Photo: Area community leaders this week called on residents and business owners to attend DOT workshops and give honest feedback on the proposed Select Bus Service design concept for the Woodhaven-Cross Bay corridor. File Photo.
Pains, plans and automobiles.
Area civic leaders this week urged residents and owners of businesses in communities in or near the Woodhaven-Cross Bay corridor to give feedback on the first round of block-by-block street designs and proposed Q52/53 SBS bus stops for the Select Bus Service project.
The last of four city Department of Transportation and Metropolitan Transportation Authority public workshops on the project is Thursday, April 30, 6-8 p.m. at PS 42, 488 Beach 66th St.
In March, DOT and MTA announced that Design Concept 2—a “transit-oriented boulevard” in which buses travel in designated lanes in the main roadway—had been selected out of the three that the agencies had developed.
One of the main draws of SBS is the promise of a faster trip. Bus rapid transit cuts commute times, in part, by allowing customers to pay the fare prior to hopping aboard. According to DOT, a lot of the SBS-served corridors in the city have experienced a 20- to 30-percent decrease in travel time.
Concept 2 has its opponents. While it calls for adding six miles of bus lanes and more stops, the plan involves, in part, removing a single lane of vehicular traffic in each direction.
“The idea that NYC DOT, through their Select Bus Service proposal, is seeking to remove an entire traffic lane and in my opinion put pedestrians in harm’s way is irresponsible and unacceptable,” said state Sen. Joe Addabbo, Jr. (D-Howard Beach).
The first of the four workshops, which focused on the Union Turnpike to Rockaway Boulevard section of the Woodhaven-Cross Bay corridor, yielded decidedly mixed reviews.
However, during at least two south Queens civic organization meetings this past week, the sentiment seemed to favor scrapping the plan.
“They’re going to double park—but in the bus lanes,” said Roger Gendron, president of the New Hamilton Beach Civic Association, at the group’s meeting last Thursday. “Look, I’m not for it.”
But the bottom line for Gendron is that concerned residents “need to go to these meetings.”
“You need to tell [DOT and MTA],” he said. “It’s good that everyone has an opinion, but you really need to bring it to them.”
At the same NHBCA confab, Betty Braton, chairwoman of Community Board 10, said, “Some may see this as working on paper—I don’t think it’s going to work. But we have to go to these meetings.”
Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder (D-Howard Beach) last Thursday predicted that SBS “is going to be a colossal failure.”
But Goldfeder, a vocal proponent of revitalizing the long-defunct Rockaway Beach Rail Line, admonished that “if we don’t go to meetings we’re going to be walked all over by special interests.”
Joann Ariola, president of the Howard Beach-Lindenwood Civic, said getting involved is the only way to get anything done.
“The louder the voice,” she said, “the more we’ll be heard.”
For more information on SBS, visit nyc.gov/html/brt/html/home/home.shtml
By Michael V. Cusenza michael@theforumnewsgroup.com
