City Officials Kick Off Public Engagement on BQE Project

Pictured: The BQE running under the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. Photo courtesy of the Department of Transportation.

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN, NY — As if the Brooklyn Queens Expressway wasn't beleaguered enough, it took some extra lumps on Wednesday night, during the city's first public discussion of its plans for the rotting roadway.

"This will not be fun," said Brooklyn Heights Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon, referring to the planned work on the BQE . "This will be horrible."

"It's a horrible, crappy roadway," said Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg. "I wish it had never been built."

One local resident said she had lived in the neighborhood since the 1950's, when the BQE was constructed, adding that it was a "piece of junk" from the start.

So that was the bad news.

But at the same time, Trottenberg also spoke of the opportunity to turn what exists now into something better.

The city has dedicated $1.7 billion to the project, which will see major work done over the coming decade (if not longer) on the stretch of the BQE between Sands Street and Atlantic Avenue.

It's an area currently defined by noisy, uneven roads, shaking that impacts buildings in Brooklyn Heights, crumbling walls that endanger motorists, and likely other problems still unknown.

Perhaps because of the size of the challenge, Trottenberg described the infrastructure effort as "one of the biggest and most exciting and most important projects" the DOT will undertake in the coming years.

But first, the city has to decide what exactly it wants to do.

At the meeting, engineer Tanvi Pandya, who will manage the project through its completion, said the BQE is one of the most heavily used roads in the city, handling 140,000 vehicles per day, 17 percent of which are trucks during peak hours.

The city has thoroughly examined whether the BQE is worth saving, Pandya said, asking whether digging a new tunnel or redirecting more traffic onto the Belt Parkway could work instead.

But both alternatives seem unlikely to work, the engineer continued. A tunnel would cost too much and would only allow for two lanes of traffic in each direction (the BQE is three lanes wide). Plus, due to space constraints caused by subway lines and other underground obstacles, a tunnel would have to be placed in areas that wouldn't best serve motorists.

Meanwhile, the Belt Parkway would require major work to accommodate more traffic, Pandya said, making that approach unlikely to be cost-effective.

The only two viable tunnel routes, according to the DOT.

That said, the DOT officials at the meeting stressed they haven't made any final decisions. What's more, even if they choose to work on the existing BQE, the shape of that work has yet to be determined.

With the project, the DOT aims to improve 21 bridges between Sands Street and Atlantic Avenue, to make the road quieter and smoother, to provide new and better lighting, better ramps, and improved drainage, among other objectives.

Those goals are complicated by the BQE's "triple cantilever" stretch under Brooklyn Heights, which features four levels connected to each other. As Panyda put it, "We cannot fix any one piece without dealing with the whole thing as a combined structure."

Furthermore, the work would have to be done while keeping the road open to traffic, another huge hurdle.

Doing so could involve building "a temporary or permanent structure to hold the traffic while we're doing the work," according to Robert Collyer, the DOT's Deputy Commissioner for Bridges, who added, "We're open to any answers."

The city is currently exploring the BQE and cataloging its problems. An environmental impact study will be conducted in 2017, with several years of design work to follow.

The officials said the standard, three-step approach known as "design, bid, and build" would take the project's completion date to 2029. But they hope to speed that up by allowing designers and engineers to work jointly, a time-saving approach that could create a 2026 finish line.

For now, the city emphasized that it will hold many public meetings on the project, and is eager to solicit feedback and ideas.

Those interested can email comments and suggestions to BQEAtlantictoSands@dot.nyc.gov. The project also has a Facebook page that you can like.

So keep the conversation going, Brooklyn. And here's some motivation: In case you were wondering whether all of this might result in a new pedestrian path connecting Brooklyn Bridge Park to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, DOT official Joannene Kidder said the department would "absolutely take a look at."