OPINION: Brooklyn-Queens waterfront streetcar line, an idea whose time has come
A Brooklyn-Queens transit plan formulated by urban planner and Yale professor Alexander Garvin is getting the attention of some heavy hitters in the borough.
Garvin has proposed a streetcar line that would unite the fast-growing Brooklyn and Queens waterfronts. The route that is currently being discussed would run from Astoria to Sunset Park, serving the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Industry City, residential neighborhoods and more, with connections to subways, buses and ferries.
It would proceed over tracks embedded in existing streets like the old-fashioned streetcars, rather than over its own right of way. A study is now being undertaken by the transit consulting firm of Sam “Gridlock Sam” Schwartz, who formulated the traffic plan for Barclays Center. An advisory group includes Tucker Reed, president of the Downtown Brooklyn partnership; Regional Plan Association President Tom Wright; Paul Steely White from Transportation Alternatives; Andrew Kimball from Industry City; Garvin himself; Fifth Avenue Committee Executive Director Michelle de la Uz and Red Hook Initiative founder Jill Eisenhard, among others.
When I interviewed Garvin for the Eagle in 2014, he said the impetus for the plan was “community development, to link these neighborhoods so people who live in Fort Greene can get a job in Greenpoint, and people who live in Greenpoint can take a ride to Brooklyn Bridge Park.” He added that the current transit system doesn’t really serve the new waterfront neighborhoods, since the system was conceived before these neighborhoods started developing.