Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new plan to fix up and extend the life of the city-owned section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway has drawn mixed reactions in Brooklyn Heights.
The $4 billion proposal, unveiled Monday, stepped back from a total reconstruction of the 1.5-mile “BQE Central” proposed by previous administrations. Instead, the city would construct temporary bypass roads in Brooklyn Heights and repair the crumbling highway — including the infamous triple cantilever — so it can be used for another 40 years.
Construction is slated to begin in 2030 and last for 10 years. According to City Hall, the plan is meant to keep the aging roadway safe and functional short-term while the city works alongside New York State to develop long-term plans for the entire BQE, most of which is owned by the state.
“For decades, prior administrations have failed to deliver urgent long-term repairs to BQE Central — but we can no longer afford to wait for the perfect solution,” Mamdani said in a statement. The plan, he added, will allow the city to repair the BQE “without slowing our city down or wasting decades more on magical thinking.”
City Hall said the plan will keep the BQE functional in the short-term while it works with the state to develop a long-term plan. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell
But some Brooklyn Heights residents are hesitant.
When Kelly Carroll, executive director of the Atlantic Avenue BID, saw news articles about the project on Monday, she was excited to find out what the administration had planned for the “nightmare strip of highway.”
“When I read the plan to essentially just fix it in place and create a bypass without any vision beyond that, I did feel like this is a missed opportunity,” she said. “With a new administration, I was hopeful that there would be a much more visionary approach to a highway whose construction not only divided marginalized communities when it was first built, but it continues to pollute and cause public health issues in several marginalized communities to this day.”
Carroll was particularly frustrated that the plan will not address the interchanges where vehicles exit and enter the BQE, pointing to a particularly hazardous exit ramp at Atlantic Avenue. Cars regularly speed down the exit and onto the avenue, she said, and more than once have crashed into and destroyed pedestrian infrastructure or wound up on the sidewalk.
“For me, and for our community here, for families who walk the very perilous crossing to Brooklyn Bridge Park every day from Atlantic Avenue under the BQE, not addressing the on-ramps whose geometry were designed during the Great Depression, is a missed opportunity,” she said.
Carroll wished the plan addressed the dangerous interchanges where the BQE meets Atlantic Avenue. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell
Work on the interchanges would trigger a federal review, according to Streetsblog, something the city is trying to avoid. During his administration, then-mayor Eric Adams tried and failed to secure federal funding for his own unrealized BQE Central rebuild.
Lara Birnback, executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, said the plan has some positives. She was glad that the administration isn’t planning on expanding the footprint of the cantilever, and that they intend to keep just two lanes of traffic on each level, rather than going back to six lanes.
“We definitely have some concerns around the idea of the bypass highway that has been on the table a few times in the past, and has been repeatedly rejected by the community, by other organizations like Brooklyn Bridge Park [and] stakeholders in the area,” she said.
The bypasses are also of concern to local elected officials, who were briefed on the plan four days before it was released to the public.
In a joint statement, Council Member Lincoln Restler, state Sen. Andrew Gounardes and Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon said they are concerned about “such an invasive and disruptive construction approach” and about the “damaging impact of temporary highways.”
The city plans to construct temporary bypass roads to divert traffic during construction.Image courtesy of NYC DOT
“This is a dense urban area where fitting a temporary highway or fitting multiple temporary bypasses is no easy engineering feat,” Restler told Brooklyn Paper. “The proximity of those bypasses to residential buildings, to Brooklyn Bridge Park to the Brooklyn Bridge are all significant questions. The building of a temporary highway is a carbon intensive and suboptimal approach, if it can be avoided.”
Restler said he, Gounardes and Simon have been advocating for an overhaul of the BQE for “years,” and welcome an interim plan that will keep the road safe and passable as they work toward a future where the cantilever can be retired.
“40 years is a longer bridge than we had anticipated being proposed, and we had hoped for a kind of lane-by-lane construction approach that would not necessitate temporary highways being constructed in our neighborhood,” he said. “The viability of this plan is an open question. But you know we are committed to working in good faith and trying to start a path forward.”
The council member also said he has “a lot of confidence” in Deputy Mayor for Operations Julia Kerson, who will be heavily involved with the project, and in her intention to work closely with local pols. The plan would alienation of parkland and a ULURP process, which would require approval from the City Planning Commission and the City Council.
Restler said he has confidence in Deputy Mayor for Operations Julia Kerson. Photo courtesy of Kara McCurdy/Mayoral Photography Office
“The deputy mayor I think very much recognizes that our partnership will be instrumental in determining what happens here,” he said.
The city is planning to host two virtual public information sessions in October, and will accept public comment during the formal environmental review process later this fall.
Carroll — who noted that she and many other locals had spent hours at public feedback sessions during the Adams administration — is looking forward to it.
“In my experience, every time there’s a public process, a plan always comes out better after hearing from people, especially in New York City, where people really care and they really know what they’re talking about, and they know their neighborhoods,” she said.
Birnback stressed that while the neighborhood may go through some less-than-ideal changes, locals are largely willing to deal with a period of disruption if there’s something better waiting on the other side. The BHA fought against then-mayor de Blasio’s plan to close the Brooklyn Heights Promenade for up to six years for BQE repairs.
“It’s harder to accept a situation where we know we’re facing a lot of disruption and you know difficulties … only to just come back to the same status quo situation that we have now,” she said. “We’re not interested in being obstructionist for the sake of being obstructionist. I’m excited, let’s get this going again. Maybe the third time will be the charm.”