A memorable year on the roads and rails
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A majority of Queens’ subway stations are not accessible to riders with disabilities, but the agency announced that would change this year. Eagle file photo by Jonathan Sperling.
By Jonathan Sperling
With more than 100 distinct bus routes, over 80 subway stations, miles of bike lanes and a tangled network of major highways, Queens had its fair share of big transit developments in 2019.
From the expansion of bike lanes to a potential bus network redesign, a crackdown on fare evasion to crumbling subway infrastructure, the (not-so-bad-after-all) impact of the L Train overhaul to a staggering increase in cyclist deaths, it was a memorable, and at times tragic, year for commuters.
Here are the stories that shaped the transit system serving 2.3 million Queens residents.
A lack of accessibility
More than 70 percent of Queens subway stations are inaccessible to people with disabilities, according to the MTA’s own guide to accessible transit options, leaving entire Queens neighborhoods without accessible subway stations. Earlier this year, the lack of ADA-compliance along Astoria’s N/W line was the subject of a lawsuit filed by the nonprofit group Disability Rights Advocates on behalf of a Long Island City woman who uses a walker.
But the MTA is slowly making progress. The installation of four elevators at the Astoria Boulevard station has begun, and the agency recently announced that 11 Queens subway stations would be made ADA-accessible as part of the proposed 2020-2024 Capital Plan.
Debris from the No. 7 train tracks crashed into a vehicle earlier this year. Photo courtesy of Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer’s office.
The sky is falling
Debris rained down from elevated subway tracks in Queens, severely damaging vehicles and nearly striking pedestrians. Pieces of metal and wood punctured car windshields, dented roofs and nearly hit residents throughout the borough, especially in Western Queens.
In response to reports of debris falling from tracks located in Long Island City, Woodside and Sunnyside, the MTA promised to install protective netting underneath their elevated platform structures. The netting at each section of track will be approximately 600 feet long and 50 feet wide, for a total of 30,000 square feet of coverage, according to the MTA.
A section of elevated track along the J/Z line between the 121st Street and 111th Street stations in Richmond Hill, a section beneath the 61 St-Woodside station and below the elevated structure on the N/W line between the Queensboro Plaza and 39th Avenue stations were among stations slated to receive the netting.
CitiBikes will soon be boroughwide
For years, Queens residents have watched CitiBike, the city’s popular bikeshare program, grow in Manhattan and Brooklyn. That all changed in mid-2019, when CitiBike announced that several neighborhoods that are currently underserved by bike infrastructure — Sunnyside, Maspeth, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights and Corona — will be getting Citi Bike docks by 2023.
Apart from Sunnyside, these neighborhoods were all in “High Priority Districts” with high levels of cyclist deaths and injuries and low to medium bike lane coverage, according to a 2017 Department of Transportation bicycle safety report. Citi Bike expansion has already begun in parts of Ridgewood.
But electric bikes are still illegal
Two Queens lawmakers fought hard to push Gov. Andrew Cuomo to sign off on a bill that would have legalized the use of electric bicycles and scooters across New York state. However, just days before the year ended, Cuomo vetoed the bill, prompting an angry response from its lead sponsors, Assemblymember Nily Rozic and State Sen. Jessica Ramos.
“Our state has failed to help tens of thousands of New Yorkers who desperately need relief from the punitive measures taken against them every day for merely doing their jobs,” Ramos said in a statement.
Cuomo cited safety measures that had been “inexplicably omitted” from the bill for the main reason behind nixing the bill. He added that he would be willing to discuss the legislation further during the 2020 legislative session.
The MTA announced a plan to revamp Queens’ bus network this year. Eagle file photo by Jonathan Sperling.
Big wheels keep on turning
The MTA revealed a “holistic, clean-slate” approach to fixing Queen’s dilapidated bus system at its first public meeting to discuss the Queens Bus Network Redesign earlier this year. The Queens bus network has remained unchanged for decades, despite the evolution of Eastern Queens, which depends on bus service. Local bus ridership in the borough decreased 2.5 percent between 2016 and 2017, according to the MTA.
In December, MTA officials presented a sneak peak of the agency’s much-anticipated redesign plan at Borough Hall, laying out the vision of a borough bus network that is faster, more reliable and better connected. A final plan isn’t scheduled to be released until 2020, according to the MTA.
Fare evasion
More than 60 percent of people arrested for fare evasion in the second quarter of 2019 were black or African-American, according to NYPD data released after Councilmember Rory Lancman sued the NYPD to obtain the fare evasion data under city law.
The release of the data came just a few months before Gov. Andrew Cuomo directed the MTA to hire 500 new police officers as part of a crackdown on homelessness and fare evasion. The plan will cost the transit agency more than $50 million a year.
L Train overhaul
After years of planning a projected 15-month shutdown of the L train to repair damage to the Canarsie Tunnel caused by Superstorm Sandy, Gov. Andrew Cuomo made a surprise announcement in January: The L Train shutdown would actually be a slowdown.
The service change, which impacts commuters across Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan, began in April, with L trains running every 20 minutes between Manhattan and Brooklyn and every 10 minutes in Brooklyn and Queens all nights and on the weekends.
Cyclist deaths
The city recorded a sharp increase in cyclist deaths this year, with more cyclists killed in 2019 than any other year since 2000. A majority of cyclist injuries and fatalities have been recorded in Brooklyn, but Queens has recorded a total of 816 cyclist injuries between Jan. 1, 2019 and Dec. 15, 2019, according to NYPD data.
Astoria, Flushing and Elmhurst were the Queens neighborhoods with the most bike crashes, the Eagle reported in mid-2019. Between January and June, 34 cyclists were involved in crashes in Astoria, compared to 32 in Flushing and 31 in Elmhurst, according to data from NYC Crash Mapper.
