page_title: Brooklyn–Queens Connector
section_title: Mayoral endorsement
hierarchical_section_title: Brooklyn–Queens Connector / Connector proposal / Mayoral endorsement
caption_attribution_description: English: Three-segment panorama of Long Island City, Queens, New York City.
context_page_description: The Brooklyn–Queens Connector, abbreviated the BQX, is a proposed streetcar line in New York City. It is planned to operate 24/7 on a north–south corridor along the East River between the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn.
  The BQX was initially proposed in 1989 as part of a Brooklyn waterfront streetcar line connecting Red Hook with Downtown Brooklyn. A study by the city, published in 2011, found the proposal to be infeasible. A later proposal by the nonprofit Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector, made public in January 2016, found backing from Mayor Bill de Blasio. A director for Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector was appointed in May 2016, and a list of possible routings was released in November 2016. However, there has been criticism of the project, namely that its completion date of mid-2020s may make it obsolete; that it does not have a clear source for funding; and that it is a poor substitute for subway service.
context_section_description: On February 3, 2016, the office of Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city would begin planning work for the streetcar line, with a formal announcement by de Blasio at his State of the City speech the following day. The BQX was promised as a way to reinvent the city's transit system, along with the Citywide Ferry Service (now NYC Ferry) proposal.  City officials said that several years of additional study and review would precede groundbreaking, planned for 2019, with service beginning around 2024. Since the line would be a street-level project, the streetcar would not need state approval. The city will rely on increased real estate revenues to pay for the project. Mayor de Blasio's office commissioned a study toward researching the projected effects of the streetcar.
  Under the slightly revised plan released by the city, the route would travel 16 miles (26 km) with 30 wheelchair-accessible stops, with an increased construction cost of $2.5 billion. There would be sixty vehicles, costing $5 million total, that would travel at 11.3 miles per hour (18.2 km/h), and would be separated from vehicular traffic for 70% of the route. Two bridges over the Newtown Creek and the Gowanus Canal were proposed, in the case that the Pulaski Bridge over the Newtown Creek, and the Hamilton Avenue bridge over the Gowanus Canal, aren't able to accommodate the vehicles; the Newtown Creek bridge will probably be located at Vernon Boulevard, where another bridge previously existed. A trip between Dumbo and Greenpoint would take 27 minutes via the line. The fare for the route would equal the fare of the subway and the buses.
  The line is planned to use multi-section vehicles to negotiate sharp curves at Lorraine Street, Cadman Plaza, 21st Street, and Astoria Boulevard. Streetcars, rather than light rail vehicles (LRVs), are proposed to be used, despite the fact that LRVs have more capacity and shorter headways; this is because streetcars were determined to operate better within mixed-use rights-of-way, as opposed to LRVs, which were determined to operate better within dedicated rights-of-way. Electrification is proposed to be from hydrogen fuel cells within the streetcars themselves, as opposed to from overhead lines or from embedded rails. Since the BQX would operate on both dedicated rights-of-way and on streets, the BQX would use both standard traffic lights and dedicated signals during operation. Annual operating costs are estimated at $26 million.
  The new line would provide a new transit route for 45,000 public-housing residents. An additional motivation for the line has been the tremendous growth in Brooklyn and Queens waterfront areas since the early 2000s.
caption: Long Island City, one of the areas that would be served by the new streetcar
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