installed in Brooklyn. A traffic lane was taken away for a bus lane. Traffic is always backed up now, and is much worse than it was prior to the bus lane.
You want real transportation solutions, build new subway lines, build larger capacity roadways, stop the nonsense of taking the traffic lanes away for bus and bike lanes, it is a complete waste.
The idea of public transportation is to get people OUT of their cars, so the dedicated bus should result in fewer cars on the roadway. But that only works if people leave their cars at home and use the bus.
The MTA/city will NEVER allocate the billions of dollars it would take to build a new rail line wedged in between the Rego Park homes or the billions MORE to build UNDER the narrow embankment. Give it a rest already! It's not happening. And it seems like you guys will never get out of your personal automobiles to use public transportation anyway, so what it is the point?
If Woodhaven Blvd were in L.A., Chicago, Boston, or Atlanta, the traffic and safety issues would have been addressed and resolved in no time. Shame on NYC representatives for dragging their feet on this for decades!!! The same goes for the abandoned LIRR Rockaway rail spur, the World's Fair Pavilion, Queens Blvd, and so on.
For shame!!!
There are just too many people in this city.......as far as building any new subways ....where does the$$$$$ come from?
'stop the nonsense of taking the traffic lanes away for bus and bike lanes, it is a complete waste.'
A bus lane can carry more people than a general traffic lane. The current buses on Woodhaven already carry more than thirty thousand people per day. They are receiving no more than one third of the available roadway space. Does each of the general traffic lanes carry as many people as there are already riding buses on this corridor?
'build larger capacity roadways'
You want to destroy people's houses so more people can live far away and drive through their neighborhood? How is that equitable?
'And it seems like you guys will never get out of your personal automobiles to use public transportation anyway, so what it is the point?'
More efficiently using available roadway space for surface transit - buses or light rail - reduces the available space for cars. Building a new right of way does not.
'The MTA/city will NEVER allocate the billions of dollars it would take to build a new rail line wedged in between the Rego Park homes'
And they probably shouldn't. There are other corridors, such as Utica and Norstrand in Brooklyn, that would carry more people than the rockaway branch. Future phases or SAS too.
The only reason the rockaway line would be worth building is if the existing embankment is in good enough condition that the line can be built there for a relative bargain, so that even though it would carry fewer people the cost per rider would be lower than other projects. If you don't build it at grade and instead want it underground that potential cost saving disappears and the line will not be built in the next thirty years if ever.
Also, for what it's worth, the line should be able to be built for less than a billion if the structures along the ROW haven't degraded to the point where they'd need to be rebuilt completely in order to support the heavy rail cars that would run along it. If it has, it's probably better to just make it a park assuming it can support that.
"'And it seems like you guys will never get out of your personal automobiles to use public transportation anyway, so what it is the point?'"
Yeah I just can't wait to take 3 buses and walk a few miles from my house in College Point, Queens to work in the middle of Brooklyn every day, so that I can have a 3 hour commute jammed into a bus with every illegal screaming in a phone in every language but English and coughing and sneezing all over me.
'Yeah I just can't wait to take 3 buses and walk a few miles from my house in College Point, Queens to work in the middle of Brooklyn every day'
Maybe you should get a place that is more convenient to commute to work.
Or maybe he should live where he enjoys living and the MTA should improve transit service in the borough instead of cutting it all the time.
Plus, who moves to where they work when work is not guaranteed anymore? Then you'd have to move again.
'the MTA should improve transit service in the borough instead of cutting it all the time.'
Running more buses on low demand routes means fewer buses on high demand routes unless you want to raise fares/taxes. And if you want more rapid transit instead of surface transit you need to clear out a lot of low density areas and build higher density to allow for such transit to be feasible.
If you live in a low density area, accept that you will have poor transit, especially if your destination isn't Manhattan, and that your transportation mode uses available road space inefficiently, and there is the possibility that the city will decide to make more efficient use of that roadway space - say by putting bus lanes.
'Plus, who moves to where they work when work is not guaranteed anymore? Then you'd have to move again.'
If you live somewhere with good transit access, you have more jobs that you can commute to than if you live somewhere that has poor transit options.
Your arguments sound good on paper, however, living on top of a subway station is not affordable for most New Yorkers and it's nice to say living by one increases your ability to commute, but not all lines go where the jobs you may be offered go. You have the mindset of someone who thinks that everyone works in downtown or midtown. Flushing is a job hub, especially for healthcare, but try getting there from Ridgewood, which has excellent transportation. It will take you more than an hour on a bus that crawls along at 5mph. Moving to Flushing is not feasible, especially if your next job is at Brooklyn Hospital. Our transportation system needs a complete overhaul, but rather than do that, the MTA would rather just cut bus service and the. Tell people they should be taking the bus. They eliminated the bus on Little Neck Parkway because "no one took it" then restored it a year later. And taxes and fares will increase regardless.
P.S. They aren't building subways in Queens in our lifetimes, so buses are all we got across all 13 miles.
"Or maybe he should live where he enjoys living and the MTA should improve transit service in the borough instead of cutting it all the time."
I'm surprised at you, Crappy. That's not how the world works, not any part of it. But I guess you can "live where you want" and be disgruntled for the rest of your life, waiting for the world to accommodate your choice. Meanwhile, I've never even interviewed for a job without considering how I would get to it, as a non-driver. That is as an important consideration as anything else.
Key words being "as a non driver". If people are fine with driving, then who are you to judge because you decided your job was the most important aspect of your life and that everything else you do will accommodate that? The point is more people will take public transport if it improves. The MTA has no money to improve it.
'The point is more people will take public transport if it improves.'
Transit is only viable on well traveled corridors. The growth of outside CBD job centers will allow for more transit to serve them. Heavy rail subway is major over kill for most corridors. Improved surface transit is not. But then you deal with the inevitable opposition from every current user of the limited public roadway space that will potentially lose out if they put in a transit lane. Even the ones who will benefit are uneasy about supporting anything, especially small businesses. If they are in business now, any change introduces risk, and that's not something they will jump to support. But even with improved transit, many low density neighborhoods in the city will have to upzone to support transit, or continue to be served poorly by it.
'The MTA has no money to improve it.'
The state has slashed funding significantly the last decade, forcing the MTA to take on debt to continue to work towards bringing the system to a state of good repair. Cuomo will push for a new bridge for car drivers in the suburbs, and talks about new highways for those in the far north, but just continues to steal from the transit users in the city. Don't let anyone forget that.
"If people are fine with driving, then who are you to judge..."
Because operation of private cars creates extensive problems for everyone else in the city. And usually because someone wants a bigger house with a yard instead of a small apartment where transit options are more plentiful, or at least more viable, especially for travel to secondary job centers outside of Manhattan. Their mobility comes at the expense of everyone else.
People tend to live where they can afford to live, or where they grew up, or for a number of other reasons. Cars and the people driving them are not the enemy, folks. Cars help people get around. There are many "well traveled" corridors in areas where there are no subway lines and the buses run like crap. So please stop whining about cars and offer a real solution other than that everyone should move near a subway.
Once upon a time, we built the infrastructure, like the 7 train, and then development followed along it. Now city planning in this city is a complete joke. We have 100+ year old subway lines and slow as crap bus service and we have fools telling us we should love what we have and live with it. How about lobbying for more transit instead of yelling at people to get out of their cars? not everyone is going to Manhattan. Try getting to Bay Ridge by subway from Queens. "But the R train goes right there!" Yeah, in 2 1/2 hours.
Time for the car haters to understand that bus service is impractical not just in small pockets of Queens, but in MOST of Queens. Getting from one part of Queens to another can take up to 3 transfers. It's ridiculous, and until that changes, people are going to drive.
'Once upon a time, we built the infrastructure, like the 7 train, and then development followed along it. Now city planning in this city is a complete joke.'
Yes and then the government built road networks and development followed along it. Now we have a large number of suburbanites (in the city and outside it) who live somewhere where transit is nonviable, especially for non Manhattan trips.
There aren't many options. One, destroy more inner city neighborhoods to build more highways, larger arterials and parking lots so people can live far away and drive themselves to work. This is the approach taken by most other old cities in the country. Two, don't bulldoze anything in the inner city and have the mess there is today. Traffic is awful, demand for better transit is taking road space from cars and giving it to buses, potentially leading to longer commutes for those who live in communities that transit can't serve well. Parking gets harder all the time as garages and parking lots are replaced with housing and offices, and more people living in the transit rich parts of the city mean a larger constituency demanding city infrastructure to favor them, meaning more bus lanes, more bike lanes, more pedestrian plazas, less on street parking and fewer general traffic lanes. Or three, radically alter the character of the suburban neighborhoods by increasing density and introducing retail and other jobs, both to reduce the need for trips outside of the neighborhood for groceries, clothing, restaurants etc...and to make the neighborhood a destination, not just a source of people so that good transit would become viable. (if a bus can run full both directions you can better spread out the fixed costs that come with operating it than if you only run it twice a day, once in the morning and going the other way in the evening. That's why even though express buses charge more and might run full, they lose much more per rider than local buses, and so without significantly increasing taxes to better fund the MTA, cannot be scaled up all that much.)
Am I missing any other options? I would greatly appreciate feedback on this.
SBS sucks. Instead of putting another guy in to collect the fare tickets, they instead got roving cops giving out tickets for fare-beaters? What about when the machine don't work? And have you ever seen them instructions? It takes for ever to figure out how to use it. The original SBS idea came from Brazil, where passengers wait inside a bus-like tube once they pay up. This is a cheap imitation.
Here is is, the original idea behind SBS: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Bus_Stops_2_curitiba_brasil.jpg
"Not the Rockaway Line. No reason to greatly burden Rego Park homeowners to accomodate people who moved to Far Rockaway, presumably with their eyes open."
Poor little, Rego Park NIMBYs. Who told them to move adjacent to a rail line? Then they depend on their "hero," City Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz, to continue blocking reactivation. What a sham! All they had to do was visit their library or google "Rockaway Beach Branch," and they would have discovered that the train returning was a possibility.
The Rockaway Beach Branch would help not only Rockaway, but EVERY neighborhood along the right-of-way. I'm referring to Broad Channel, Howard Beach, Ozone Park, Woodhaven, Richmond Hill, and, YES, even Forest Hills/Rego Park!
At one time, it was approxiamtely a 15 minute commute to Penn Station from Rego Park and 20 minutes from the Parkside (Metropolitan Ave.) station.
If an LIRR or subway train is too "scary" for the NIMBYs, than perhaps a bus or light rail could be run along the right-of-way.
TENS of THOUSANDS of NYC residents suffer MISERABLE DAILY commutes because a few selfish NIMBYs illegally extended their backyards close/onto the right-of-way.
Ever been to 39th Ave. in Bayside between the Clearview and Francis Lewis Blvd? The LIRR runs RIGHT BEHIND homes.
Queens is a growing borough and needs TRANSIT!
Reactivate the Rockaway Beach Branch!
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