Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Solving subway flooding

MTA Considers Ways To Prevent Future Subway Flooding
NY1

After experiencing a number of catastrophic floods, the MTA is looking into building an underground reservoir in Queens to help keep the system dry.

The MTA is considering buying land near the flood-prone Parsons Boulevard station in Jamaica. Underground holding tanks would store water diverted from the subway tunnels.

Floods on the F line can effect trains on the E, R and V lines along Queens Boulevard. Those lines were among many that were crippled back in August by heavy rains.

NYC Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges says the water storage plan is still in its early stages and the agency is still working to identify available property.

Photo from Gothamist

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wouldn't a reasonable moratorium
on over development
(which is the root cause of flooding etc.)
solve the problem better and quicker
with less cost to us taxpayers ?

Oh... but that would prevent developers
from over building and thus put a large crimp
in their pipeline of campaign contributions
that flow so efficiently to politicians
who return the favor by approving more over development!

Anonymous said...

Flooding in Penn Station... and that's supposed to be the greatest subway system in the world, yeah right.

Anonymous said...

"Wouldn't a reasonable moratorium
on over development ... "
------------

Why would the city do that when community groups write stuff like this underminding what what the rest of us are doing:

---------------
Build more rental housing near transit. NYC is facing tremendous growth pressures, and is expected to add 900,000 new residents by 2030. In our part of Queens, we are seeing an accelerating pattern of small houses being torn down and replaced with apartment buildings in areas that are inaccessable to transit and virtually require automobile ownership. I'd argue that this trend will lead to a very congested, ugly future for our neighborhood. Instead, I would advocate building up the areas most accessible to transit -- along Broadway and Roosevelt Avenues -- to build higher-density apartment buildings that can meet the demand for rental housing.
----------

Hey, boys! Just because the mayor has a hairbrained idea to add a million people, don't step up to the plate and say 'ok, lets add our share of 50,000.'

Hey bright bulb. The whole world is not Elmhurst. Just shut up, sit down, and take a look at what EVERYONE ELSE is doing.
---------------

For the full flava, read the link.

http://www.jacksonheightslife.com/community/index.php?topic=81.0

Anonymous said...

Oh, you are being too harsh.

Yes, the people that know what is going on (and keeping development out of their communities - even if for a short while) are being short sighted.

They think that by saying nothing and letting good intentioned people like these naive people in Jackson Heights write this, they will push the problems out of their community.

But things will boomerang anyway.
Even Vicky in Bayside can dimly understand that putting a few 100,000 between her and city might make some problems - for her.

We have to educate each other.

Anonymous said...

Clearly, to get ahead of the curve on this problem, we need to develop a subway system which can run completely underwater. Don't they already have something like that at Disney or Six Flags? Perhaps we can pay to have a dozen or so mermaids brought up from Weeki Wachee Springs to instruct us in the fine art of deep breathing.

Anonymous said...

The subway system that runs through Penn Station is among the oldest sections of subway in NYC and is more than 100 years old at this point. As far-sighted as its designers were, there was only so much development they could have anticipated. I would also be curious about the rainfall patterns of recent years compared to that time. It certainly seems as if we have had more summer storms that produce a lot of rain in a very short time.

That's not to excuse the overdevelopment in areas of NYC including Queens. But the subway system isn't totally at fault here.