The Lower Montauk light rail plan will never leave the station
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A Long Island Rail Road train heads to Queens. Photo via Wikimedia Commons
By Larry Penner
Re: “Crowley is back for another Queens borough president try” — April 13, 2021.
One transportation dream of former NYC Councilmember and Queens Borough President wanna-be Elizabeth Crowley will never happen in her lifetime. Here's why.
The $500,000 feasibility study sponsored by former NYC Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley for introduction of light rail on the Lower Montauk LIRR branch completed four years ago was the last stop for this project. The final report estimated a cost of $2.2 billion for construction of this project.
Even with a planning feasibility study, millions more would have been needed to pay for environmental documents along with preliminary design and engineering followed by final design and engineering efforts necessary to validate any basic estimates for construction costs. Crowley’s previously stated belief that it would be under $100 million never added up. New Jersey Transit’s Hudson Bergen Light Rail cost $1.2 billion and Newark Elizabeth Light Rail cost $694 million 17 years ago. Clearly costs would be far greater in today’s dollars.
There are no dollars programmed to support any work for advancement of this project contained with the MTA’s $51 billion 2020 - 2024 Five Year Capital Plan. Ditto for the MTA 2014-2034 Twenty Year Capital Needs Assessment Plan. The project never found a sponsor to enter it into the national competitive discretionary Federal Transit Administration New Starts program. There is also no money in the 2021 – 2022 municipal or state budgets to do the same. .
The MTA NYC Transit in 1983 conducted the Queens Subway Options feasibility study for potential conversation of this LIRR branch to a subway on the ground. Intense vocal local community opposition killed this project before it progressed beyond a planning study. The same community opposition still exists decades later against introduction of any active light rail as well.
You would have to wait for approval of MTA’s next Five Year 2025 – 2029 Capital Program for any chance of MTA funding. The alternative would be 100 percent NYC funding which is very doubtful.
Rather than spend $2,2 billion to build a light rail system which could take a decade or more, why not ask the LIRR to resume service on this corridor which ended in 1998? They could run a two-car scoot service reconnecting Long Island City, Glendale and Middle Village with other communities including Richmond Hill and other intermediate stops to Jamaica.
The LIRR could use existing equipment which would afford far early implementation of service versus Light Rail. This would provide connections east bound to the J/Z and E subway lines, Kennedy Airport via Train to Plane and Jamaica LIRR Station. Queens residents traveling to jobs and colleges in Nassau and Suffolk counties would have access to all LIRR branches except the Port Washington line. Ditto for those traveling to the Barclay Center and downtown Brooklyn via the LIRR Atlantic Avenue branch.
There would also be connections west bound at either Hunters Point or Long Island City LIRR stations to the No. 7 subway line.
Cost estimates would have to be refined as progress proceeds beyond the planning and environmental phases into real and final design efforts. History has shown that estimated costs for construction usually trend upwards as projects mature toward 100 percent final design. Progression of final design refines the detailed scope of work necessary to support construction. The anticipated final potential cost would never be known until completion. Costs would be further refined by award of construction contracts followed by any unforeseen site conditions and change orders to the base contracts during the course of construction.
The proposed route will traverse several neighborhoods impacting thousands of people living nearby. How will they react to potential noise and visual impacts? There are serious legal and operational issues to be resolved with the Federal Rail Road Administration. They have regulatory jurisdiction over significant portions of the proposed route which would run on existing active freight tracks. You have to deal with light rail and freight trains coexisting on the same narrow corridor. There is no available project budget to justify key project component costs. They would have to cover a series of new stations. These will have to meet the Americans Disability Act (ADA) access standards; grade crossing, signal and safety improvements, a fleet of new light rail vehicles, land acquisition, potential business relocation along with construction of a new maintenance, operations and storage yard to support any light rail car fleet. Which neighborhood will want to step forward and host the maintenance, operations and storage yard?
Other Queens elected officials, transit riders and transit advocacy groups all have their own transportation priority projects such as the LaGuardia Air Train, Woodhaven Blvd. Select Bus Service, LIRR Rockaway Beach branch service restoration, Brooklyn-Queens Street Car Connector, downtown Flushing Intermodal Bus Terminal or reopening the old Woodhaven Blvd. Atlantic Avenue LIRR Station which may be competing against each other for the same city, state and federal funding sources.
If Crowley continues to make promises which will never be fulfilled in our life time, what kind of Borough President she would make. Voters looking for realistic transportation improvements need to consider looking elsewhere for a better advocate as the next Queens Borough President. Having served as a NYC Councilmember from 2009 to 2017, perhaps she is just another career politician looking to get back on the public payroll..
Larry Penner is a transportation advocate, historian and writer who previously worked for the Federal Transit Administration Region 2 New York Office. This included the development, review, approval and oversight for billions in capital projects and programs for the MTA, NYC Transit, Long Island Rail Road, Metro North Rail Road MTA Bus along with 30 other transit agencies in NY & NJ).
