Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s preliminary budget quietly tucks roughly $43 million into a line for the QueensWay’s Metropolitan Hub, a High Line-style park planned along the long-dormant Rockaway Beach Branch. Transit advocates are not thrilled. They warn that once you build park infrastructure on an active rail right of way, bringing trains back later becomes far more complicated and costly. Mamdani has previously backed restoring service on the corridor, so the move has community leaders and rail boosters wondering what changed.
Budget Line Shows $43M For QueensWay
The city’s FY2026 Capital Commitment Plan includes an entry labeled "Queensway - LIRR Rockaway Branch Line Into A Park" that lists 43,000 in capital commitments, with figures shown in thousands, which works out to roughly $43 million for construction of the Metropolitan Hub, according to the city’s Capital Commitment Plan. Transit advocate Andrew Lynch publicly flagged the line item, and Streetsblog New York City picked up the story, noting that locking in a park on the right of way could become both a political and physical roadblock to any future rail reactivation. The revelation has already sparked local questions about whether current park designs leave realistic room for a rails-and-trails option.
Ridership Hype Meets MTA Sticker Shock
QueensLink supporters argue that reactivating the line for transit would serve more than 75,000 daily riders, a figure laid out on the project’s own website. The MTA’s 20-Year Needs Assessment tells a different story. In its comparative evaluation, the agency put the Rockaway Beach Branch reactivation cost at about $5.9 billion and projected roughly 39,200 daily riders, according to the MTA 20-Year Needs Assessment. That gap between advocates’ ridership hopes and the MTA’s technical forecasts has been a key reason the project received a low comparative score inside the agency.
Politics, Optics And A Park On The Tracks
The timing is politically awkward. Mamdani publicly supported QueensLink as an Assembly member and has previously called the project "very important" in interviews, yet his capital plan keeps money flowing toward the park, as Streetsblog New York City reported. The park funding also echoes an earlier move from City Hall. Back in 2022, the Adams administration pledged about $35 million toward the Met Hub’s first phase, an investment that the Trust for Public Land and local park advocates pointed to as proof the city had effectively lined up behind the QueensWay concept. Rail advocates counter that once permanent park structures go up on critical segments, unwinding those choices later, if a transit project advances, would be disruptive and expensive.
What Happens Next
The QueensWay line appears in the mayor’s preliminary capital plan, which catalogs proposed commitments as part of the budget process and can still be adjusted as negotiations unfold, according to the city’s Capital Commitment Plan. In the meantime, QueensLink supporters say they plan to press the mayor, the MTA, and state leaders to spell out whether the right of way will be formally preserved for potential rail use, a stance detailed on the QueensLink website. With tens of millions of dollars and a major transit-versus-park choice on the table, Queens elected officials are widely expected to put the issue under a microscope as the budget gets hammered out in the coming weeks.
