Union chief thrilled about B’klyn-Queens Connector
THE CITY’S transit union is onboard with Mayor de Blasio’s trolley.
The leadership of Transport Workers Union Local 100 will offer Monday its endorsement of the controversial BrooklynQueens Connector, a proposed 16-mile waterfront streetcar.
John Samuelsen, president of the TWU, told the Daily News his union could add several hundred jobs to its current roster, including streetcar operators, drivers, maintainers and supervisors.
“These are not going to be low-wage jobs,” Samuelsen said. “We’re going to organize it.”
Samuelsen, who also sits on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board, said that any plan to give New Yorkers — among them, roughly 600 union members living along the route — another transit option needs to be supported. He believes that manufacturing could get a boost if the streetcars and other equipment are made in the region.
City Hall is trying to build public support for the streetcar — also known as the BQX — which has been dogged by criticism that it’s a real estate industry-concocted transit project that the de Blasio administration may be unable to build.
De Blasio embraced the BQX in his 2016 State of the City address after a group of real estate bigs drafted the proposal for a streetcar from Sunset Park, Brooklyn, to Astoria, Queens.
Meanwhile, seven developers with projects along the route were pumping donations totaling $245,000 to de Blasio’s defunct nonprofit, the Campaign for One New York.
De Blasio vowed that the $2.5 billion streetcar would pay for itself, through tax revenue from new development and higher real estate values.
Still, it’s unclear whether the BQX will become a reality.
The News first reported in April that the team overseeing the BQX wrote a devastating seven-page memo that doubted the project could be self-financed.
Even worse, the memo said that the streetcar’s biggest roadblock is the costly and complicated relocation of utilities underneath its path, potentially making the entire project unaffordable.
The memo suggested that the city could study whether another mode of transportation, like a bus route, is a better fit for the waterfront. Nonetheless, Samuelsen said he’s confident that the de Blasio administration can overcome the hurdles.
“The streetcar is a real transportation infrastructure project in a city that needs infrastructure investment,” Samuelsen said.
Ya-Ting Liu, director of the Friends of the BQX, the real estate industry-created nonprofit, welcomed TWU support for a project that’s been pitched as a lifeline for public housing and low-income residents.
“Nobody knows better than TWU workers the impact that transit has on New Yorkers across all incomes,” she said.
The streetcar won over April Simpson, the head of the tenant association Queensbridge Houses.
“Trust me, I done picked apart the BQX proposal with a finetooth comb,” she said. “There’s more pluses and benefits for this community than anything else.”
City Hall appreciates the union love.
“We welcome the TWU’s support,” said de Blasio spokeswoman Melissa Grace. at the Not everyone agrees. Elizabeth Yeampierre, director of Uprose, which bills itself as Brooklyn’s oldest Latino community organization, was shocked the TWU would back the trolley “boondoggle.”
Yeampierre criticized the TWU’s leadership, which she said ignored her group’s request for a meeting on the project, for backing a streetcar that real estate execs cooked up to accelerate gentrification.
“TWU taking this position is just stunning and disheartening, honestly,” said Yeampierre, whose group teamed up with the union to bring a popular bus route back to Sunset Park. “The people have not asked for this transportation option. They’ve asked for more buses.” more than 40,000 in 10 public housing developments. About 600 Transport Workers Union members would be able to walk to the streetcar and jump onboard. The streetcar will mean quicker and easier commutes. It also will encourage more businesses to set up shop, meaning more jobs. When I was growing up in Brooklyn, you could graduate high school, open up the newspaper and find a good union job with solid wages, health insurance and a pension. That’s become far too difficult to do these days. We have to recognize that not every kid in high school is going to college. That’s why the TWU is committed to supporting transit expansion projects that we believe will bring back manufacturing and other blue-collar opportunities for our city’s sons and daughters. I’d like to see kids growing up at the Red Hook Houses become streetcar operators or mechanics, or find good privatesector jobs in the boroughs making parts for this new streetcar system. Some critics say the city should invest more in bus travel instead of the streetcar. No one loves buses more than the TWU. Thousands of our members proudly pick up millions of bus riders and take them to their destinations every day. But who says this has to be an either-or proposition? We need more mass transit of all types, period. Let’s add streetcars into the mix. It’s all good. Even if it turns out that City Hall was overly optimistic about how much private money it could raise for the streetcar, and the city does have to contribute directly, the investment will be worth it. Samuelsen is international president of the Transport Workers Union and president of TWU Local 100.