Mamdani Budget Funds Queensway, Dimming Hope for Reactivated Long Island Rail

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s proposed budget includes $43 million for the Queensway, a proposed park similar to the High Line that could further complicate efforts to bring an extension of the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) to Rockaway Beach. 

As Dave Colon explains in Streetsblog NYC, “Adams Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi insisted building the Queensway wouldn’t preclude building QueensLink, but the city’s most recent designs of the Metropolitan Hub show the park pretty firmly entrenched in areas that train project would have to subsume. Any addition of transit on the route may require shutting down the park, at least temporarily.”

Supporters of the QueensLink proposal say reviving that rail line would bring 75,000 riders a day. Mamdani previously supported the rail extension, calling it “very important to me” in an interview last year. “If we want to know how to combat the climate crisis, we need to build out right rail at every possible place in this city,” Mamdani added. 

Advocates for the project continue to lobby for it to the MTA, which has “kept its distance” from the proposal and projected half the ridership advocates predict.