Horan—who has tried without luck to enlist the QueensWay people in his cause—argues that there is no higher use for the right-of-way than public transportation.

"The economic impact of being able to get from Point A to Point B in a reasonable amount of time is hard to quantify," he said. "It changes lives in ways we don't even know about."

Specifically, the reactivated branch line would not just provide a connection between Rego Park and Howard Beach, as detailed in the MTA study. QueensLink envisions taking the M line, which currently terminates in Forest Hills, and sending it down from Rego Park to Howard Beach and then out across Jamaica Bay to Rockaway Park.

No longer would Rockaway residents suffer long waits for the Broad Channel shuttle.

In addition, with the M peeling off from the Queens Boulevard line, there would be room at its current terminus to allow the G line to take the M's place; instead of terminating at Court Square, the G would continue to Forest Hills, adding capacity to the line.

"This is an opportunity to improve the current network," said Andrew Lynch, a Ridgewood, Queens–based transit activist, cartographer and blogger, who is chief design officer for QueensLink. "QueensLink isn't just about getting riders from southern Queens to Midtown faster. It's also about commuters who don't currently use public transportation because there is no easy way to get between northern and southern Queens."

He sees the branch line connecting riders with jobs in Long Island City, Jackson Heights and even Flushing and Jamaica via transfers to other lines.

"Essentially [QueensLink] would be a crosstown line that would help take cars off the roads by allowing Queens residents to get around their own borough," he said.

Some elected officials in the Rockaways say the project is worth almost any price tag if it can move people in both directions.

"It's feasible because it's necessary," said Stacey Pheffer Amato, an assemblywoman whose district includes Howard Beach and the Rockaways. "This is a community that has been having a renaissance since Hurricane Sandy. People are moving here, and they need a way to [ride] north for work and family. And in reverse, so many people are coming south to visit or for vacation, and this makes a clear path."

As for the costs, Horan and Lynch maintain that the $8 billion figure is a bloated estimate that allots billions to contingencies such as specification changes and may have been intended to quash a project the MTA has no interest in pursuing. They point out that the study was completed in 2018 and the state agency sat on it for a year—without explaining why—before releasing it in October.

Horan thinks the link could be built for "about a quarter" of the projected $8 billion, especially if it could be done using the design-build method—a program that faces restrictions in the city—that helped Gov. Andrew Cuomo replace the Tappan Zee Bridge. Horan said it was important to consider that even if portions of the line were put underground, the construction would involve "cut and cover" operations along a mostly unobstructed right-of-way, rather than tunneling beneath infrastructure, as is the case in Manhattan. (The exception would be a section of tunnel connecting to the Queens Boulevard line.)

Horan is not alone in questioning the $8 billion estimate.

"It's extremely high," said Michael Horodniceanu, who spent a decade as president of MTA Capital Construction and is now a professor at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. "Even though you have a tunnel"—to the Queens Boulevard trains—"the estimate is way out of line."

He noted that the first phase of the Second Avenue subway cost $4.5 billion, and that included three stations built deep underground; the branch line stations would be aboveground—a far cheaper option.

According to his back-of-the-envelope calculation, construction might cost "at most" half of the estimate, Horodniceanu said.

But even a $4 billion project would be a struggle to finance. And costs are not the only obstacle. There is also opposition from residents whose homes overlook the abandoned branch line.

Some of them are not interested in having either a park or a rail line right below their window. Although parts of the right-of-way are littered with garbage and attract "noxious uses," Strickland says, some residents are used to the status quo after more than 50 years of peace and quiet.