Public Presentation for the QueensWay Is Now Accessible Online
Friends of the QueensWay held three different public workshops this month examining the feasibility of the proposed park along a 3.5-mile former rail line running through Forest Hills, Rego Park, Woodhaven, Richmond Hill, and Ozone Park. The meetings also served as an outlet for community members, business owners and interested individuals to share ideas on…
Friends of the QueensWay held three different public workshops this month examining the feasibility of the proposed park along a 3.5-mile former rail line running through Forest Hills, Rego Park, Woodhaven, Richmond Hill, and Ozone Park. The meetings also served as an outlet for community members, business owners and interested individuals to share ideas on the potential design and programming. The public presentation is now online, and documentation from the workshops and community input will be posted soon. The presentation does a good job outlining the process, the project timeline and potential uses for the space. There will be more opportunities for community discussion early in the new year.
From everything I’ve read about the abandoned rail line, restoring the line to active service is not feasible because of the very large cost. There are estimates that it could cost over $1 billion to re-activate the rail line. And that is a huge cost for something that would benefit a relatively small number of people who already have access to public transportation into Manhattan (the A subway line). The prohibitive cost and small number of people who would benefit are probably the main reasons that all prior efforts to re-activate the rail line went nowhere.
So if the rail line is going to be sitting there abandoned,, why not try to turn it into something beautiful and useful for the neighboring communities and all of Queens?
Well-intentioned, but Queens really needs expanded rail service more than anything else. The Queensway effort is misguided – this isn’t Chelsea.