Grant Jump-Starts Plans for Abandoned Rail in Queens
I have to say the amount of coverage of this in today's Wall St. Journal caught me by surprise. The chances of it happening have always seemed like such a longshot to me just because if it happened it would be so awesome and how often do awesome things happen?
True, this grant is just for a study. It doesn't mean it's actually going to happen. But put it together with the Journal's fantastic coverage of the possibility and I am suddenly thinking this just might come together.
There is one part of the article today which I found really interesting and which I am so glad they point out, the part when they talk about how so much of the public park space in Queens is virtually impossible to get to on foot, unless you are brave enough to trek across busy highways. This Queensway would be a solution to that, giving easier access by foot to Forest Park, for example. That alone is why I truly hope this project succeeds.
From the article:
Queens enjoys an image as a bucolic borough where even neighborhood names evoke a pastoral pride: Fresh Meadows, Woodside, Floral Park. The streets of Sunnyside Gardens and Forest Hills are dotted with small private gardens.
But the borough ranks third out of five for parkland per resident, and much of the green space—particularly Forest Park and Flushing Meadows Corona Park—can't be reached by pedestrians who are unwilling to cross busy roadways in what can amount to an act of bravery.
As cool as that sounds in theory, I'd much rather see the old LIRR Rockaway Branch get cleaned up and reactivated as a part of the subway system. The G is the only way we can easily get to Brooklyn right now, and a subway along the Rockaway Branch would connect to the J and A lines and make Brooklyn WAY more accessible to us (without otherwise having to make a ridiculously protracted circuit through Manhattan). The Rockaways would also open up significantly (once the damage from Sandy is repaired, of course).
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