City Council hangs onto hopes of a QueensLink
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As the City Council hears a resolution calling on the MTA to explore the QueensLink, local advocates are holding out hope that the longshot transit proposal will be built. Map via QueensLink
By Ryan Schwach
Some members of the City Council are still hanging onto hope that the city will decide to resurrect an old train line that they believe would change South Queens locals’ lives for the better, rather than build a park along the elevated tracks.
While the project, known as the QueensLink, remains a longshot, the City Council on Monday heard out a resolution introduced by one of its members calling on the MTA to study the project’s feasibility and its potential environmental impact.
While the MTA and Mayor Eric Adams have seemingly all but abandoned the project, councilmembers and advocates are still holding out hope.
The dream of a QueensLink, which advocates say would cut commutes down for thousands of residents living in South Queens by around 20 minutes, has been hit with several punches in recent years.
It began in 2022, when Mayor Eric Adams said that he’d chosen to fund a proposal competing with the QueensLink for the same track known as the QueensWay, a 3.5 mile High Line-like park. Though Adams and the QueensWay’s supporters have insisted that building a park along the line that stretches from Rego Park to Ozone Park would not preclude them from building a new train in the future, they haven’t been able to explain exactly how that would work.
Then, in 2023, the MTA rolled out a 20-year needs assessment and scored QueensLink abysmally on several metrics, describing it as “high cost and [serving] a relatively modest number of riders.”
However, despite the setbacks, a lack of overall public attention and millions in federal money heading to the QueensWay, advocates and officials are not giving up.
“We would have liked to have had more conversation on QueensLink, but we look forward to working with MTA and follow up on it,” Queens City Councilmember Brooks-Powers, who introduced the QueensLink resolution, told the Eagle on Tuesday. “They know that this is very important to us. We're looking forward to continued conversations.”
QueensLink’s Executive Director Rick Horan, who has been involved with the project since 2012, advocated for the project during a hearing on transportation held in the Council on Monday.
He told the Eagle that the resolution is important because it gets “on record that the City Council thinks the QueensLink is important, and that the MTA should study it in every way possible.”
Despite the hits, QueensLink has held onto support from most local pols, including Brooks-Powers and her Council colleagues Joann Ariola and Nantasha Williams, as well as Queens Borough President Donovan Richards and a slew of state reps stretching from Rockaway to Astoria.
Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers is sponsoring a resolution calling on the MTA to undertake an environmental impact study of the QueensLink plan. Photo by Gerardo Romo/NYC Council Media Unit
Senator Joe Addabbo recently published a self-funded poll of several local issues, including the QueensLink. The poll showed that his constituents favored the QueensLink – which includes parkland as well as a train – by three to one.
Horan believes that the more people study and hear about the QueensLink, the more likely it is to pick up steam.
“I think the more it is studied, the more it will be obvious that this is a critical piece of transportation infrastructure for the city, and especially for Queens,” he said.
He called the Council’s resolution “great news.”
“If the City Council wants this thing used for transit, then I'm sure that they could work with the mayor to help make that happen,” he said. “It's not giving up the idea of a park, but rather having both.”
While Horan is still dreaming of parks and trains, Brooks-Powers has a more measured approach, and is focused on pushing the MTA to do an environmental impact study to first establish the project’s feasibility.
“We have to be informed,” she said. “I would like to have an independent study done that informs us on what is possible, as opposed to us being told it can't happen or there's no need or it's too expensive.”
“We want to be able to be making sound decisions,” she added.
In the past, residents who live close to the track said they worry about sound from a future train, and have expressed their desire for a park along the abandoned line.
While it seems likely the resolution will eventually pass, Brooks-Powers will not be without some opposition from other councilmembers along the unused track in Queens.
“I have not changed my position in terms of being in favor of the QueensWay,” said Councilmember Lynn Schulman on Tuesday. “The MTA is most likely not going to do the study, it's not even in their plans.”
Schulman worked on QueensWay as a community board member, and worries about upzoning in Rego Park and Forest Hills connected to a QueensLink project.
It's also about getting a park for the community now, rather than waiting for both later, she said.
“QueensWay is going to be up and running in a couple years, whereas the QueensLink, that's going to take, even if the MTA were to do something with that…we're talking many years down the road,” Schulman said. “New York is not going to get as much federal money as it has in the past [under the Trump administration] and I think now the feasibility is less.”
The QueensLink resolution is currently sponsored by Brooks-Powers, Ariola, Queens Councilmember Bob Holden and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams – as peculiar a coalition as one could find within the confines of City Hall.
The MTA hasn’t completely ignored the proposal – it studied the line’s reactivation in 2019. But Brooks-Powers said she wants an independent study to be completed before closing the book on the pitch.
In a statement to the Eagle, an MTA spokesperson said an evaluation of the line isn’t needed given the agency’s study of the QueensLink in its 20-Year Needs Assessment.
“The Comparative Evaluation Process comprehensively evaluated nearly two dozen capacity/expansion projects across the MTA’s service territory on common metrics using consistent assumptions regarding cost, ridership, equity, resiliency, etc.,” said MTA spokesperson Joana Flores.
The MTA did not directly comment on the resolution in the Council.
City Hall declined to comment on the resolution.
Despite the opposition from City Hall and the MTA, Horan said he remains hopeful.
“Politicians come and go, but the need for better transit continues,” Horan said.
