I guarantee that those people you refer to don't live under the El.
Oh? I highly doubt that.
I guarantee that they haven't had their cars or other property destroyed by it,
Most Astoria residents don't have cars.
and I guarantee that they don't own businesses that are in perpetual shadows beneath it.
The el may be unpleasant to those businesses but it carries their customers. Without the el, many of those businesses would no longer be in business. Look at Jamaica.
The only people who REALLY love an El are those of us who don't have to deal with it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
No, the people who REALLY love the Astoria el -- or, rather, the people who would most vehemently object to your calls for its removal -- are the people who depend on it to get them from point to point. I find it amusing that the only person here who has proposed that it be torn down doesn't even live in the same state as the el, let alone the same neighborhood. Maybe things are different where you live, but here, the subway system is not a toy that can be played with for fun -- aside from walking, it is our primary mode of transport. The Astoria el serves an invaluable purpose; its aesthetics are irrelevant.