Today’s Headlines

Drivers can be so narrow-minded and egocentric that their stubbornness and defensiveness defeats ideas that would actually benefit them. I guess part of the trouble is that traffic operates in ways that are counter-intuitive. Dan Tubridy needs to realize that if higher taxes pay for mass transit to be improved significantly, that will take more cars off the road and make it easier for him to drive. Duh. The point is to keep drivers off the rode who don’t need to drive but have alternatives, and make those alternatives more attractive. Better transportation options benefit everyone and we all should pay for them.

Seriously, though, a little off-topic from rescinding these toll rebates, but more related to East River Tolls and Congestion Pricing – the City needs to be way more intelligent about the naming and marketing of these ideas. They should spend a little more time thinking about that. “Congestion” and “Pricing” – two negatives. “East River” and “Tolls” – two negatives for most people (some may have positive feelings when they hear “East River”). “Peak Rate” and “Parking” – at least two sources of anxiety if not two full negatives. It is very important that the names of these programs have words with positive connotations and that better highlight the beneficial impacts in order for people to support them. For instance, instead of “Congestion Pricing”, howabout something like “Clean Air Pass” or “Mobility Source” or “Transit Choice”. Instead of “East River Tolls,” call it “Traffic Reduction Program”. Instead of “Peak Rate Parking” call it “Open Spaces Plan” or “Clear Curbs” or something like that. Think about drug titles – what if Celebrex was named “Joint Pain Pill” or if Abilify was called “Mental Disorder Treatment?” Too many of these great ideas have names that focus on the negative aspects of the programs and many people are feeling threatened where they could be feeling accommodated. It really makes a big difference.

“We will ask all the drivers: ‘When you pick-up or drop-off our children, put your bus in an angle, block the entire street, wait ’til the parent gets to the door of the bus, [and] slowly — very slowly — take your child off or put it on the bus, [and] don’t rush to get back on the sidewalk,’” said Abraham, who added that the protests would occur every morning from 8–10 am and 4–7 pm and would be accompanied by rallies.

“One day the traffic will be backed up all the way to Long Island City to [the] Department of Transportation Headquarters, traffic will come to a halt,” he said.

Which begs the question… how is this day different from any other day?

Re: Larry’s comment:
Rockaway contains vast tracts of undeveloped and underdeveloped land, which could be an excellent place to build new housing – IF the subway line remains. Of course, the new housing would mean more customers for the subway and more property taxes for the city.

A New Urbanist development is already being built on part of the 310 acres of land in the Rockaways that were abandoned in the 1970s – the largest single tract of abandoned urban land in the nation, larger than anything in the south Bronx. I don’t think we should cut off subway service and leave this land (and other land in the Rockaways) vacant and abandoned for the indefinite future.

Incidentally, I just read a history of the decline of the Rockaways which said that Robert Moses built the elevated rail structure there in the 1930s, when it was still part of the LIRR, and built the connection between the Rockaway line and the subways between 1950 and 1956, after the LIRR bridge over Jamaica Bay burned. This convinced me that I was wrong about two things I have said about NY transportation history: that Robert Moses built only highways and no transit (actually, he built this one subway line plus a huge number of highways) and that the subways were not expanded after the 1930s (actually, they were expanded in the 1950s, but only to replace lost LIRR service, not to improve overall rail service).

Moses wanted to connect the Rockaway line to what is now the Queens E line, which would have given it a more direct trip to mid-town Manhattan. The Board of Estimate saved a bit of money by only connecting it with the A train, for a longer and more indirect trip to Manhattan, much longer than the old LIRR trip was, hastening the decline of the Rockaways.

But the Rockaways will rise again!! Think of all that land on the beach with a subway commute to Manhattan!!

You are right Charles that this is an excellent read but you give Moses too much credit for what was then a Pennsylvania Railroad project. The Rockaways deserve the commuter service that originally built them. The Rockaway Branch of the LIRR 1)Connected Nassau and Queens, since the line was severed the LIRR runs in one direction and the A train (dubbed the “African Queen in Italo-American Ozone Park). That transportation distinction is a classic segregation in transportation study. 2) After the LIRR Rockaway Branch became the A the neighbors in the Rockaways went from being a half hour from midtown Manhattan to being 45 minutes from East New York and subsequently suffered the diminished real estate values thereby 3) The Rockaway Branch ran double loop service one loop serving east from Flatbush through Five towns back through Rockaways and Ozone Park, and vice versa and the other loop from midtown through Forest Hills through Ozone Park, Aqueduct and the Rockaways into Nassau Five Towns and back to midtown, and vice versa fantastic service.
4) The conversion of the LIRR premium commuter rail service, though more expensive, into the cheaper TA local service, dovetailed exactly with the demise of the Rockaways and its conversion into ghetto by the sea.

It is a great example of how there is much more to mass transit than a low fare.

Let me get this straight. A Broad Channel resident who wants to take his polluting, space hogging, foreign-oil-dependent danger box onto the streets of the Queens land mass can do so for free, but if he wants to just travel there by himself it’s $2?? WHERE ARE OUR PRIORITIES?????

My sources on this is “Under the Sidewalks of New York” and “How We Got To Coney Island” by Cudahy.

The City of New York bought the Rockaway Branch from the then-private LIRR, which kept having problems with the wooden trestle burning down and not having the money to replace it. The price was $8.5 million in 1953, about the time the Board of Transportation gave way to the New York City Transit Authority. NYCTA connected it to the subway line, installed new power and signal systems (the latter still in use), and replaced the wooden treste with concrete. Was Moses involved with this? I never heard of him having anything to do with projects by the New York City Transit Authority, but it is possible. The project was completed on time and on budget.

In 1956, the subway line opened with a double fare, which was eliminated in 1956. Rockaway’s role as a vacation destination went downhill soon after. Was it the movement of former customers to the suburbs, the opening up of air service to other destinations, the housing projects? I’m not sure.

“One more question: did the loop that went through the five towns to Flatbush have a connection to the subway in Flatbush?”

The New York and Manhattan Beach railroad, which became part of the LIRR, had its own rail line that ran alongside the Brigthon Line without connecting to it, except during the construction of the embankment and open cut portions of the line when Brighton Line transit were shifted there.

There was a connection further west to the Prospect Park and Coney Island Avenue (aka the Culver Line) at Parkville Junction when it ran at grade, that was severed when it was replaced by an elevated line over Gravesend (McDonald) Avenue as part of the Dual Contracts.

There is a good buff book on the subject of the Rockaway Branch that I would recommend to anyone interested in the details of this fascinating transportation history, “Change at Ozone Park” by an FRN named Herbert George. On the LIRR under Atlantic Ave at Woodhaven Blvd you can still see the abandoned station and the cutouts and dormant track just before the train comes to grade eastbound.

The grade separation was the real improvement in the early 1930s and still is the most valuable element of the dormant piece from White Pot to Ozone Park, unbelievable to me that the neighbors can continue to squash its use even as the Queens politicos squawk about how “underserved” their borough is.

The through track at Far Rock is really from the predecessor railroad the New York and Rockaway, one of several predecessor lines that the LIRR and the Pennsylvania engineers massaged to their own standards when they took over these lines and created the double loop service that ran until the 1950 trestle fire and 1955-6 when the TA took over the service and cut the track to the five towns. Pieces of this predecessor history are still visible along the remaining, dormant, right of way.

Freight service was also an important element of the Rockaway Branch and many freight relics still survive in the grade separation in Ozone Park and Glendale. They also had what were called “public delivery tracks” that brought producer and consumer goods to smaller venues along the track. The freight service, like the Bay Ridge Branch controlled by the Pennsylvania, at one time had electric service. How many decades until freight is delivered again with electric power? Climbing down the ladder of technological development.

The trestle fire was the final straw for commuter service on the Rockaway Branch as LIRR. But there was much more to the story than that as far as what I find valuable in this history. Why rebuild after the 1950 fire (private money)and attempt to make a profit when the state (thats really where Moses comes in) was condemning land and transferring bridge tolls to the construction of parkways to compete with your service (public money)?

Likewise with the chicken and egg issue of the transportation ghettoization of the Rockaways. Did white flight accelerate after 1950 as a function of the construction of automobile highways or the absence of a quick connection to Manhattan? Once everyone started buying cars and development sprawled outward to Long Island it essentially devalued the existing communities along the tracks. And while the TA could afford to rebuild the wooden trestle to proper standards, it wasn’t able to offer a premium commuter rail connection to midtown. It used to be a double fare but that ended as well under political pressure which meant that the service became much more of a budget drag.

Thats how this discussion started and I’ll leave it at that. Larry’s right the toll payers who drive over the bridge really don’t care how expensive their transit service is to operate and maintain and for the most part don’t value it. The A train is the “African Queen” to the white community in Broad Channel. In fact they aren’t happy with tolls, or trains, they want ferries too and Weiner is the chief advocate of providing them.

Still, I think the Rockaways could use commuter rail connections to Midtown and it would immensely benefit the property values. The connection to the five towns and further into Long Island is also something that going forward the advocates should focus on. But to do that you would have to pay off a couple dozen neighbors in Forest Hills-Rego Park-Glendale and quiet the anti-urban character of all the Long Island NIMBYs who rise to the battle every time the MTA meekly suggests increasing railroad connections anywhere but particularly on Long Island

Global warming and a hurricane or two has altered my opinion of the desirable level of density in the Rockways.

I agree. Let’s bring it back to one of our core principles: sustainability. Conditions vary, but in general, waterfront locations in hurricane-prone areas are not sustainable places for year-round homes. The city shouldn’t build – or subsidize – any new home or workplace construction in the Rockaways.

Given the lengths that people go to to get to Jones Beach or the Hamptons, you’d think there’d be a way to make money off of a beach right next to the A train.