"Tell me if you've heard this before: No one is going to use the new train - it will bring endless waves of drugs and crime and homeless people. The train will jack up real estate prices - and turn surrounding neighborhoods into polluted and dangerous hell-holes that no one wants to live in. That's more or less how dozens of opponents of the MTA's Interborough Express light-rail project presented their contradictory and confusing case at an open house in Middle Village on Wednesday night."
"The MTA scheduled Wednesday night's meeting to gather feedback on certain aspects of the IBX - not about whether the project should happen at all. Still, a number of attendees decorated a detailed site map with hand-written notes demanding that the stations simply not be built at all. But other Middle Villagers told the MTA to bring on the train. "I've lived in this neighborhood my whole life, and this is what the people are like," said Sean Ogle."
An all-electric Interborough Express light-rail would run on under-used freight lines between Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights and the Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park, with two proposed stations in Middle Village on Grand and Eliot avenues. The MTA held a meeting to gather feedback on project aspects, and attendees showed sharp divisions: many demanded that stations not be built, citing fears of drugs, crime, homelessness, rising real estate prices, and destructive development, while others urged construction, saying residents would quickly rely on the service. Council Member-elect Phil Wong called for trains to pass through without stopping, likening proposed stops to "ghost stations."
Read at Streetsblog
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