A Streetcar Named “What’s Manhattan?”

I’ve said it before, I only go to Manhattan to visit the dentist, since finding a new dentist is the only thing more painful than going into “the city.” Otherwise I’m very content to stay on this landmass we know as Long Island and within the confines of the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. But travel between the two sometimes illogically results in “having” to go through Manhattan.

With development on the East River waterfront outpacing transportation solutions, commuting remains a hugely unanswered question. In Greenpoint, with much complained about G service (which is only going to get worse before it gets better) and still no East River Ferry service at India St on the known horizon, maybe it isn’t too cockamamy of an idea to imagine a self powered wireless street car that runs along the Queens and Brooklyn waterfront between Astoria and Red Hook.

According to the NY Times:

In Brooklyn, the route would follow Commercial Street to Franklin Street to Kent Avenue and eventually end up on Columbia Street at the Erie Basin in Red Hook, along the way linking to subways and to ferries that now suffer because they’re disconnected from the transit network.

In a city where bike lanes and even the subway were originally unthinkable, would a modern day trolley be the answer, the missing link, between Brooklyn & Queens via the waterfront?