QUEENS COLLEGE–Queens residents are likely familiar with the 7 Train, the E, F, and R — a few of the lines that run east to west throughout the borough. However, without a subway line running from north to south, the Bureau of Transportation statistics show that people who live in Queens face some of the longest commute times in New York City. With the help of local activists, QueensLink wants to change that.
“Residents of South Queens and the Rockaway Peninsula have lacked suitable public transportation options for generations, holding families back from reaching their full potential. These communities deserve the same access to our city via mass transit as any other community,” said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards in a letter of support for the transit initiative.
QueensLink is a nonprofit organization founded by a group of activists who hope to connect Central and South Queens to the rest of the city by using the long-abandoned Rockaway Beach Branch. Last used over 60 years ago, the train line once connected to several stations such as the Montauk Branch by Glendale, the Atlantic Branch near Woodhaven, and the Far Rockaway Branch at Hammels.
But on May 7, 1950, a fire broke out on the bridge that brought the train across Jamaica Bay. The Long Island Railroad (LIRR), on the brink of bankruptcy at the time, came to the conclusion that the cost to rebuild would prove too expensive, opting instead to abandon it altogether.
Decades later, QueensLink now proposes rebuilding the Rockaway Beach Branch, which would create the borough’s first north-south subway line, complete with four new stations,as well as 33 acres of new parks and bike paths along the way.
