Bus-ted! M.T.A. Criticized For Expanded Service To Atlas Park
Back in April, as I was trying to figure out how the hell to get out to Glendale for my interview with the Cash Giveaway King of Queens, Damon Hemmerdinger, development director for the Shops at Atlas Park, I asked his rep:
"Think ol' Dale [Hemmerdinger, M.T.A. chairman and also Damon's father] can hook me up with a closer subway stop?"
"Funny!" she said. "But the bus stop right in front is relatively new so consider yourself lucky!"
Luck is one way to put it. Some city officials call it fishy.
According to Friday's Metro, City Council members are upset about the new bus service, accusing M.T.A. of playing favorites in sending extra shuttles to and from the Hemmerdingers' far-flung shopping mall:
The mall was already served by the Q29 bus last summer, when the Q54 also began to make the trip. Within days of Hemmerdinger’s confirmation in October, a study of Q54 ridership was undertaken, and soon the MTA recommended extending the Q45 so passengers could be let off at Atlas Park.
Councilman John Liu is quoted as calling the three-bus service to Atlas Park "overkill."
The article also noted that the Shops at Atlas Park now appears on bus maps.
But! NYC Transit planning chief Peter Cafiero suggested that expanded service to that part of Queens was greatly needed, anyway, noting that requests for extra buses were received as early as 2005, prior to the elder Mr. Hemmerdinger's tenure as M.T.A. boss.
On my own trip back from Atlas Park, I hitched a ride on the Q54 -- and it was packed, albeit only picking up a handful of passengers at the shopping mall. This reporter had to stand the whole ride back to the L train.
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Actually, there are a lot of people here in Jackson Heights who would like to see the Q45 extended to Atlas Park Mall. Most the opposition has been from Glendale residents who don't want more buses on their streets.
http://www.yournabe.com/articles/2008/01/17/import/20080117-archive57.tx...
Liu and the press have been taken in by people working in their own selfish interests to criticize transit improvements that will benefit many more people. The Hemmerdinger spin is a fun and useful one for selling papers. But that doesn't mean that improving the connectivity of the transit system to major new destinations isn't a good idea.
I'm sorry I might have "selfish interests"--as opposed to the "selfish interests" of the Hemmedingers who built a completely inappropriate mall in the middle of a residential neighborhood, and the "selfish interests" of (supposed) Jackson Heights residents who would like to go the mall?!
Clearly "Anonymous" above is someone with selfish interests, too...why would a small-ish mall be called a "major new destination" otherwise? Readers, you make your own judgment as to who "Anonymous" might be in real life.
The REAL problem with the Atlas mall is that it and the transit rerouting are all steps towards making a very desirable place to live not for the neighborhood but a completely new building...the Hemmerdingers' plans from the beginning was to build a large 30-story luxury condo. The required rezoning for which was turned downed a few years ago, I think is important to note. Unfortunately for the surrounding neighborhood, which residentially speaking is all single family houses, the Hemmerdingers clearly have enough money to float their plans until they have worked their way through their government contacts to make the rezoning happen.
And when that finally happens, you can bet the quality of life for the people in the immediate area will go down. Think of all the changes that will need to be made to support the many hundreds of people who will live in the new condo building: ripping down trees to widen Cooper Avenue, ripping up streets to upgrade the sewage, etc.
So, sorry, yeah, I'm not happy. If I had wanted to live in an area like downtown Forest Hills, I would have bought a place there. But I predict that's what I'm going to end up with, and that sucks.
Chris Shott was right on target with some of the key issues of concern to those of us who live in the Glendale neighborhood. We know the difference between "lucky" and "fishy"--and this one does not pass the smell test. Like Shott, we, too, have noticed that there are very few people getting either on or off the Q54 at the Atlas Mall stop. So, why yet another bus,the Q45, from Mr.(Dale) Hemmerdinger's fleet to Mr. (Damon) Hemmerdinger's mall? Councilman Liu called it right--it is "overkill." Around here we call it "Hummdinger Shuttle!"