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  • Rockaway Beach Line Reactivation One-Seat Ride to JFK

  • Discussion of the past and present operations of the Long Island Rail Road.
Discussion of the past and present operations of the Long Island Rail Road.

Moderator: Liquidcamphor

 #77898  by sodusbay
 
The 2002 plan was not the AirTrain, you are right. The use of this line (through Forest Park) to JFK was a really good idea in the 1980's (and before) but the idiot NIMBYs killed it for two contradictory reasons:
-- some wanted lots of local stops
-- others didn't want any trains ("too noisy")

and it was a cheap shot for the local politicans on the Queens council to support either or both. This is the perfect example of how NYC does not work -- or is it how NIMBY-driven democracy doesn't work? On the one hand we'd like to stop Robert Moses from ripping up neighbourhoods but on the other the city as a whole needed a one-seat ride to JFK from NYP. A simple extension from near Howard Beach along PANY-owned land, plus the rehab of about two miles of existing ROW in Forest Park would have done the job 20 or 30 years earlier than AirTrain, at a fraction of the price, and much more conveniently for most riders (transfer to LI service at Woodside would be a bit longer than via Jamaica). But there was no leader, no political will... it is so frustrating...


In 2002 it wasn't much of a plan, but again an idea, to get express service from NYP to the Rockaways. It's a very long ride now. I'm not sure how they planned to merge subway and LIRR equipment past Liberty Ave. (Ozone Park).

There has been some building (garages) across the ROW near Union Tpk.

 #78187  by JoeLIRR
 
This in an intresting thread for MTA management to read,

one a line is abandoned ull most likely NEVER see revenue service across it again.

we live a the NIMBY drive society where even the slightest change for improvement would get them blasting every way they can to derail the effort. it comes right down to the instalation/removel of a stop sign..

some one out there has to have the power "derail" the nimbys, you dont like it, dont live there. obviosuly you knew that when you moved in a railroad ran/onceran behind your house.
meaning that if need be the railroad might fire up again and re use that line.
the RR came first u came second, u dont like the idea, then get lost. someone else would apreaicate that they have a roof over there heads.

 #78300  by NIMBYkiller
 
"the RR came first u came second, u dont like the idea, then get lost. someone else would apreaicate that they have a roof over there heads."

DAMN STRAIGHT!

 #78301  by sodusbay
 
I'm afraid it goes deeper than MTA management can handle. It's a disease of our individualistic society. Even worse than most rail neighbors are the people who bought houses under the flight path of a major airport and then complain when airport management attracts more traffic (including these same people going on their Florida vacations, purchasing high-value goods brought from China on cargo flights etc.). I agree entirely with JoeLIRR -- if you don't have enough brains to look around when you buy a house and pay accordingly -- sell out to someone who does.

But I think NYC and especially Queens is perhaps the worst NIMBY spot in the country. I remember when the LIRR Montauk division line through Glendale was being proposed for a subway extension -- the outrage by people who would have had excellent service! Of course in that case I have to think racism/xenophobia played its part. But isn't that part of NIMBYism -- get in and pull the drawbridge up behind you?

 #78358  by JoeLIRR
 
The point im trying to make to the (non logisticaly tinking invivisuals) in the MTA is that once you abandan the ROW its gone for ever. youll have to basacilly eat S!!! and die before a revenue train will ever run ther again.

using NIMBYS favorite line. there is absolutly no reason that there cannot be a "revenue" train on the remaining CRR yearound to NCC then during holiday season to the mall's the ROW is (was) there.

i would and im shure other also would find a rail connnection to NCC usefull. even if you had to take a train to GC or Hempstead then the shuttle to NCC. making 2 other stops. thats much better then they have now. all you need is a 2 car verson of the greenport scoot for it.

the airtrain would of benefited more going to woodside via the underjump at "white pot" then making this massive steal complex they have now.

?. if the air train were to use the old RB branch, would it possibly have been able to be a regular LIRR train for this job?

 #78455  by NIMBYkiller
 
Well, if it were using LIRR tracks to reach Woodside, then yeah, it probably could've been regular LIRR type service. The airport would've just so happened to be the end of the line. It could've had the old Rockaway line stops.

And what do you mean, WAS, when you mentioned the spur up near the mall? Don't tell me those tracks are gone now.

 #78470  by JoeLIRR
 
NIMBY, the taracks are there, but atleast 1500 feet are gone b/c that single maintenance facility there erecting, its right on the yard pad and right where the track across stewart ave once were,

also the tracks just west of 35's cars have been tared up across oak st.

NIMBY, ya better start some KINNIN here, be for any hope for the central is only on my HO layout :wink: witch its probly there already, thanks to the anit railroad improvement pple out there, and there are plenty of them.
 #82859  by railtrailbiker
 
For years, debate raged over plans to transform the High Line, the defunct Chelsea freight railway, into an elevated public park. Now, as the city and a nonprofit group are moving ahead on those plans, central Queens has set out on a similar mission for its equivalent of the High Line.

Far less celebrated than its Manhattan counterpart, the derelict Rockaway Beach Branch of the Long Island Rail Road, which once ran south from Rego Park all the way to the Rockaway peninsula, survives as rusty trestles and tracks, elevated along much of their route. Inspired by the planned rejuvenation of the High Line, two community boards in central Queens hope to turn parts of the abandoned spur into recreational green space.

On Dec. 14, Community Board 9 adopted a resolution calling for the city to create a bicycle path on the 1.5-mile stretch of the property running through Forest Park and south through Woodhaven and Ozone Park. North of Rockaway Boulevard, the defunct line is now owned partly by the Parks Department and partly by the Department of Citywide Administrative Services.

"A bikeway would take this old, abandoned ugly structure and, if you have tree plantings on it and you could beautify it, it would add to the community," said Mary Ann Carey, district manager of Board 9. "It's not something that's going to happen overnight, but we know there is precedent for it."

Community Board 6, meanwhile, plans to study a similar proposal for its segment of the Rockaway Beach Branch in Rego Park and Forest Hills. Scraggly weeds have cloaked much of this rail line, while hundreds of decades-old trees now stand in the elevated corridor along which generations of families took the L.I.R.R. to Rockaway Beach from 1908 until the 1950's.

Maria Thomson, executive director of the Greater Woodhaven Development Corporation, acknowledged that turning the Rockaway Beach Branch into parkland would give the added benefit of preventing its resurrection as an active train line. Proposals for reactivation have repeatedly surfaced - and been beaten back by central Queens residents - ever since the line's last operating section was decommissioned in 1962.

"That line runs right behind all our homes and properties on 98th Street," Ms. Thomson said, "and if it were reactivated, it would be a hazard to the residents and their quality of life." But even Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer, a longtime proponent of reactivating the train line to give her constituents in the Rockaways a speedier route to Manhattan than the circuitous A train, sees the merit of a linear park along part of the route.

"A bike path for the next 20 or 30 years might not be so bad," she said. "It's a very comfortable use for it in comparison to selling it and putting a building on it. But I'd really like to reactivate it."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/nyreg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... 2high.html

 #82862  by JoeLIRR
 
"That line runs right behind all our homes and properties on 98th Street," Ms. Thomson said, "and if it were reactivated, it would be a hazard to the residents and their quality of life."
i guss the quality of life was not being distrupted between 1908/1962
maby they need to open there eyes and read a history book and find out what came first.

as i said before, u baught the house nere a abandon or live railline dont be complaining if the abandon line is re activiatd. u knew it was there along with its potential. (sorry you loose)

Go ahead w/ the rail trail, maby leave the trakcs there also

 #82903  by Alcoman
 
With the New York Cross Harbor proposing reactivting the Highline (lets hope they win!) Those (park) plans may be better used a scratch paper!

 #82924  by BEDT16RMLI
 
all rails to trails do is take beautiful row and ruins them. Like we need more walking paths.
MIke

 #83008  by NIMBYkiller
 
I'm with Mike on this one. If you turn it into a walkway, you'll never see rails on it again(not like there's much of a chance now), period. Atleast having it as is preserves the ROW with no interferance.

 #83020  by BMT
 
I'm a railfan who's also an avid bike rider, so either way I have no problem with what decision is made with the abandoned Rockaway Line property.

Guys, let's be realistic here...there's friggin' Oak trees growing through the tracks at some places on the Rockaway branch...not to mention some encroachment of homes, and or businesses on the ROW. THERE WILL NEVER BE any rail development on the old Rockaway/White Pot Junction Line anymore. Face it, it would be cost prohibitive to get the line in any sort of reasonable shape for passenger service.

 #83037  by Frank
 
I think reactivating the Rockaway ROW is a better option in the long run.
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