Queens residents gave contrasting opinions on the impact the IBX would have on their community. Eagle photo by Noah Powelson
By Noah Powelson
After years of garnering excitement almost exclusively, the state’s plan to build a light rail through parts of Queens and Brooklyn ruffled some feathers at a public hearing in Middle Village earlier this month.
Held in the basement of the Trinity Lutheran Church on Dry Harbor Road, more than one hundred Queens residents from the local area and beyond gathered to hear about the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s development of the Interborough Express – a 14-mile light-rail line that would run from Jackson Heights to Southern Brooklyn.
The night was not a traditional Q&A, as some residents hoped for. Following a brief presentation, MTA officials stood by with display materials of the proposed transit project, ready to answer what questions they could. But for the most part, they devoted their time to taking comments and concerns.
The presentation for the IBX’s development was answered with equal parts tepid applause and angered jeering, as some residents came to the night’s event not to give feedback but to voice their outright disapproval of building a new train line in the area.
One such Middle Village resident was Lisa Lunden, who said she and her community felt they were not consulted about the planning of the IBX, which would include stops on Eliot and Grand Avenues. Lunden, who commutes to Manhattan for work, said the IBX would do nothing for her and that she’s concerned it would change the neighborhood.
“Our communities will be changed,” Lunden told the Eagle. “These neighborhoods are very quiet, small low-rise homes. In bringing in all this traffic, what’s in place for this traffic? Will there be NYPD, will there be security…The trains will be running 24/7, what’s to stop people from living there or teens from hanging out there? It’s a real safety issue.”
“We don’t want this and we weren’t even asked,” Lunden added.
Tony Nunziato, the chair of the Queens County Republican Party and president of the Juniper Park Civic Association, was also at the open house. Nunziato voiced his opposition to the IBX, saying developments like this would punish the long-time residents of these communities.
“I’m totally against this entirely, it doesn’t make sense at all. It doesn’t serve us in any way or form,” Nunziato told the Eagle. “These people worked hard all their life to have a nice secluded home…They’re railroading us, and we’ll fight this all the way.”
But the night was not just about voicing anger. Many residents in attendance approached MTA officials with curiosity and optimism about how the IBX would help them.
Residents like Stacy Woods, an attorney who works in Brooklyn and has lived in Middle Village for the past 15 years with her parents and teenage children, said those opposed to the IBX are a small vocal subset of the community, and that people like her have long called for more public transit options that would ease her daily commute and give her more options to explore the city.
“This would be wonderful for me,” Woods told the Eagle. “I have to commute to Brooklyn every day for work, and my children have been spending more and more time in Brooklyn, as well. I wish we had something like this years ago.”
Another resident, 26-year-old Frances, made the trip from her parents’ home in Corona to find out more about the IBX. Frances, who did not wish to give her last name, said that she’s searching for work and has felt funneled into finding jobs in Manhattan due to the lack of transportation options.
“My options are very limited while I live with my parents,” she told the Eagle. “I don’t have a car, and I don’t feel safe riding my bike in the late night or during these cold seasons.”
The divide of opinion over the IBX was best represented by a poster map at the open house that showed the proposed station sites. Attendees were asked to write comments, questions, and concerns on sticky notes and place them on the map, turning it into a mosaic of divided emotions and opinions.
For every sticky note demanding the IBX stay out of the neighborhood, cursing the MTA or calling the open house a sham, there was another note expressing excitement for future transit options, dismissing naysayers, or noting how the IBX will build upon the community.
But even residents optimistic of the IBX like Woods had concerns about the development it might also bring. Woods also said she was concerned about the years of construction.
Governor Kathy Hochul first proposed the IBX in 2022 during her first-ever State of the State address, and the project has become a signature goal of her administration.
State officials say that when all is said and done, the $5.5 billion IBX will offer 160,000 daily riders a faster ride between the two boroughs. Currently, the G line is the only train that runs directly between Queens and Brooklyn.
The MTA plans to construct the light rail on an existing freight track that’s rarely used, hitting 19 stops along the route that snakes through a number of neighborhoods currently lacking reliable public transportation options.
Though enthusiasm for the IBX was high during early proposals, skepticism and concern have grown after the MTA struggled to get full funding for the project last year.
The IBX project is currently in the midst of the design planning and environmental review phase, which will likely take around two years to complete. As part of that phase, the MTA will be hosting several public forums across Queens and Brooklyn for community feedback while potential impacts on the land and communities are assessed.
The environmental review was officially started in October.
But until the review process is finished and the IBX design is finalized, MTA officials will not be able to answer some of the most common questions at the open house on Wednesday.
When asked if eminent domain would be used in the future to acquire property, MTA officials said “it’s too soon to say.”
“We’re in the design phase now, and the first step to knowing what properties might need to be acquired is to do surveying,” Jordan Smith, project director for the IBX at MTA Construction and Development, told the Eagle. “We haven’t done any surveying yet, so that’s what we are doing now. Surveying and data collection is really the point of the design phase, to get a better understanding of those issues.”
When asked what he would say to residents who feel their input on the transit project was intentionally ignored, Smith said that their presence in Middle Village this month shows the opposite.
“The whole point of coming out here is to listen,” Smith said. “We want to hear what people have to say and we take all the feedback seriously…This is not our last time here. We’re still early in the process overall. We’ll have more meetings.”
