BQX Streetcar Doesn’t Make Any More Sense Now Than It Did Yesterday
Today Mayor de Blasio rolled out the full court press for his Brooklyn-Queens Streetcar proposal, known as BQX. A story in the Times compared the street-running BQX to Jersey's Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, which runs mostly on exclusive rail rights-of-way. The City Hall press shop sent out waves of endorsements from various elected officials, advocates, business executives, developers, and civic honchos. The morning culminated with a press conference in Red Hook where the mayor made his case for the project.
February 16, 2016
The Key for Park Slope to Keep Its Big Grocery Store: Less Parking
The notion that New York City housing construction shouldn't be weighed down by mandatory parking minimums got a combative response from some City Council members at a hearing today. Streetsblog will have a thorough round-up of who said what tomorrow morning. In the meantime, here's a quick detour to Park Slope for a related story about how parking rules everything around us.
February 10, 2016
4 Reasons a $2.5 Billion Brooklyn-Queens Streetcar Doesn’t Add Up
Later today, Mayor de Blasio is going to deliver his State of the City speech, and one centerpiece is expected to be a new streetcar running from Sunset Park to Astoria along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront. It's an idea that's surfaced repeatedly in one form or another as developers have transformed sections of the waterfront into new residential neighborhoods. As alluring as it may be to picture modern rail on the streets of Brooklyn and Queens, there are good reasons it's gone nowhere.
February 4, 2016