Howard Beach station beatdown victim loses half her vision

 

NY Post

The Queens mom savagely beaten by a ranting homeless man at a Howard Beach subway station confirmed for the first time that she will lose her eye because of the attack.

“I’m going to be blind in my right eye now,” said Elizabeth Gomes. “The nerve system is completely damaged and the eye is just deflating.”

Gomes, 33, said she is scheduled to meet with a specialist at New York Eye & Ear Infirmary on Feb. 13 to learn the next steps in getting a prosthetic eye.

“I mean honestly, I still wake up everyday and I still can’t believe it. I still think to myself ‘Wow I lost my vision at 33 years of age while I was just going to work. How can my life ever be the same,’ ” Gomes said.

Her life tragically changed shortly after 5 a.m. Sept. 20 as she got off the subway at the Howard Beach A train station on her way to her security guard job at Kennedy Airport.

A man who had been ranting about the devil hit her over the head with a bottle and then chased her before throwing her into the side of a token booth and then repeatedly pummeling and stomping on her.

The stomach-churning assault, which was caught on video, shows a good Samaritan trying to help, but being chased away by the assailant as the attack continues.

Waheed Foster, 42, was indicted in September on attempted murder and assault charges.

Foster, who killed his own grandmother when he was 14, had been arrested weeks earlier for violating parole in another case, but was let go thanks to state reform laws.

Gomes has been unable to return to work and still fears being around groups of people. She lives with her mother and fiancee, Clement Tucker, and their 3-year-old son. She has two other children, ages 10 and 12, and Tucker has two.

Structual problems at Bayside LIRR station are being neglected

There are ongoing problems at the Bayside Long Island Rail Road Station that impact several thousand dally riders. I give the LIRR full credit for installation of new concrete ties and ballast.  This will insure a safer and more comfortable ride. They have also recently completed repairs to sections of the west bound platform edge.

As you can see by the accompanying photos, there is still other significant outstanding maintenance and repair work to be done. The original wooden support beams for various sections of the canopy have deteriorated.  Pigeons have moved into the rotting bottom section of the west bound canopy stairs roof. Other portions of the canopy roof are also in need of repair.  Pigeons droppings can be seen at the bottom of the west bound stairs and second set of stairs for the east bound platform.  The metal structure supporting the over pass connecting the east and west bound platforms have begun accumulating rust.  There is also a hole in one of the east bound steel stair cases.  Pigeons have also found a second home in the hole on the roof over the ticket office side facing the platform.

Why has the LIRR waited so long to allow these issues to grow even worse? When will the necessary repairs to these structural deficiencies be dealt with and completed? - Larry Penner

Larry Penner is a transportation advocate, historian and writer who previously worked 31 years for the US Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration Region 2 NY Office.  This included the development, review, approval and oversight for grants supporting billions in capital projects and programs on behalf of the MTA, NYC Transit bus and subway, Long Island and Metro North Rail Roads, MTA Bus and NYC Department of Transportation along with 30 other transit agencies in NY & NJ).

 

A few bed bugs have conquered the control tower at the 71st/Continental Ave Station

NY Daily News 

A pesky bed bug infestation at a key subway control tower in Queens isn’t going away — and the bloodsuckers could chew up service for the second time in less than week.

More bed bugs were discovered at the facility Monday, five days after the space was shut down during rush hour to be fumigated — a move that caused major delays for thousands of riders across nine different subway lines.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Tim Minton said “one bug” was spotted at the Continental Master Control Tower in Forest Hills on Monday — and that exterminators would again be brought in to fumigate the facility after the evening rush.

“It is conceivable that this bug originated somewhere other than these premises,” said Minton. “We cannot conclude and we do not conclude that the source was internal.”

But transit workers at the tower have complained for weeks about bed bugs in the facility. Union officials and employees with knowledge of the situation charged bosses didn’t take the problem seriously.

An MTA employee with direct knowledge of the situation accused transit officials of a coverup, and said a general superintendent was to blame for the ongoing infestation.

Frank Jezycki, NYC Transit’s chief operating officer for subways, admitted to the Daily News that an exterminator verified the presence of bed bugs at the tower on Jan. 8 and treated the facility.

Jezycki said a manager then identified more bed bugs on Jan. 22 — but the MTA’s exterminator showed up quicker than usual.

Jezycki said said the agency’s exterminator, Abalon Pest Control, has a 24-hour window to respond to complaints, but the company’s worker arrived at the tower just before rush hour, which ended up causing serious headaches for riders.

“There was a truck down the block, a guy says he’s here to treat,” said Jezycki. “We had folks there that put together a contingency plan for service.”

That contingency plan was a nightmare.

Operators who work in the infested control tower direct train traffic through a key relay switch on the E, F, M and R lines.

Crews were unable to direct trains through a crucial interlocking while the building was fumigated last Wednesday, and the lapse caused 236 trains to be delayed and another 117 to be canceled, according to an MTA incident report obtained by The News.

Eric Loegel, vice president of rapid transit operations at Transport Workers Union Local 100, said gripes that the bed bugs may have been living in a set of cloth chairs at the facility went ignored by a tower manager.

There was also this little tidbit closing the Gothamist post on this latest transit disgrace:

Following last week's outbreak, NYC Transit President Andy Byford issued a statement apologizing to customers affected by the delays and assuring employees that they were working to ensure their safety. A few hours later, he announced his resignation.

I mentioned on the Twitter a few times that this was the final straw that caused Byford to snap and say goodbye to all that. Among the myriad other things I point out on Impunity City.

Astoria Blvd. train station will be out of service for almost a year.

 

Queens Eagle

The heavily trafficked Astoria Blvd. Station will close for nine months beginning on March 17 so that the MTA can install several ADA-accessible elevators and reconstruct the mezzanine.

The station, which first opened in February 1902, served more than 13,000 Astoria commuters per day in 2017 according to MTA data, but it lacks ADA accessibility. The upcoming renovations include the installation of four elevators to service the station, as well as raising the station’s mezzanine in order to better accommodate street-level truck traffic.

“We’ve been on a steady march of improvement work on the entire Astoria Line to increase reliability and improve safety and the customer experience, and this elevator project is a huge win for our customers,” said MTA New York City Transit President Andy Byford. “Raising the height of the station is also vitally important for our train service and structure as well as the vehicles that use the streets below those elevated tracks.”

District 22 Councilmember Costa Constantinides said the single-subway line neighborhood was long overdue for an ADA-accessible station, after previous Astoria subway station renovations left much to be desired. Currently, none of the neighborhood’s N/W train stations have elevators.

“As someone who catches the train at Astoria Boulevard almost daily, I can tell you this station desperately needs the pending upgrades," Constantinides told the Eagle. "I'm glad to see the MTA finally decided to give in-need Astoria riders elevator access — only after doing vanity upgrades to four other stations when we explicitly requested they become ADA-compliant. As we move forward on the discussion about municipal control of the subway system, I hope future upgrades will account for the needs of the community, so people don't have to trek several blocks just to access an elevator."

Nine months? That is to laugh. Keep an eye on this Astoria, because it took four years to put up one elevator and new staircases at the Lefferts Blvd. station that I chronicled on for two years on Impunity City.

$20B transit signal upgrade is needed

From Metro:

In the coming days it has been reported that New York City Transit Chief Andy Byford will unveil a new project to revamp the subway’s outdated signal system.

The subway signal system project could cost up to $20 billion to revamp as it is has not seen updates since the 1930s. Byford plans to install the signal system at all 472 stations.

The decision to update the system comes after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency last year after a slew of delays and train derailments that caused injuries to dozens of commuters.

Silly train study says what we already knew

Summary of Findings from the Lower Montauk Branch Light Rail Study:

 Initial analysis shows that it would be feasible to develop joint passenger-freight operations on the Branch, allowing for robust transit service while maintaining and upgrading freight operations if desired.

 Approximately 21,000 riders per weekday and 5.8 million riders annually would use the service, assuming a $2.75 fare, a free transfer to MTA Bus or Subway, and relatively frequent service throughout the day. Fare revenues are estimated at $15 million annually, while annual operations and maintenance costs are estimated at $55 million.

 Capital costs while maintaining freight service on the Branch are estimated at $2.2 billion, including substantial upgrades to rail infrastructure (track, signals, communications), new running track in key areas, new freight yard space to clear track for transit operations, transit vehicles, a storage and maintenance yard for transit vehicles, and property acquisition. Eliminating freight service altogether on the Branch – an option not analyzed in this study – would reduce total capital costs to about $1.1 billion. Value Capture financing, using a portion of the increase in property values induced by this new transit service, could potentially fund $300 million in bonds, or roughly 27% of total projected capital costs for passenger-only rail operations on the Branch and 14% of such costs under the analyzed option of both passenger and freight rail operations.

Preliminary Estimate: Projected Bond Support from 5 Key Station Areas ($2017)
Grand Ave./Flushing Ave. $50,000,000
Fresh Pond/Metro Ave. $39,000,000
Metro Mall $59,000,000
80th Street $61,000,000
Woodhaven Blvd. $100,000,000
Total: $309,000,000

Bottom line: Way too expensive + not enough riders = a no go. The mayor actually said this in front of Liz Crowley back at his December 2017 town hall meeting in Glendale. The DOT quietly threw this up on their website, probably because they didn't want to call attention to the fact that their agency and the council member blew $1/2M on this nonsense. The taxpayers' loss is AECOM's gain.

Lefferts Blvd station repairs still incomplete

From Impunity City:

The renovation and modernization of the Lefferts Blvd. Station remains incomplete and nearly 2 years behind schedule. This was supposed to be complete in September 2016.

When I last wrote about this, it was with great relief that the staircase was repaired and accessible again. Also the encrusted vile, unsanitary and health hazardous pigeon shit that piled up on the turnstiles and the partition walls was finally scoured somewhat. I attribute this to an actual televised report way back in late May by CBS New York’s Reena Roy.

Now when I wrote that I would write back in a month, being July, was around the time when Mario’s Son, Governor Andrew Cuomo proclaimed commuting on your city’s subway was in the midst of a summer of hell and ordered a fast tracking of repairs all over our lousy transit system. An encouraging sign appeared at this station promising the station’s completion, including the monstrous elevator which hogs half the sidewalk on the corner by September 16 or the end of the 3rd quarter.

Look how they creatively fixed the date on the sign with the sophistication of a little scamp changing D-'s to A+'s on a report card.

Subway stations are falling apart

From Crains:

A new report says that a majority of New York City's subway stations are in need of structural and architectural repairs.

The report by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli found that only 51 of the system's 468 stations didn't require repairs to stairs, columns, platform edges and lighting.

Mr. DiNapoli says NYC Transit said it was making progress. But the comptroller says the pace is too slow.

He says damaged stairs and platform edges pose risks for riders.

The report was based on the most recent data available—a 2012 survey conducted by NYC Transit.

The MTA, which runs the system, says none of the stations were unsafe.

New Elmhurst LIRR station in the works?

From the Queens Courier:

The wheels of the LIRR might soon be making a stop once again in Elmhurst — or at least in the next five years.

In the MTA’s 2015-2019 $32 billion Capital Program, released earlier this week, $40 million is being set aside to construct a new Long Island Rail Road station on the Port Washington Branch.

“A new Elmhurst station will provide commuter railroad service to this vibrant community,” the MTA said in the five-year plan said.

The proposed station elements include two new 12-car platforms, staircases, platform railings, platform shelters, ticket vending machines, lighting, communication and security systems, and site improvements, according to the capital plan.

Cinderblocked windows at abandoned train station are ugly

"When I pass by the missing faux window of the abandoned Union Hall station on the LIRR, I think of the South Bronx in the 1980s, when fake windows were installed on abandoned apartments so that passing motorists would get a better impression of The Bronx.

If the MTA won't restore this station, at least replace the missing faux windows!" - anonymous