NYC Mayoral Candidate Proposes New Parks On The BQE And CBE

CARROLL GARDENS, BROOKLYN — A candidate for New York City mayor is proposing new public parks along two of the city's major highways.

Paul Massey, a Republican hoping to unseat Mayor Bill de Blasio, unveiled a plan called "Green Growth" on Monday that would add parks to both the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Cross Bronx Expressway in the style of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.

The new parks would sit above the major roadways and help reduce noise and pollution that come from the thousands of cars that travel down the highways per day, according to Massey.

He says the parks could be paid for using $2 billion in parks capital spending that has already budgeted by the city for use over the next 10 years.

"Too many growing communities are starved for green space. And too many residential neighborhoods struggle with nearby expressways that reduce air quality and cause noise pollution that can be dangerous for children," Massey said in a campaign press release.

"Just as the Brooklyn Heights Promenade was built to cover depressed parts of the BQE, it’s time to take the same approach elsewhere throughout the city to give more of our citizens access to green space. There is a lot of work to be done to make our city livable again, and this green growth plan is an important start."

One of those parks Massey has planned would be called the "Carroll Gardens Greenway." It would be built over the BQE from between Congress Street and Summit Street, "unifying both Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens with the revitalized Columbia Street Waterfront, and creating a cohesive residential neighborhood with considerable parkland and direct waterfront access," the Massey press release says.

The other locations would cover part of the Cross Bronx Expressway and run over the BQE in Woodside/Astoria and South Williamsburg.

The Massey campaign sent along these renderings of the CBE portion of the plan:

Not everyone was impressed with the plan.

City Councilman Mark Levine, chairman of the Council’s Parks and Recreation Committee, told the New York Post that Massey's plan was a "joke."

"You have no credibility if you’re talking about this kind of mega-investment and also constantly talking about how we’re overtaxed," Levine told the Post.

This is not the first grand infrastructure envisioned by Massey, a lifelong businessman who built an NYC real estate empire.

Last week, Massey unveiled a plan to "loop" the G train through Manhattan to help with the looming L train shutdown.

Massey's main challenger for the Republican nomination for mayor is conservative Assemblywoman Nicole Malliatakis, who represents part of Staten Island and Bay Ridge.

Image courtesy of the Paul Massey campaign