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130-426: The Brooklyn–Queens Connector , abbreviated the BQX , was a proposed streetcar line in New York City . It is planned to operate on a north–south corridor along the East River between the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn . A previous plan bearing similarities to the BQX was initially proposed in 1989 as part of a Brooklyn waterfront streetcar line connecting Red Hook with Downtown Brooklyn . A study by

260-622: A tram engine in the UK) at the head of a line of one or more carriages, similar to a small train. Systems with such steam trams included Christchurch , New Zealand; Sydney, Australia; other city systems in New South Wales ; Munich , Germany (from August 1883 on), British India (from 1885) and the Dublin & Blessington Steam Tramway (from 1888) in Ireland. Steam tramways also were used on

390-520: A Vermont blacksmith, had invented a battery-powered electric motor which he later patented. The following year he used it to operate a small model electric car on a short section of track four feet in diameter. Attempts to use batteries as a source of electricity were made from the 1880s and 1890s, with unsuccessful trials conducted in among other places Bendigo and Adelaide in Australia, and for about 14 years as The Hague accutram of HTM in

520-702: A board chair who also serves as NYCHA's chief executive officer. On September 15, 2022, Mayor Eric Adams announced a new two person leadership structure for NYCHA with a split between the NYCHA Chair and CEO roles, with the CEO managing the day-to-day operations and the Chair overseeing the NYCHA Board. The Authority is the largest public housing authority (PHA) in North America. In spite of many problems, it

650-516: A citywide Section 8 Leased Housing Program in rental apartments. However, new applications for Section 8 have not been accepted since December 10, 2009. New York also maintains a long waiting list for its apartments. Because of demand, the Housing Authority in recent years, has selected more "working families" from applicants to diversify the income structure of occupants of its housing, as had been typical of residents who first occupied

780-611: A clear source for funding; and that it was a poor substitute for subway service. The project was abandoned after de Blasio's mayoral term ended in 2021. Since electric trolleys in Brooklyn stopped running in 1956, activists led by the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association (BHRA) had been trying to revive streetcars. In the 1990s, the BHRA received permission from New York City's government to develop

910-517: A comprehensive Uniform Land Use Review Procedure zoning plan (ULURP) for the areas along the BQX. Due to the length of the ULURP process, construction would not begin until at least 2024. In September 2020, de Blasio deferred decisions on the BQX to after the 2021 New York City mayoral election ; de Blasio was term-limited and unable to run for reelection, which meant further action on BQX would be taken by

1040-423: A consultant or "streetcar czar" for the project. On November 1, 2016, the city presented a list of possible routings of the BQX through several neighborhoods. The study found that four New York City Subway stations along the BQX's route—at Jay Street–MetroTech , Borough Hall , Court Square–23rd Street , and Vernon Boulevard —had high weekday ridership, and thus, would benefit from a BQX transfer. The city, citing

1170-469: A new bill wasn't agreed upon until the Federal Housing Act of 1949 , rather than just the federal government. Most of the postwar developments had over 1,000 apartment units each, and most were built in the modernist, tower-in-the-park style popular at the time. In the 1950s and 1960s, many New Yorkers, including supporters, became more critical of the agency and in response NYCHA introduced

1300-419: A new look that included variations of height, faster elevators, and larger apartments. In 1958, Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. began to shift construction away from megaprojects to smaller sites which retained the street grid and had under 1,000 units. In 1964, NYCHA ended a policy that held apartments for white tenants in an attempt to integrate the developments. Tenants organized a rent strike in opposition to

1430-626: A new plan called A Blueprint for Change which would transfer 110,000 apartments to a newly created public entity - a Public Housing Preservation Trust. In February, 2021 the Chelsea NYCHA Working Group released their plan for the Elliott-Chelsea Houses and the Fulton Houses and the city released an RFP for it. In October, 2012, Hurricane Sandy turned out to be the single most destructive event in

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1560-601: A nonprofit organization that will seek to raise $ 200 million over three years to supplement NYCHA's efforts and improve the lives of NYC public housing residents. The Fund received its first donation of $ 100,000 from the Deutsche Bank in December 2015. Also in 2015 Mayor Bill de Blasio released a plan called Next Gen NYCHA to address funding and maintenance concerns by "revamping management practices and generate revenue by building mixed-income and affordable housing on what

1690-415: A part of Moses' plan to clear old tenements and remake New York as a modern city. Moses indicated later in life that he was disappointed at how the public housing system fell into decline and disrepair. The majority of NYCHA developments were built between 1945 and 1965. Unlike most cities, New York depended heavily on city and state funds to build its housing after the Federal Housing Act of 1937 expired and

1820-642: A public corporation that provides affordable housing in New York City, New York, U.S. This list is divided geographically by the five boroughs of New York City : Manhattan , the Bronx , Brooklyn , Queens , and Staten Island . Vanderveer Estates Apartments nka Flatbush Gardens, Tiffany Towers nka Tivoli Towers, Ebbets Field Apartments and Towers of Bay Ridge and Rutland Rd Houses in Brooklyn , all five includes rent, gas & electric (AC including) in

1950-588: A scale of 1 to 5 (in this case, 1 being the highest or best rating, and 5 being the lowest, or poorest rating). This report identified $ 6.9 billion in needs required to bring the Authority's structures into a state of good repair. In 2011/12, a second needs assessment survey was done by PBQ&D, which identified $ 16.5 billion in needs. This represented an average of $ 93,000 per unit. It is anticipated that an upcoming needs assessment contract will reveal capital needs in excess of $ 25 billion. The needs assessment survey

2080-726: A similar technology, Pirotsky put into service the first public electric tramway in St. Petersburg, which operated only during September 1880. The second demonstration tramway was presented by Siemens & Halske at the 1879 Berlin Industrial Exposition. The first public electric tramway used for permanent service was the Gross-Lichterfelde tramway in Lichterfelde near Berlin in Germany, which opened in 1881. It

2210-540: A streetcar line running from Beard Street to Borough Hall. The association's president Robert Diamond collected disused PCC streetcars that had been used in Boston and Buffalo for potential use on the new line. By 1999, the group had begun laying new track for the project in Red Hook. However, in 2003, transportation officials elected to revoke Diamond's rights to the route's right-of-way. Instead, officials intended to sell

2340-645: A streetcar line would not be an appropriate transit solution for the area. By June 2013, Diamond had partnered with John Quadrozzi of Gowanus Bay Terminal (a concrete firm), and the Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation in an effort to revive the project, which he now envisioned running partly underground through the Cobble Hill Tunnel , a former Long Island Rail Road tunnel under Atlantic Avenue . Diamond pursued federal funding in order to pay for

2470-479: A vehicle that might be used on the BQX. The $ 100,000 prototype, a Citadis low-floor streetcar created by Alstom , was displayed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard . However, there was insufficient funding to start construction. Internal memos from the city around this time suggested that the project was endangered due to an ongoing dispute between Mayor de Blasio and New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo , since

2600-946: A well-known tourist attraction . A single cable line also survives in Wellington (rebuilt in 1979 as a funicular but still called the " Wellington Cable Car "). Another system, with two separate cable lines and a shared power station in the middle, operates from the Welsh town of Llandudno up to the top of the Great Orme hill in North Wales , UK. Hastings and some other tramways, for example Stockholms Spårvägar in Sweden and some lines in Karachi , used petrol trams. Galveston Island Trolley in Texas operated diesel trams due to

2730-529: Is a public-benefit corporation , controlled by the Mayor of New York City , and organized under the State's Public Housing Law . The NYCHA ("NYCHA Board") consists of seven members, of which the chairman is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the Mayor of New York City , while the others are appointed for three-year terms by the mayor. The board includes three members who are residents of public housing, and

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2860-507: Is divided into five broad categories, which are: Architectural, Mechanical, Electrical, Site, and Apartments. Given the large number of apartment units within NYCHA, the report's findings on apartments are based upon an inspection of 5% of NYCHA's total inventory. In mid-2007, NYCHA faced a $ 225 million budget shortfall. In late 2015, NYCHA announced the formation of the Fund for Public Housing,

2990-474: 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

3120-506: Is still considered by experts to be the most successful big-city public housing authority in the country. Whereas most large public housing authorities in the United States (Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore, etc.) have demolished their high-rise projects and in most cases replaced them with lower density housing, New York's continue to be fully occupied. Most of its market-rate housing is also in high-rise buildings. NYCHA also administers

3250-640: Is still in operation in modernised form. The earliest tram system in Canada was built by John Joseph Wright , brother of the famous mining entrepreneur Whitaker Wright , in Toronto in 1883, introducing electric trams in 1892. In the US, multiple experimental electric trams were exhibited at the 1884 World Cotton Centennial World's Fair in New Orleans, Louisiana , but they were not deemed good enough to replace

3380-734: Is the sole survivor of the fleet). In Italy, in Trieste , the Trieste–Opicina tramway was opened in 1902, with the steepest section of the route being negotiated with the help of a funicular and its cables. Cable cars suffered from high infrastructure costs, since an expensive system of cables , pulleys , stationary engines and lengthy underground vault structures beneath the rails had to be provided. They also required physical strength and skill to operate, and alert operators to avoid obstructions and other cable cars. The cable had to be disconnected ("dropped") at designated locations to allow

3510-511: Is to increase opportunities for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers by providing affordable housing and facilitating access to public service and community services . More than 360,000 New Yorkers reside in NYCHA's 335 public housing developments across the city's five boroughs. Another 235,000 receive subsidized rental assistance in private homes through the NYCHA-administered Section 8 Leased Housing Program. NYCHA

3640-713: The Bleecker Street Line until its closure in 1917. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , had its Sarah Street line drawn by horses until 1923. The last regular mule-drawn cars in the US ran in Sulphur Rock, Arkansas , until 1926 and were commemorated by a U.S. postage stamp issued in 1983. The last mule tram service in Mexico City ended in 1932, and a mule tram in Celaya, Mexico , survived until 1954. The last horse-drawn tram to be withdrawn from public service in

3770-544: The Brooklyn Navy Yard using one-way streets close to the waterfront. It would turn onto Park Avenue, run to Navy Street, then through Farragut Houses , Vinegar Hill , and Dumbo . The line would then run south through Red Hook , cross the Gowanus Canal , and continue south on Third Avenue to 58th Street, where it would turn west to serve the Brooklyn Army Terminal and Industry City . From there,

3900-879: The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel toll plaza, while the Hicks Street option would have used Sackett and Union Streets to use Van Brunt and Richards Streets, thus bypassing this detour. South of the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel toll plaza, the Van Brunt/Richards Streets option would have traveled down to the streets' south end to Beard Street and turn eastward there, while the Columbia Street option could have gone down to either Mill or Bay Streets, then traveled eastward at one of these two streets. The Mill Street option would have gone across

4030-870: The Lamm fireless engines then propelling the St. Charles Avenue Streetcar in that city. The first commercial installation of an electric streetcar in the United States was built in 1884 in Cleveland, Ohio , and operated for a period of one year by the East Cleveland Street Railway Company. The first city-wide electric streetcar system was implemented in 1886 in Montgomery, Alabama , by the Capital City Street Railway Company, and ran for 50 years. In 1888,

Brooklyn–Queens Connector - Misplaced Pages Continue

4160-834: The Lower East Side of Manhattan . The parcel of land the houses were located on were purchased from Vincent Astor and the city used eminent domain to secure the remaining property. However, the construction of the First Houses used existing apartment buildings to renovate which proved too costly. NYCHA's first two "new from the ground up" developments were Harlem River in 1937 and Williamsburg in 1938. Both are noted for their art-deco style of architecture, which are unique in public housing. These developments were segregated based on race with Harlem River being black-only and Williamsburg white-only. The Authority boomed in partnership with Robert Moses after World War II as

4290-715: The Richmond Union Passenger Railway began to operate trams in Richmond, Virginia , that Frank J. Sprague had built. Sprague later developed multiple unit control, first demonstrated in Chicago in 1897, allowing multiple cars to be coupled together and operated by a single motorman. This gave rise to the modern subway train. Following the improvement of an overhead "trolley" system on streetcars for collecting electricity from overhead wires by Sprague, electric tram systems were rapidly adopted across

4420-824: The West Midlands Metro in Birmingham , England adopted battery-powered trams on sections through the city centre close to Grade I listed Birmingham Town Hall . Paris and Berne (Switzerland) operated trams that were powered by compressed air using the Mekarski system . Trials on street tramways in Britain, including by the North Metropolitan Tramway Company between Kings Cross and Holloway, London (1883), achieved acceptable results but were found not to be economic because of

4550-1241: The 1850s, after which the "animal railway" became an increasingly common feature in the larger towns. The first permanent tram line in continental Europe was opened in Paris in 1855 by Alphonse Loubat who had previously worked on American streetcar lines. The tram was developed in numerous cities of Europe (some of the most extensive systems were found in Berlin, Budapest , Birmingham , Saint Petersburg , Lisbon , London , Manchester , Paris , Kyiv ). The first tram in South America opened in 1858 in Santiago, Chile . The first trams in Australia opened in 1860 in Sydney . Africa's first tram service started in Alexandria on 8 January 1863. The first trams in Asia opened in 1869 in Batavia (Jakarta), Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) . Limitations of horsecars included

4680-713: The 1894-built horse tram at Victor Harbor in South Australia . New horse-drawn systems have been established at the Hokkaidō Museum in Japan and also in Disneyland . A horse-tram route in Polish gmina Mrozy , first built in 1902, was reopened in 2012. The first mechanical trams were powered by steam . Generally, there were two types of steam tram. The first and most common had a small steam locomotive (called

4810-420: The 1980s. The history of passenger trams, streetcars and trolley systems, began in the early nineteenth century. It can be divided into several distinct periods defined by the principal means of power used. Precursors to the tramway included the wooden or stone wagonways that were used in central Europe to transport mine carts with unflanged wheels since the 1500s, and the paved limestone trackways designed by

4940-449: The 6.8-mile (10.9 km) line would cost $ 176 million in capital funding, plus an additional $ 6.2 to $ 7.2 million in annual operating funds. A significant portion of the capital cost would be required to make modifications to Red Hook's narrow streets in order to allow streetcars to make right turns. The study concluded that, due to a number of factors such as high costs, low ridership, and physical constraints like narrow streets,

5070-481: The Australian state of Queensland between 1909 and 1939. Stockholm , Sweden, had a steam tram line at the island of Södermalm between 1887 and 1901. Tram engines usually had modifications to make them suitable for street running in residential areas. The wheels, and other moving parts of the machinery, were usually enclosed for safety reasons and to make the engines quieter. Measures were often taken to prevent

5200-635: The BQX's construction were to proceed, the project would interfere with the renovation of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway , which would occur during roughly the same time frame. The BQX's proposed route between Red Hook and Sunset Park was eliminated in August 2018, and a routing through Dumbo was shelved in favor of a more direct routing through Downtown Brooklyn. The route

5330-399: The BQX, despite the city's previous assurances to completely self-fund the project. Moreover, the streetcar project was already behind schedule: major design work had been slated to start that year, but the public approvals process that preceded it had not started. Officials predicted that even if the BQX were to be fully funded, construction would not start until at least 2020. Additionally, if

Brooklyn–Queens Connector - Misplaced Pages Continue

5460-462: The British newspaper Newcastle Daily Chronicle reported that, "A large number of London's discarded horse tramcars have been sent to Lincolnshire where they are used as sleeping rooms for potato pickers ". Horses continued to be used for light shunting well into the 20th century, and many large metropolitan lines lasted into the early 20th century. New York City had a regular horsecar service on

5590-417: The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is cutting the agency's budget to encourage NYCHA to rely on partnerships with private property managers while Governor Andrew Cuomo is withholding his multiyear funding of $ 550 million until a federally required monitor is appointed to oversee the housing authority. Later that year, the de Blasio administration announced a plan, called NYCHA 2.0, to address

5720-477: The Entertainment Centre, and work is progressing on further extensions. Sydney re-introduced trams (or light rail) on 31 August 1997. A completely new system, known as G:link , was introduced on the Gold Coast, Queensland , on 20 July 2014. The Newcastle Light Rail opened in February 2019, while the Canberra light rail opened on 20 April 2019. This is the first time that there have been trams in Canberra, even though Walter Burley Griffin 's 1914–1920 plans for

5850-508: The Gowanus Canal using 10th Street, while the Bay Street option further south could have used either the existing 10th Street bridge or a new 19th Street bridge to cross the canal. The BQX's southernmost leg was canceled in August 2018. As originally planned, it would have traveled down Third Avenue underneath the Gowanus Expressway . This would be parallel to the Fourth Avenue subway line , one block east under Fourth Avenue . Between either 10th or 19th Street (depending on which bridge option

5980-416: The Irish coach builder John Stephenson , in New York City which began service in the year 1832. The New York and Harlem Railroad's Fourth Avenue Line ran along the Bowery and Fourth Avenue in New York City. It was followed in 1835 by the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad in New Orleans, Louisiana , which still operates as the St. Charles Streetcar Line . Other American cities did not follow until

6110-430: The Netherlands. The first trams in Bendigo, Australia, in 1892, were battery-powered, but within as little as three months they were replaced with horse-drawn trams. In New York City some minor lines also used storage batteries. Then, more recently during the 1950s, a longer battery-operated tramway line ran from Milan to Bergamo . In China there is a Nanjing battery Tram line and has been running since 2014. In 2019,

6240-436: The North Sydney line from 1886 to 1900, and the King Street line from 1892 to 1905. In Dresden , Germany, in 1901 an elevated suspended cable car following the Eugen Langen one-railed floating tram system started operating. Cable cars operated on Highgate Hill in North London and Kennington to Brixton Hill in South London. They also worked around "Upper Douglas" in the Isle of Man from 1897 to 1929 (cable car 72/73

6370-463: The Romans for heavy horse and ox-drawn transportation. By the 1700s, paved plateways with cast iron rails were introduced in England for transporting coal, stone or iron ore from the mines to the urban factories and docks. The world's first passenger train or tram was the Swansea and Mumbles Railway , in Wales , UK. The British Parliament passed the Mumbles Railway Act in 1804, and horse-drawn service started in 1807. The service closed in 1827, but

6500-413: The Second Street Cable Railroad, which operated from 1885 to 1889, and the Temple Street Cable Railway, which operated from 1886 to 1898. From 1885 to 1940, the city of Melbourne , Victoria, Australia operated one of the largest cable systems in the world, at its peak running 592 trams on 75 kilometres (47 mi) of track. There were also two isolated cable lines in Sydney , New South Wales, Australia;

6630-562: The UK at Lytham St Annes , Trafford Park , Manchester (1897–1908) and Neath , Wales (1896–1920). Comparatively little has been published about gas trams. However, research on the subject was carried out for an article in the October 2011 edition of "The Times", the historical journal of the Australian Association of Timetable Collectors, later renamed the Australian Timetable Association. The world's first electric tram line operated in Sestroretsk near Saint Petersburg invented and tested by inventor Fyodor Pirotsky in 1875. Later, using

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6760-410: The UK took passengers from Fintona railway station to Fintona Junction one mile away on the main Omagh to Enniskillen railway in Northern Ireland. The tram made its last journey on 30 September 1957 when the Omagh to Enniskillen line closed. The "van" is preserved at the Ulster Transport Museum . Horse-drawn trams still operate on the 1876-built Douglas Bay Horse Tramway on the Isle of Man , and at

6890-508: The advantages over earlier forms of transit was the low rolling resistance of metal wheels on steel rails, allowing the trams to haul a greater load for a given effort. Another factor which contributed to the rise of trams was the high total cost of ownership of horses. Electric trams largely replaced animal power in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Improvements in other vehicles such as buses led to decline of trams in early to mid 20th century. However, trams have seen resurgence since

7020-485: The agency failed to provide tenants with heat and hot water, keep residents safe from lead, involve tenants in policy-making, and hire residents, as required under federal law. In April 2018, under intense pressure from the lawsuit, chairwoman Shola Olatoye resigned. On June 11, 2018, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman filed a lawsuit accusing NYCHA of violating health and safety regulations, exposing children to lead paint, and training its workers to deceive inspectors under

7150-460: The busiest tram line in Europe, with a tram running once per minute at rush hour. Bucharest and Belgrade ran a regular service from 1894. Ljubljana introduced its tram system in 1901 – it closed in 1958. Oslo had the first tramway in Scandinavia , starting operation on 2 March 1894. The first electric tramway in Australia was a Sprague system demonstrated at the 1888 Melbourne Centennial Exhibition in Melbourne ; afterwards, this

7280-461: The capital needs of the agency which includes converting 62,000 NYCHA apartments into Section 8 and bringing in private management to oversee the backlog of repairs for the apartments, and selling air rights over NYCHA property to raise money. The conversion of the properties would be under the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) federal program leading to concerns that NYCHA would be privatized. If units were to be brought under RAD, oversight by

7410-439: The capital then in the planning stage did propose a Canberra tram system. In Japan, the Kyoto Electric railroad was the first tram system, starting operation in 1895. By 1932, the network had grown to 82 railway companies in 65 cities, with a total network length of 1,479 km (919 mi). By the 1960s the tram had generally died out in Japan. Two rare but significant alternatives were conduit current collection , which

7540-458: The car up the hill at a steady pace, unlike a low-powered steam or horse-drawn car. Cable cars do have wheel brakes and track brakes , but the cable also helps restrain the car to going downhill at a constant speed. Performance in steep terrain partially explains the survival of cable cars in San Francisco. The San Francisco cable cars , though significantly reduced in number, continue to provide regular transportation service, in addition to being

7670-402: The cars to coast by inertia, for example when crossing another cable line. The cable then had to be "picked up" to resume progress, the whole operation requiring precise timing to avoid damage to the cable and the grip mechanism. Breaks and frays in the cable, which occurred frequently, required the complete cessation of services over a cable route while the cable was repaired. Due to overall wear,

7800-448: The city deemed underused NYCHA land, and by using new federal programs to shift NYCHA apartments over to Section 8, a more stable source of federal funding". In 2018, a city-wide survey of NYCHA properties found that the organization needs $ 31.8 billion over five years to address unmet capital repairs including replacing broken elevators, upgrading faulty heating systems, and fix run-down kitchens and bathrooms. Despite its needed repairs,

7930-457: The city for air rights from Campos Plaza II, Fulton Houses, and the Ingersoll Houses. The approach of the administration, under NYCHA 2.0, is a turn back to Bloomberg -era initiatives of market rate infill that he once felt ignored the concerns of NYCHA residents after a failed trial of four buildings with a 50–50 split of market-rate and low-cost housing infill did not provide enough money under Next-Gen NYCHA. Then in July, 2020 NYCHA announced

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8060-409: The city's hurricane-prone location, which would have resulted in frequent damage to an electrical supply system. Although Portland, Victoria promotes its tourist tram as being a cable car it actually operates using a diesel motor. The tram, which runs on a circular route around the town of Portland, uses dummies and salons formerly used on the Melbourne cable tramway system and since restored. In

8190-438: The city's rental apartments. In 2004, NYCHA contracted with the Architectural/Engineering firm Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade and Douglas to perform a needs assessment survey of all 2500+ properties owned by the agency (excluding FHA Homes, which were inspected by in-house NYCHA personnel in about 2007). In 2005, a report was released detailing the conditions of every aspect and building component of each individual property, based on

8320-404: 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

8450-494: 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. There has been criticism of the project, namely that its completion date of mid-2020s might make it obsolete; that it did not have

8580-484: The classic tramway built in the early 20th century with the tram system operating in mixed traffic, and the later type which is most often associated with the tram system having its own right of way. Tram systems that have their own right of way are often called light rail but this does not always hold true. Though these two systems differ in their operation, their equipment is much the same. New York City Housing Authority The New York City Housing Authority's goal

8710-416: The combined coal consumption of the stationary compressor and the onboard steam boiler. The Trieste–Opicina tramway in Trieste operates a hybrid funicular tramway system. Conventional electric trams are operated in street running and on reserved track for most of their route. However, on one steep segment of track, they are assisted by cable tractors, which push the trams uphill and act as brakes for

8840-430: The downhill run. For safety, the cable tractors are always deployed on the downhill side of the tram vehicle. Similar systems were used elsewhere in the past, notably on the Queen Anne Counterbalance in Seattle and the Darling Street wharf line in Sydney. In the mid-20th century many tram systems were disbanded, replaced by buses, trolleybuses , automobiles or rapid transit . The General Motors streetcar conspiracy

8970-446: The engines from emitting visible smoke or steam. Usually the engines used coke rather than coal as fuel to avoid emitting smoke; condensers or superheating were used to avoid emitting visible steam. A major drawback of this style of tram was the limited space for the engine, so that these trams were usually underpowered. Steam trams faded out around the 1890s to 1900s, being replaced by electric trams. Another motive system for trams

9100-429: The entire length of cable (typically several kilometres) had to be replaced on a regular schedule. After the development of reliable electrically powered trams, the costly high-maintenance cable car systems were rapidly replaced in most locations. Cable cars remained especially effective in hilly cities, since their nondriven wheels did not lose traction as they climbed or descended a steep hill. The moving cable pulled

9230-427: The entrance to the 59th Street subway station. The Brooklyn–Queens Connector received criticism for its operation and cost. While it was planned to connect to 17 subway stations, it would have been far from the BMT Canarsie Line ( L train) at Bedford Avenue . The line would also not have gone near the BMT Jamaica Line ( J , M , and Z ​ trains) at Marcy Avenue . Many areas that

9360-916: The existing Pulaski Bridge). These options would have then traveled down either Franklin Street, Manhattan Avenue (over the Crosstown subway line ), or McGuinness Boulevard , respectively. In southern Greenpoint, the Franklin Street routing would have used either Kent Avenue or Berry Street (using Banker Street). The other two options could have gone down Wythe Avenue, Berry Street, or Bedford Avenue , via Nassau Avenue or Norman Street. The four options would have merged into two (Kent Avenue and Wythe Avenue) south of Division Avenue in Williamsburg. South of

9490-477: The facilities. NYCHA's Conventional Public Housing Program has 175,636 apartments (as of 2018) in 325 developments throughout the city. NYCHA has approximately 13,000 employees serving about 173,946 families and approximately 392,259 authorized residents. Based on the 2010 census, NYCHA's Public Housing represents 8.2% of the city's rental apartments and is home to 4.9% of the city's population. NYCHA residents and Section 8 voucher holders combined occupy 12.4% of

9620-439: The fact that any given animal could only work so many hours on a given day, had to be housed, groomed, fed and cared for day in and day out, and produced prodigious amounts of manure, which the streetcar company was charged with storing and then disposing. Since a typical horse pulled a streetcar for about a dozen miles a day and worked for four or five hours, many systems needed ten or more horses in stable for each horsecar. In 1905

9750-657: The history of the New York City Housing Authority. The storm impacted approximately 10% of NYCHA's developments, which left 400 buildings without power, and 386 buildings without heat and hot water. In February 2014, NYCHA's Recovery and Resilience Department was created bringing about initial agreements in over $ 3 billion in funding for over 33 developments by March 2015. In August 2015, the first construction began on Lower East Side V. In December 2015, NYCHA received $ 3 billion in disaster recovery funding and by December 2016, $ 201 million of construction

9880-551: The late 19th and early 20th centuries a number of systems in various parts of the world employed trams powered by gas, naphtha gas or coal gas in particular. Gas trams are known to have operated between Alphington and Clifton Hill in the northern suburbs of Melbourne , Australia (1886–1888); in Berlin and Dresden , Germany; in Estonia (1921–1951); between Jelenia Góra , Cieplice , and Sobieszów in Poland (from 1897); and in

10010-402: The late 19th and early 20th centuries. There was one particular hazard associated with trams powered from a trolley pole off an overhead line on the early electrified systems. Since the tram relies on contact with the rails for the current return path, a problem arises if the tram is derailed or (more usually) if it halts on a section of track that has been heavily sanded by a previous tram, and

10140-560: The line has been the tremendous growth in Brooklyn and Queens waterfront areas since the early 2000s. In May 2016, Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector appointed its first executive director, Ya-Ting Liu, to oversee route operations and design. Two months later, mayor De Blasio appointed Adam Giambrone , former councilor in Toronto and chair of the Toronto Transit Commission , to serve as

10270-491: The line would turn east, terminating at the 59th Street subway station in Sunset Park . Schwartz's firm worked on the proposal for over a year and considered five options aside from streetcars. One other option, Select Bus Service , was estimated to cost $ 1 billion to implement, and was not chosen since it would not raise property values as a streetcar would. The engineers projected 52,000 to 53,000 riders per day on

10400-585: 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

10530-700: The monitor and the court would be terminated leading to further concerns that the mold remediation ordered in the 2013 Baez lawsuit wouldn't happen. In 2019, the administration, under NYCHA 2.0, began considering demolishing and rebuilding the Fulton Houses in Chelsea and the Cooper Park Houses in Williamsburg through partnering with private developers and a 70–30 split of market-rate and affordable housing. Other developers began lobbying

10660-534: The necessity of overhead wire and a trolley pole for street cars and railways. While at the University of Denver he conducted experiments which established that multiple unit powered cars were a better way to operate trains and trolleys. Electric tramways spread to many European cities in the 1890s, such as: Sarajevo built a citywide system of electric trams in 1895. Budapest established its tramway system in 1887, and its ring line has grown to be

10790-571: The neighborhood, all of the options would have then cut through the Brooklyn Navy Yard using Assembly Street. At Clinton Avenue, the BQX would have had three options to the west to access Downtown Brooklyn , Dumbo, or Brooklyn Heights . The BQX could use Market Street and Eighth Street; Flushing Avenue ; or Park Avenue. The Eighth Street option would have merge onto Flushing Avenue at Cumberland Street in Fort Greene . At Navy Street,

10920-658: The new streetcar would have served are 0.5 miles (0.80 km) from the IND Crosstown Line ( G train), while areas in Eastern Queens and parts of Brooklyn had no nearby subway lines. Since the project would have been constructed and run by New York City and not the MTA, it is not known how it would have integrated with the MTA's fare system, if at all. Public officials on Staten Island , including Staten Island Borough President James Oddo , did not oppose

11050-512: The next four years, and by agreeing to oversight by a federal monitor. In 2019, the federal government reached an agreement with the city to appoint a federal monitor and $ 2.2 billion spent by the city over the next decade on repair to avoid a federal takeover. In February 2019, federal officials chose Bart Schwartz as the NYCHA monitor. This is a list of buildings held by the New York City Housing Authority ,

11180-501: The next mayoral administration. The city had experienced financial shortfalls that year because of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City , making it unfeasible for de Blasio's administration to commence the project before the end of his term in 2022. By 2021, it was uncertain whether the BQX would ever be built. In the 2021 New York City Democratic mayoral primary , only one of the nine candidates ( Loree Sutton , who later dropped out of

11310-533: The oldest operating electric tramway in the world. Also in 1883, Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram was opened near Vienna in Austria. It was the first tram in the world in regular service that was run with electricity served by an overhead line with pantograph current collectors . The Blackpool Tramway was opened in Blackpool, UK on 29 September 1885 using conduit collection along Blackpool Promenade. This system

11440-470: The original proposal, which would have cost $ 2.5 billion. The proposed completion date for the BQX was also postponed to 2029. The NYCEDC announced in February 2019 that it had awarded a contract to create an environmental impact statement for the BQX. The report would be written by the firm Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. , which would publish a final statement by 2020. Afterward, the city would perform

11570-408: The oversight of chairwoman Shola Olatoye from 2012 to 2016. According to federal prosecutors, deceptions NYCHA workers used included shutting off buildings' water supplies during inspections to hide leaks and building false walls out of plywood to hide dilapidated rooms from inspectors. That day, NYCHA settled the lawsuit by admitting to the allegations, agreeing to spend an additional $ 1 billion over

11700-717: The plan, but they have stated that they felt under-represented after previous plans in Staten Island, including light rail along the island's North and West Shores , were rejected. The line was also criticized by public officials in South Brooklyn , who stated that their areas had their express bus service cut, their subway stations lacked elevators , their neighborhoods were under-served by public transit in general, and their requests for express F subway service and more reliable R train service had not yet been heeded. The proposal has also received criticism as it

11830-866: The policy and the State Commission of Human Rights questioned if the policy was in accordance to the state's laws on discrimination. In 1995, the New York City Housing Authority Police Department and the New York City Transit Police were merged into the New York City Police Department by NYC Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and continues today as the New York City Police Department Housing Bureau . NYCHA

11960-637: The poor paving of the streets in American cities which made them unsuitable for horsebuses , which were then common on the well-paved streets of European cities. Running the horsecars on rails allowed for a much smoother ride. There are records of a street railway running in Baltimore as early as 1828, however the first authenticated streetcar in America, was the New York and Harlem Railroad developed by

12090-506: The project obsolete when it was completed. Further, he thought the estimated cost of $ 10 per person per ride might be uneconomic compared to other alternatives. Instead, Strauss recommended that the city engage in a wider Request for Expressions of Interest Process to look at other potential alternatives. In February 2017, the Village Voice examined the BQX project's cost and found that the city had only tenuous sources of funding for

12220-581: The project, which he estimated would cost $ 50 million. The current line was initially proposed by a non-profit group, Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector, which commissioned a study to examine the corridor along the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront. First publicly reported on in January 2016, the study proposed a 17-mile (27 km) route between the neighborhoods of Astoria in Queens and Sunset Park in Brooklyn, passing through several neighborhoods on

12350-493: 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

12480-627: The project. The Voice 's study found that the neighborhoods along the proposed BQX pay a combined $ 1 billion annually in residential taxes, with the tax revenue having increased 17% since 2015. However, to pay for the BQX, the streetcar alone would need to raise tax by another 17%, or else the city would need to resort to financing the streetcar out of its own budget. In addition, there would be less benefit in building in already-gentrified neighborhoods than in neighborhoods that are gentrifying or being redeveloped. The streetcar's feasibility study estimated that property values would go up even without

12610-595: The race) supported building the BQX, while five candidates opposed it. A different rail line between Brooklyn and Queens, the Interborough Express , was announced in 2022; this route would use the Bay Ridge Branch and Fremont Secondary , rather than running along the waterfront as the BQX did. The prototype vehicle had been dismantled by 2024. As proposed in November 2016, the northern end of

12740-626: The rights to the highest bidder in the event that the project ever moved forward. Diamond's efforts to secure independent funding were not successful. In 2005, U.S. Representative Nydia Velázquez helped obtain a $ 300,000 federal grant for a six-month streetcar study. Although the BHRA had estimated $ 10–$ 15 million would be required to complete the project, the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) streetcar feasibility study (completed in April 2011) concluded that

12870-566: The route would probably have been at Hoyt Avenue or along 27th Avenue, with the BQX using either 31st Street (under the Astoria subway line , carrying the N and ​ W trains), Vernon Boulevard, 21st Street, or Crescent Street to go south to Long Island City. From there, the BQX would have used 44th Drive and then cross the Newtown Creek using one of three bridges (a new bridge at either 2nd Street or Vernon Boulevard, or

13000-671: 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

13130-409: The state government owned some of the land that the BQX was to pass through. Shortly afterward, Liu stepped down from the director's position of Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector, to be replaced by Deputy Director Jessica Schumer , the daughter of U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer . By April 2018, there was still insufficient funding, and de Blasio announced that the city would ask for federal aid for

13260-458: The streetcar would need at least 140 employees to operate the streetcars and a host of other workers, including traffic enforcement agents. 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

13390-428: The streetcar, which would have required a bus every minute. Each street car would be able to carry 150 to 175 passengers. Additionally, buses would also have a harder time navigating the 12 to 15 streets along the route. The engineers' route would have its own dedicated lanes for the whole route. The study recommended that two facilities for maintenance and storage would be built at a cost of $ 100 million. In addition,

13520-572: The streetcar. Tram A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in the United States) is a type of urban rail transit consisting of either individual railcars or self-propelled multiple unit trains that run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way . The tramlines or tram networks operated as public transport are called tramways or simply trams/streetcars. Because of their close similarities, trams are commonly included in

13650-542: The suburban tramway lines around Milan and Padua ; the last Gamba de Legn ("Peg-Leg") tramway ran on the Milan- Magenta -Castano Primo route in late 1957. The other style of steam tram had the steam engine in the body of the tram, referred to as a tram engine (UK) or steam dummy (US). The most notable system to adopt such trams was in Paris. French-designed steam trams also operated in Rockhampton , in

13780-401: The successes of other American cities' streetcar systems, estimated that the project will pay for itself by increasing the property values in the neighborhoods around it in a form of transit-oriented development , similar to how the 7 Subway Extension was built. It is expected to create 86,000 jobs through 2045. In November 2017, Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector revealed a mockup of

13910-558: The tracks. Siemens later designed his own version of overhead current collection, called the bow collector . One of the first systems to use it was in Thorold, Ontario , opened in 1887, and it was considered quite successful. While this line proved quite versatile as one of the earliest fully functional electric streetcar installations, it required horse-drawn support while climbing the Niagara Escarpment and for two months of

14040-416: The tram and completing the earth return circuit with their body could receive a serious electric shock. If "grounded", the driver was required to jump off the tram (avoiding simultaneous contact with the tram and the ground) and pull down the trolley pole, before allowing passengers off the tram. Unless derailed, the tram could usually be recovered by running water down the running rails from a point higher than

14170-466: The tram loses electrical contact with the rails. In this event, the underframe of the tram, by virtue of a circuit path through ancillary loads (such as interior lighting), is live at the full supply voltage, typically 600 volts DC. In British terminology, such a tram was said to be 'grounded'—not to be confused with the US English use of the term, which means the exact opposite. Any person stepping off

14300-427: The tram, the water providing a conducting bridge between the tram and the rails. With improved technology, this ceased to be an problem. In the 2000s, several companies introduced catenary-free designs: Alstom's Citadis line uses a third rail, Bombardier's PRIMOVE LRV is charged by contactless induction plates embedded in the trackway and CAF URBOS tram uses ultracaps technology As early as 1834, Thomas Davenport ,

14430-408: The two routings had three options: go to Dumbo using Gold Street, Front/York Streets, and Cadman Plaza East; go to Downtown Brooklyn using Navy Street, Ashland Place, Willoughby Place, and Joralemon Street; or use Tillary Street to access Brooklyn Heights. At Joralemon and Court Streets, all of the options would have turned south down Court Street and then west along Atlantic Avenue . The Dumbo option

14560-780: The way. News media reported that the study had estimated construction costs of $ 1.7 billion, annual operating costs of $ 26 million, and 15.8 million annual riders by 2035. The proposal included a branch going through Downtown Brooklyn to the Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center station . The study described a routing that would begin in Queens near the New York City Housing Authority 's Astoria Houses . It would run down 21st Street south to Queensboro Plaza , west onto 11th Street to Newtown Creek . The streetcar would cross Newtown Creek into Greenpoint , then pass through Williamsburg and

14690-804: The wider term light rail , which also includes systems separated from other traffic. Tram vehicles are usually lighter and shorter than main line and rapid transit trains. Most trams use electrical power, usually fed by a pantograph sliding on an overhead line ; older systems may use a trolley pole or a bow collector . In some cases, a contact shoe on a third rail is used. If necessary, they may have dual power systems—electricity in city streets and diesel in more rural environments. Occasionally, trams also carry freight . Some trams, known as tram-trains , may have segments that run on mainline railway tracks, similar to interurban systems. The differences between these modes of rail transport are often indistinct, and systems may combine multiple features. One of

14820-409: The winter when hydroelectricity was not available. It continued in service in its original form into the 1950s. Sidney Howe Short designed and produced the first electric motor that operated a streetcar without gears. The motor had its armature direct-connected to the streetcar 's axle for the driving force. Short pioneered "use of a conduit system of concealed feed" thereby eliminating

14950-532: The world's first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle tramcar at an assembly facility in Qingdao . The chief engineer of the CSR subsidiary CSR Sifang Co Ltd. , Liang Jianying, said that the company is studying how to reduce the running costs of the tram. Trams have been used for two main purposes: for carrying passengers and for carrying cargo. There are several types of passenger tram: There are two main types of tramways,

15080-401: The world. Earlier electric trains proved difficult or unreliable and experienced limited success until the second half of the 1880s, when new types of current collectors were developed. Siemens' line, for example, provided power through a live rail and a return rail, like a model train , limiting the voltage that could be used, and delivering electric shocks to people and animals crossing

15210-682: Was a case study of the decline of trams in the United States. In the 21st century, trams have been re-introduced in cities where they had been closed down for decades (such as Tramlink in London), or kept in heritage use (such as Spårväg City in Stockholm). Most trams made since the 1990s (such as the Bombardier Flexity series and Alstom Citadis ) are articulated low-floor trams with features such as regenerative braking . In March 2015, China South Rail Corporation (CSR) demonstrated

15340-491: Was built by Werner von Siemens who contacted Pirotsky. This was the world's first commercially successful electric tram. It drew current from the rails at first, with overhead wire being installed in 1883. In Britain, Volk's Electric Railway was opened in 1883 in Brighton. This two kilometer line along the seafront, re-gauged to 2 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 825 mm ) in 1884, remains in service as

15470-411: Was chosen) and 39th Street, the BQX would have run along Third Avenue. From 39th Street to 58th Street, the BQX could have swung west to 39th Street to serve Industry City , the Brooklyn Army Terminal , and the industrial center of Sunset Park; or it could have kept running along Third Avenue and serve residents of western Sunset Park. The BQX would have ended at Third Avenue and 59th Street, a block from

15600-546: Was created in 1934 to help alleviate the housing crisis caused by the Great Depression during Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia's administration and was the first agency in the United States to provide publicly funded housing. The agency used the developments to practice slum-clearance and establish model affordable housing for the city. In 1935, NYCHA completed its first development, the First Houses , located on

15730-487: Was installed as a commercial venture operating between the outer Melbourne suburb of Box Hill and the then tourist-oriented country town Doncaster from 1889 to 1896. Electric systems were also built in Adelaide , Ballarat , Bendigo , Brisbane , Fremantle , Geelong , Hobart , Kalgoorlie , Launceston , Leonora , Newcastle , Perth , and Sydney . By the 1970s, the only full tramway system remaining in Australia

15860-566: Was restarted in 1860, again using horses. It was worked by steam from 1877, and then, from 1929, by very large (106-seat) electric tramcars, until closure in 1960. The Swansea and Mumbles Railway was something of a one-off however, and no street tramway appeared in Britain until 1860 when one was built in Birkenhead by the American George Francis Train . Street railways developed in America before Europe, due to

15990-523: Was ruled out in August 2018. In Cobble Hill , the route could have gone in one of three directions. It could have continued to the west end of Atlantic Avenue and then southward down Columbia Street, serving the Columbia Street Waterfront District ; serve the residential section of Cobble Hill via Henry, Congress, and Columbia Streets; or turn down Hicks Street. The two Columbia Street options would have needed to go around

16120-628: Was tested in San Francisco , in 1873. Part of its success is attributed to the development of an effective and reliable cable grip mechanism, to grab and release the moving cable without damage. The second city to operate cable trams was Dunedin , from 1881 to 1957. The most extensive cable system in the US was built in Chicago in stages between 1859 and 1892. New York City developed multiple cable car lines, that operated from 1883 to 1909. Los Angeles also had several cable car lines, including

16250-635: Was the Melbourne tram system. However, there were also a few single lines remaining elsewhere: the Glenelg tram line , connecting Adelaide to the beachside suburb of Glenelg , and tourist trams in the Victorian Goldfields cities of Bendigo and Ballarat. In recent years the Melbourne system, generally recognised as the largest urban tram network in the world, has been considerably modernised and expanded. The Adelaide line has been extended to

16380-411: Was the cable car, which was pulled along a fixed track by a moving steel cable, the cable usually running in a slot below the street level. The power to move the cable was normally provided at a "powerhouse" site a distance away from the actual vehicle. The London and Blackwall Railway , which opened for passengers in east London, England, in 1840 used such a system. The first practical cable car line

16510-535: Was thereby shortened from a 16-mile (26 km) alignment with 30 stops to an 11-mile (18 km) alignment with 26 stops. This was supposedly because of cost constraints, since it was projected that the stops in Sunset Park and Dumbo would not have enough ridership to justify building the streetcar there. However, the shortened route was estimated to be more expensive than the original proposed route to Sunset Park. The new route would cost $ 2.73 billion, versus

16640-424: Was underway. By December 2017, $ 1.85 billion in contracts were awarded, and construction was underway at 27 developments. Construction at all Sandy-impacted sites are expected to be completed by the end of 2021. In February 2018, attorney Jim Walden filed a lawsuit on behalf of 400,000 NYCHA tenants living in squalid conditions. The suit demands that the court appoint an independent monitor to oversee NYCHA because

16770-468: Was viewed as a government subsidy to property developers. In addition, the BQX would have run through several "100-year flood zones", meaning that the line would have been prone to flooding during heavy storms and hurricanes. In a May 2016 editorial in the New York Daily News , Princeton University professor Steven Strauss stated that he was concerned that autonomous vehicles might make

16900-878: Was widely used in London, Washington, D.C., and New York City, and the surface contact collection method, used in Wolverhampton (the Lorain system), Torquay and Hastings in the UK (the Dolter stud system), and in Bordeaux , France (the ground-level power supply system). The convenience and economy of electricity resulted in its rapid adoption once the technical problems of production and transmission of electricity were solved. Electric trams largely replaced animal power and other forms of motive power including cable and steam, in

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