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Friday, November 21, 2014

Goldfeder: Transportation is a top priority


Official Point of View

By Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder

We are currently at a crossroads in Rockaway. While we have the opportunity to increase transit options, ease commute times and provide our local economy and small businesses the boost they desperately need, we must remain strong and united.
For years, I have made transportation a top priority and have worked by fighting for the residency rebate on the Cross Bay Bridge, fighting for improved service on the A line, fighting for permanent ferry service and fighting for the reactivation of the Rockaway Beach Rail Line. Our resilience after Sandy was illustrated boldly in our ability to stick together, work together, recover together and, most importantly, fight together!
I am proud of our accomplishments and tireless efforts to achieve better transit infrastructure for our families. First, I successfully secured riders free parking at the National Grid MGP site on Beach 108th Street when the ferry first began. As our community was faced with multiple threats during the two years of service, I worked hard to locate state grants and develop creative plans for alternate revenue streams to fund ferry service. I fought to ensure the Rockaway West NY Rising Committee funding allocations were put in motion quickly to potentially act as a stop gap measure for ferry service. I met with our community partners at Resorts World on the ferry and proposed the idea of linking ferry service from their location in southern Queens to Rockawayand the rest of the city. I also brought Port Authority to the table and called on them to fund ferry service as a permanent waterways link to JFK Airport. Most recently, I proposed that the city implement a tourist-only fare for the Staten Island Ferry to subsidize Rockaway ferry service. The city’s own Independent Budget Office concluded in a 2006 study that this could generate as much as $4.5 million a year, enough to fund ferry service for the Rockaways.
Long before Sandy, we have rallied, screamed, and petitioned to demand city hall make the ferry permanent. We collected thousands of signed petitions in support of the ferry and took them to the steps of city hall with our local transportation advocates to handdeliver to the mayor. I have joined countless rallies with civic leaders, transit advocates, elected officials and residents to keep our ferry. And, at the 11th hour, I joined my fellow elected officials in a meeting with the mayor to convince him that the Rockaway Peninsula needs the ferry. Despite all our collective efforts, City Hall still chose to ignore our transportation needs and kill the ferry.
Like you, I am severely disappointed in Mayor de Blasio and the Economic Development Corporation but I have not, and will not, give up the fight for permanent ferry service in Rockaway.
Another great option to improve transportation for Rockaway families and the entire city is restoring the Rockaway Beach Rail Line. For years, I have been a staunch and vocal advocate for revitalizing the rail line. Beginning in the early ‘60s, parts of the railroad located in southern Queens and Rockaway were consolidated, sectioned off and eventually closed. However, today the right of way for the rail line still remains intact and could potentially provide residents and visitors with safe, affordable and expedient access to other parts of the city with 40 minute commutes or less to Midtown Manhattan. I’m proud to say that last week we took an important step forward when the Queens College Department of Urban Studies released its comprehensive study on restoring the rail line. While supporters of a park plan spent half a million dollars on consultants to produce a one-sided study that ignored transit, the Queens College study took our brightest young students and had them look into all options for the rail line and see what people really want and need.
The study concluded that as many as half a million trips a day could be taken on the rail line if reactivated. It also cited recent feasibility studies done by the MTA and New York University that estimated the cost of reactivation to be less than $1 billion. By comparison, just the first phase of the new Second Avenue Subway line in Manhattan will cost over $4 billion.
The study also recognized the alarming lack of transportation options for residents of the Rockaways. It pointed out that in the 50 years since the Rockaway Beach Rail Line was deactivated, the population on the peninsula has doubled. Today, Rockaway residents have some of the longest commute times in the city, even longer than many Long Island residents.
At the study release, we were joined by an unprecedented coalition who came out in support, including Congressman Jerrold Nadler (NY-10), Congressman Gregory Meeks (NY-05), Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08) State Senator Tony Avella, City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen and John Cavanagh, political coordinator for Iron Workers Local 361. Our growing coalition and the Queens College study prove that reactivating the rail line is the best and most cost-effective way to improve transportation access for thousands of residents in Queens and across New York.
The MTA has even included the restoration of the rail line in their Twenty-Year Capital Needs Assessment, which serves as a blueprint for the MTA’s vision to repair, rebuild and expand NYC public transit infrastructure between 2015 and 2034. In the report, the MTA declared that the Rockaway Beach Rail Line would be a realistic, efficient and inexpensive option that would significantly improve transit options for Queens residents while creating jobs and helping the environment.
That’s why I’m now calling on Governor Cuomo to use part of the state’s new $5 billion budget surplus to fund the reactivation of the Rockaway Beach Rail Line. When I was elected in 2011, I made a promise to the residents of Rockaway that we would fight together to improve our communities. Now that you have honored me with two more years of service this past election, I promise to continue our work.
We have seen what happens when we are divided, but we have also proven what can be accomplished when we stick together. We are not at the end of the struggle but only the beginning and must remain united so Rockaway can continue to succeed and grow.

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