{"id":362644,"date":"2026-10-02T06:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T06:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/362644\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T06:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T06:42:08","slug":"connecting-rockaway-the-wave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/362644\/","title":{"rendered":"Connecting Rockaway – The Wave"},"content":{"rendered":"

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For as long as I have been involved in public service, one of the biggest frustrations I have heard from Rockaway residents is transportation. We live in New York City, yet getting from Rockaway to the rest of Queens can take far too long, and even traveling from one end of our own peninsula to the other has become more difficult than it should be. That is why I believe we need to pursue every realistic opportunity to improve transportation for our communities, from major long-term projects like QueensLink to practical improvements that make better use of infrastructure that we already have.\n<\/p>\n

My support for QueensLink goes back years. When I worked alongside then-Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder, I was part of the effort to push the MTA to seriously examine restoring the abandoned Rockaway Beach Branch. That work helped move the idea from something people talked about into something government was actually studying. I have continued supporting that effort as Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato fought to keep it moving forward, including her successful push to secure state funding for the newest QueensLink study.\n<\/p>\n

I believe QueensLink could fundamentally change transportation for southern Queens by creating a faster north-south connection and giving Rockaway residents another way to reach jobs, schools, businesses and the rest of the city. I will continue pushing the state and the MTA to move that conversation forward and give Rockaway residents a real answer on the future of this corridor.\n<\/p>\n

But we should not have to wait for one major project before improving transportation here.\n<\/p>\n

There is another opportunity sitting directly in front of us, and this one is about connecting Rockaway with itself.\n<\/p>\n

Many longtime residents remember the Rockaway Round Robin, which allowed trains to travel between the Rockaway Park and Far Rockaway branches through Hammels Wye. Instead of treating the eastern and western ends of Rockaway as two separate destinations, riders could travel by rail across the peninsula.\n<\/p>\n

That kind of connection matters even more today because traveling from one end of Rockaway to the other can be frustrating. When I worked for Phil Goldfeder, I remember being able to make that trip in roughly 15 to 20 minutes. Today, from my own experience, that same trip can easily take 30 to 40 minutes depending on traffic. I believe too many transportation decisions have made life harder for people who have no realistic choice but to drive, and Rockaway residents should not have to spend that much time simply traveling across their own peninsula.\n<\/p>\n

Anyone who has sat in traffic on Rockaway Beach Boulevard or relied on the Q22 understands the problem. For many residents, there simply are not enough good east-west transportation options.\n<\/p>\n

That is what makes the Round Robin exciting.\n<\/p>\n

We are not talking about constructing a completely new rail line. During the 17-week Rockaway outage in 2025 , the MTA operated S shuttle trains across the peninsula between Beach 116th Street and Far Rockaway-Mott Avenue, demonstrating that cross-peninsula rail service is feasible.\n<\/p>\n

The next step is to determine what additional signal, switching, and operational improvements are needed to make that connection work efficiently as a regular, reliable service. The signal and switching system needs to be upgraded so trains can make the move efficiently without relying on the manual switching operation used today. Compared with the massive price tags we normally associate with New York transportation projects, this is smaller in comparison. We are talking about modernizing a connection that already exists, not digging miles of tunnels, acquiring land or constructing an entirely new rail line.\n<\/p>\n

I will push the MTA to identify exactly what signal and switching upgrades are needed, determine the cost and put forward a timeline to get it done. If this can be accomplished for a relatively small investment, there is no reason it should sit on the shelf while Rockaway residents continue wasting time traveling from one end of their own community to the other. A restored Round Robin would not replace the Q22. It would complement it. The Q22 remains one of the most important east-west transportation routes on the peninsula, but another option could relieve pressure on the bus and give riders a potentially faster way to travel between communities near the subway branches.\n<\/p>\n

That means a student in Far Rockaway trying to reach school farther west, a Rockaway Park resident working in Far Rockaway, a senior going to a medical appointment, or a parent trying to get a child from one side of the peninsula to another could have another choice besides sitting in traffic or waiting for a bus.\n<\/p>\n

To me, QueensLink and the Round Robin are part of the same larger transportation vision. QueensLink is about better connecting Rockaway with the rest of Queens, while restoring the Round Robin is about finally giving Rockaway a better way to connect with itself. We shouldn\u2019t have to choose between a long-term transportation transformation and practical improvements that could potentially help residents sooner. I will push for both. We should continue fighting for the major transportation investments our community has waited decades for, while also pursuing common-sense improvements that can make a difference much sooner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For as long as I have been involved in public service, one of the biggest frustrations I have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-362644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}