A neglected elevated train track in New York City is to get what area residents and business owners say is a long-overdue face lift.

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Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials say the elevated J Train tracks will be repaired and painted forest green beginning sometime next year, the New York Daily News reported Friday.

Residents and merchants along the lively shopping strip on Jamaica Avenue say they're pleased.

"I'm just thrilled," Maria Thompson of the Greater Woodhaven Development Corp. said. "It will be such a psychological lift. We're so tired of bolts falling from it, and the rust and how embarrassing it looks."

The project, expected to cost between $20 million and $30 million and take up to 30 months to complete, would repair and paint almost 3 miles of the unsightly structure.

Shoe store owner Steve Esposito said the announcement is good news for local store owners.

"Anything that brightens up the neighborhood is always going to help," he said. "We take care of our properties. They should have done this 10 years ago."

But Esposito says he'll believe it when he sees it.

"We've been promised this before," he said.