The gentrification trolley that refuses to die

Gothamist

 In 2016, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city would begin working on the Brooklyn Queens Connector, a $2.5 billion streetcar that would trace the waterfronts of the two boroughs from Astoria to Sunset Park. The mayor's announcement came after a group of real estate developers somehow had the same idea, and donated nearly $250,000 to de Blasio's nonprofit, but the mayor assured everyone that the BQX would pay for itself, thanks to rising property values.

A year and many "visioning sessions" later, Sunset Park residents fought to take their neighborhood off the BQX's map, leaked documents and independent reports showed the city's funding scheme to be extremely dubious, the streetcar route was found to be susceptible to serious flooding, and the BQX looked to go the way of the carriage horse ban: a full-throated promise backed by stacks of cash that turned into a whisper in the wind.

But the BQX wasn't dead, just dormant. The de Blasio administration released a new plan for the streetcar in 2018 with a shorter, 11-mile route from Astoria to Red Hook and a bigger price tag, $2.7 billion.

This week the city's Economic Development Corporation and Department of Transportation pledged to start presenting their case to the public early next month, with the goal of coming up with a final design by 2023, and finishing construction in 2029—eight years after Mayor de Blasio leaves office.
In the short-term, the city is aiming to get a draft Environmental Impact Statement done by 2021, de Blasio's final year in office.

“From community board presentations and on-the-ground outreach to briefings with elected officials and public workshops, NYCEDC and NYC Department of Transportation are moving forward with a far-reaching process that provides multiple opportunities for feedback prior to the environmental review phase," the city said in a statement.

Hate to say that I told you so, but I told you so.

Update:

Thought this interview with the dope from park slope needed to be included, as the Blaz tells Errol Louis (who hilariously presumed that this was dead) that even though the city is earmarking another 2 billion to get the BQX started, it's going to need federal funding. Surely because everyone in the towns that it will traverse and the district council members are all dead set against it. Just quit it, Bill.

Mayor de Blasio and his EDC, luxury real estate developers and their "friends" still trying to make idiotic and loathed BQX trolley a reality

 NY Daily News

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan for a shiny new streetcar through Brooklyn and Queens took a step forward Wednesday.

The NYC Economic Development Corporation, which also runs NYC Ferry service, announced it approved a contract with a consultant to oversee the environmental review process for the Brooklyn-Queens Connector, or BQX.

The trolley, which was first announced in 2016, looked to be dead in the water last April when Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen questioned whether it was worth its $2.5 billion price tag.

But the city released a revised plan for the BQX in August, which slashed the length of the streetcar's 
route from 16 miles to 11, and inflated its cost to $2.7 billion.

The updated route terminates in Gowanus in the south and Astoria in the north.

The new transit option has garnered a good deal of controversy since it was announced. Like the NYC Ferry, it has raised concerns about gentrification and housing prices.

Friends of the BQX, a real estate-backed nonprofit that has been advocating for the project, praised the progress Wednesday.

“We are pleased with the city's commitment not just to moving the project forward, but to community engagement, which must play a central role,“ said the group’s executive director Jessica Schumer, daughter of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. “As the city grapples with a transit crisis, now is the moment for it to take control of its mass transit destiny and expand access wherever it can.”

The city hopes to have the trolley completed in 2029 — it still hasn’t determined how it will be funded.

Yeah, the headline above is a little bitty bit of editorializing, but I said that this was going to happen regardless. Because what the real estate overlords want, the real estate overlords get. And I don't like it anymore than you do.

A beach grows in Manhattan

 NY Post


The same firm that designed the High Line will soon plan out the borough’s first public beach just a block away — on the 5-acre spit of land jutting off Gansevoort Street in the West Village, The Post has learned.

When the $60 million Gansevoort Peninsula portion of the Hudson River Park Trust’s $900 million park renovation project is completed, after two years of construction, in 2022, it will be the largest single greenspace in the 4-mile-long Hudson River Park, planners said Wednesday.

 The beach and its rocky Hudson River shoreline will be built on Gansevoort Peninsula, which until two years ago was the site of a Department of Sanitation salt storage building. An FDNY fireboat house and dock remain at the site, at least for now.

 The future design will provide direct waterfront access to the public while serving as a protective barrier against flooding and storm surge, trust CEO Madelyn Wils said in a statement.

 The construction money will come from a combination of state, city and private funding, she said, along with $152 million secured by the trust through three air rights sales, she said.

The waterfront will be “unlikely to include swimming access,” said Wils.

Climate change? What climate change?