L.I.C. SEEKING TRAIN RELIEF

In the photo at left, Board 2 Chairperson Joseph Conley (left), Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan (center) and City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer listen to residents’ complaints about the MTA at a town hall hearing in Hunters Point. Among those at the meeting was Richard Massa (top photo), of the Secret Theatre in Hunters Point. (photos: Sam Goldman) Residents from communities serviced by the 7 train line crowded Manducatis Rustica restaurant in Hunters Point on Feb. 17 to vent their frustrations at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s ongoing shutdown of the line on weekends for rehabilitation.

A standing-room-only crowd greeted City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer (the town hall’s organizer), fellow Council Member Dan Halloran, Assemblyman Michael Gianaris, Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, Community Board 2 Chairperson Joseph Conley and officials from MTA New York City Transit.

The issues

“We all know that the 7 train is really the lifeblood of Queens County,” Van Bramer told the crowd.

According to the rookie lawmaker, the line, which travels from Flushing through Corona, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, Woodside, Sunnyside, Long Island City and Hunters Point before continuing across 42nd Street in Manhattan, has routinely shut down almost every year at around the same time for about the same length of time.

This year’s disruption will last for up to nine weekends.

“It is an absolute outrage and an absolute disgrace,” said Van Bramer, “that the people of Long Island City and Western Queens should every single year be asked to bear an undue burden, and that is precisely what’s been happening.”

He added that no one in the community was notified until about seven to 10 days before the disruption began.

He also wondered aloud why the work takes place during the winter, when fewer daylight hours and inclement weather hamper the MTA’s efforts.

“If the answer is that we want to make sure that people get to New York Mets games, that is unacceptable,” he said to applause. During baseball season, the 7 train shuttles Mets fans to and from Citi Field as well as the U.S. Open tennis tournament in late August and early September.

Later in the meeting, MTA Chief of Operations Peter Cafiero answered that the increase in ridership along the time during baseball season was more than can be reasonably carried by shuttle bus or other means. He promised that the MTA will look to do work in the future during weekends when the team is on the road.

Seeking answers

“I understand the feeling that you guys in Long Island City are being picked on,” said MTA Vice President of Community Relations Lois Tendler, who led the team of train officials. “Without work on the railroad, the railroad won’t work for you.”

John Hoban, the 7 line general manager, explained the nature of the work.

The 7 train line carries an average of 405,000 passengers a day; if treated as its own system, Hoban noted, it would be the fourth-largest transit system in the nation.

With that number of riders and its 24/7 operation comes continuous wear and tear on the line. “If you drive your car more miles, you don’t service it less,” he told the crowd.

Complicating matters, heading westbound from Flushing, the line shifts from three tracks to two tracks from Queensboro Plaza into Manhattan.

“Running a single-track operation, we just can’t carry the volume,” Hoban said. “The volume of people that we carry is really part-andparcel of why we have those shutdowns.”

“We’ve taken advantage of the shutdowns to do as much work as we possibly can in the area that’s affected,” he told the crowd, noting that six separate major projects are planned at various locations along the train line, along with several smaller fixes.

“When we consolidate them like this, it means fewer outages in total,” he noted.

Fitzroy Thomas, of the MTA’s Track Department, would add that the replacement of 25-year-old tracks along various points on the line is one of the major reasons for the work; new tracks and switches are being installed near the Vernon Avenue/Jackson Avenue, Hunters Point Avenue and Court House Square stations.

“If we don’t do anything about [the worn-out track], it will lead to worse consequences,” he warned.

Tendler noted that in an effort to speed up the reconstruction, the MTA used 460 workers during the weekend of Feb. 13.

Work is also continuing in the area near the Flushing-Main Street stop, Tendler noted in response to question from Van Bramer.

Fanning discontent

One of the most pressing issues had to do with the use of fans to remove possibly toxic gases. According to General Superintendent Patrick O’Carroll, who is overseeing the actual work, some of the equipment being used is diesel-powered and generates fumes.

“In case of an emergency, you really want them to work,” Tendler noted.

She added that the MTA had never heard complaints about the use of the fan because “for a long time, no one really lived here.”

Many residents complained that noise from the fans prevented them from getting a good night’s sleep.

“This is unacceptable,” Van Bramer stated. “Your response and care for this community is woeful; it’s negligent.”

In response to the criticism, Tendler claimed that the MTA had “formulated a package” of sound attenuation measures that would “substantially mitigate” the noise emanating from the fans. The cost of the measures was estimated at $300,000.

Conley, however, called the current situation “an unfair price to the community,” and Van Bramer countered that “the MTA should have come to me long before this meeting and shared this information with me, with the elected officials, with the community.”

In response to complaints from residents, O’Carroll promised to investigate doing fan-dependent work on weekends and to run the fans between 6 a.m. and midnight on weekdays to inconvenience the least amount of residents.

Alternatives

According to Cafiero, the MTA believes “the most effective way that we can handle and carry the number of people who ride the subway, particulary the 7 line, is to use the trains as much as we can.”

As a result, shuttle buses are designed to take commuters from various stations along the 7 train line to various stations that have train service, such as Queensboro Plaza and Court Square

The MTA is investigating the idea of a shuttle train from the Vernon Avenue/ Jackson Avenue station to Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal.

A shuttle bus that takes passengers from various points directly into Manhattan (possibly over the Queensboro Bridge) was deemed infeasible, Cafiero noted, due in part to the lack of available parking around Grand Central Terminal and the increased expense.

This did not sit well with Assemblywoman Nolan. “We’re not really hearing from them what we wanted to hear,” she said. “You have to take from this and give us something more.”

She implored the MTA to consider increasing general bus service in the growing Long Island City and Hunters Point neighborhoods, noting that an expansion of bus service could help alleviate the need for shuttle buses when the line is down.

Terry Adams of the Hunters Point Merchants Association announced that local businesses have chipped in to offer a shuttle bus from Hunters Point to Grand Central Terminal.

Nontraditional problems

She also noted that many residents in the Long Island City/Hunters Pont area, such as those in its burgeoning arts community, work nontraditional workweeks and need better weekend public transportation.

Among them is Richard Massa, who heads the Secret Theatre in Hunters Point. According to him, the theater has been hurt badly each winter by the loss of weekend service.

“Our business is the weekends,” he stated.

Angel Gil Orrios, the president of the Thalia Spanish Theatre in Sunnyside, urged the MTA to tell cultural institutions located along the line about future service changes “months in advance” so they can relay the information to potential patrons and offer alternative routes on pamphlets, flyers and the Web.

Several elderly or disabled residents, such as Barbara Lorenz of the Dutch Kills Civic Association, noted that the staircase at the Queensboro Plaza station is three stories high, making it difficult for them to traverse.

Lorenz, in particular, asked for the MTA to examine the possibility of an elevator at the station.

Tendler replied that over 100 stations citywide are being made ADAcompliant under an agreement with the federal government; the list of stations were chosen well in advance and cannot be modified. Queensboro Plaza is not on the list.

Lorenz called the decision “unbelievable.” Nolan added that it was “a very frustrating thing.”

“Things are changing here, and we need the agency to be responsive,” the state lawmaker said.

Conley would later claim that the Court Square station—which will receive an elevator—was also not on the original list of 100.

Giving notice

In 2011, Tendler announced, a major reconstruction project at the Court Square station will require that the station be temporarily removed from service for nine weeks, contingent on budget considerations.

The work will include the creation of a connection between the aboveground 7 train station and the underground 23rd Street-Ely Avenue E/V/G station (which will remain in service) and the aforementioned elevator.

Trains in both directions will simply skip the stop during the work.