The Montauk Branch should go to Queens Plaza

I was pleased to see that Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley has come out in favor of restoring passenger service on the west end of the Long Island Rail Road's Montauk Branch, which actually goes from Jamaica to Long Island City. I took a Long Island Rail Road train along this once, years ago, when they still ran passenger trains. It was pointless except for a railfan experience: there was one train a day in each direction, and it went nonstop to Jamaica.

I'm not sure how light rail would coexist with the freight trains that still use the Branch, but with the Federal Railroad Administration making it easier to run lighter trains, there should be some relatively cost-effective way to run frequent service along the line, not only to the Atlas Park Mall in Glendale, but to Fresh Pond Road in Ridgewood, Forest View Crescent, Forest Park, and Hillside Avenue in Richmond Hill.

There is one change that I would strongly recommend at the western end that would make a huge difference in the value of the line. The old passenger service terminated at the old Long Island City station in Hunter's Point, which was once really convenient when it was served by frequent, massive ferries to Manhattan. Now it is a relatively long walk to the East River Ferry, which runs every twenty minutes, or a similarly long walk to the #7 train at Vernon Boulevard and Jackson Avenue, which is crowded at rush hour. You could move the station closer to Vernon-Jackson, but then it would be further from the ferry, and vice versa.

Instead of using the old Long Island City terminus, the passenger trains should use an existing flyover that crosses the Sunnyside Yards. This part of the Yards is currently being used as a staging area for the East Side Access project. There is room to build a two-track line along the north side of the Yards, terminating at a new station under Queens Boulevard. This would bring passengers one short block from the Queens Plaza subway station where they could change for the E, M or R trains.

For a light rail train, it might be possible to build another stop at Pearson Street, a block from Court Square. Depending on what gets built along Northern Boulevard, it might also be possible to extend the train east to 48th Street, Woodside Avenue or even Broadway. But regardless, the line should go to Queens Plaza. It would give residents of Ridgewood and Glendale better access to jobs and better connections to Manhattan.

Crossing the Yards

One of the arguments given by proponents of decking the Sunnyside Yards is that Sunnyside is cut off from Astoria and Long Island City by the Yards to the north and west.  These rail yards break up the street grid, leaving about nine ways to walk across them.

Photo: Nick Normal / Flickr

All but one of the current routes across the Yards involve walking through industrial areas, which can have low foot traffic, especially on nights and weekends.  This can discourage many people, especially vulnerable populations like women, children and elderly people, from walking.  During working hours people tend to park on the sidewalks, contributing to a different hazard.

Four of the routes involve crossing long bridges over the Sunnyside Yards.  The bridges are all pretty boring, especially the ones that have high barriers blocking the view.  They are all noisy because they have heavy car traffic and wide, flat concrete surfaces to reflect the noise back on travelers.  The Queens Boulevard Bridge is particularly noisy because the overhead #7 train viaduct produces its own noise as well as reflecting noise from the cars.

The one crossing without a bridge or much industrial activity, 48th Street, has heavy foot traffic, and that brings its own problems.  The sidewalks can get congested during peak times, and the foot traffic draws sidewalk vendors, who further add to the congestion.

North of the Yards, the routes east of Queens Boulevard all have to cross Northern Boulevard, a notoriously dangerous stroad, due in part to the historic preponderance of auto-oriented businesses but also to a longstanding culture of permissiveness promoted by policies at the Department of Transportation and the NYPD that put the movement of cars ahead of the safety of everyone.

The proposals for the Sunnyside Yards echo current and planned developments in Atlantic Yards and Hudson Yards that include platforms that would support buildings alongside the streets for a better pedestrian experience, cross streets between the buildings to calm the traffic, and new parallel streets crossing the yards for additional connections.

Assuming that the developments get built as advertised, the added buildings and cross streets would definitely improve the experience of walking over the yards.  But they would do nothing by themselves to make the rest of the walk safer or more comfortable.

A walk from Sunnyside to Court Square across the Thomson Avenue Bridge might be a better experience on the bridge itself, but it would still pass through the industrial areas along Queens Boulevard or Skillman Avenue, and across the path of reckless drivers on Van Dam Street and Thomson Avenue itself. A person walking across the 39th Street Bridge would similarly have to deal with dangerous behavior and humiliating treatment on Northern Boulevard and in the industrial areas before and after the bridge.

This is actually not unique to Sunnyside.  It's a widespread problem that affects bridges over rail yards throughout the metro area, and around the world.  We should find ways to deal with it, but a multi-million dollar real estate deal is neither necessary nor sufficient.

The cargo cult of railyard decks

I recently wrote about a proposal to build a deck over the Sunnyside Yards. This got me thinking about these projects in general. I'm afraid that railyard decks have become part of what Ryan McGreal called "cargo cult urbanism," along with convention centers, casinos, "bus rapid transit" and a "High Line": things that have high-profile associations with rapid increases in prosperity, things that people latch onto when they're desperate for improvement but unable to think clearly about what will actually improve things, or unwilling to admit that they don't know.

There is always a high-profile example that does plausibly bring prosperity: the original High Line, the Transmilenio, Foxwoods and McCormick Place may well have done so. But in practice when people try to replicate its success, the promised prosperity often does not materialize. In hindsight, it turns out that the actual generator of prosperity was something else, like upzoning, or that there are diminishing returns as the desire for gambling or conventions or office space is satisfied.

Construction beginning on the site of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, 1929. Photo from Waldorf Archive.

Decking the Sunnyside Yards: the history of a fantasy

Becoming the Yards:

1643: Burger Jorrisen receives the first patent for farmland near the swamps surrounding the Dutch Kills.
1861: The Long Island Railroad builds tracks from Hunters Point along the Dutch Kills to Jamaica.
1903: The Pennsylvania Railroad begins purchasing property in the area and draining the land.
1915: The Sunnyside Yards are opened.

(Background from the Greater Astoria Historical Society and Untapped Cities, among others.)

Development proposed on decks over the Yards:

1925: Post Office building
1951: Transportation Hub
1971: Housing
1973: Sports stadium
1989: Housing and offices
1997: Olympic village
2006: Housing, stores, schools, playing fields and parks
2008: Housing
2014: A hospital, affordable housing buildings, a school, a public space or some combination of those

The problems with the yards

I live in Woodside, Queens, not too far from Sunnyside. I love both neighborhoods, but there are a few problems. Recently, urban planners and some of my neighbors have focused on a few in particular:

Photo: Daniel Schwen / Wikipedia

• The rent is too damn high. I own a co-op, but I do know people who have been displaced, and people who want to live here but are having a hard time finding an affordable apartment. Increasing the housing supply would be a big help.
• We are cut off from Astoria and Long Island City by the Sunnyside Yards to the north and west. These rail yards break up the street grid, leaving about nine ways to walk across them. All but one involve walking through industrial areas, which can have low foot traffic, especially on nights and weekends. Four of these involve crossing long, noisy, boring bridges over the Sunnyside Yards.
• We don't have big parks. We have a number of small parks and playgrounds, but no big forests or greenways. The parks we do have can get crowded, particularly on hot summer days.
• There aren't as many jobs as there could be. We've got relatively low unemployment rates, but we could use more jobs.

The planners have been talking for years about addressing these problems by building a deck over the Sunnyside Yards, but my neighbors are afraid of seeing our infrastructure and services overloaded. I'm concerned that there will be too much parking, and that whatever benefit we get won't be worth the cost. I'm pretty sure there are better solutions to these problems. I'll talk more about the proposals and concerns in future posts.