Mayor promises BQE cantilever fi x soon
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Mayor Bill de Blasio said
he will unveil a plan to fi x the
crumbling Brooklyn-Queens
Expressway’s triple-cantilever
on the Brooklyn waterfront
in the coming weeks, but
added that a larger long-term
transformation of the beleaguered
highway corridor will
be up to his successor.
“Job one is to protect the
triple-cantilever and protect
the viability of the BQE for the
years ahead,” de Blasio said
at his daily press briefi ng on
June 8 in response to a question
from Brooklyn Paper’s
sister publication amNewYork
Metro. “I also want us to leave
a clear game plan for the next
administration looking at
the bigger picture. We’ll have
ideas that we think are the
most viable, but we also might
present multiple options so
that we give the next administration
those choices.”
The mayor declined to give
more specifi cs of his plan to
shore up the dangerously-decaying
tiered section of the
highway that wraps around
Brooklyn Heights with the pedestrian
promenade on top,
saying he is still ironing out
COURIER L 32 IFE, JUNE 11-17, 2021
the nuts and bolts, despite previously
promising more details
by May.
“We’re a little bit behind,”
he said. “I had a meeting with
Department of Transportation
Commissioner Hank
Gutman and members of
our team. Initial plan we
went through, we agreed we
wanted to add some elements
to it, that’s being worked on
now. I think we’ll be able to
say something more, in the
next hopefully week or two —
but it’s very much on the front
burner.”
The city controls the triplecantilever
section between
Atlantic Avenue and Sands
Street (the rest is under state
jurisdiction), which could become
unsafe to drive on as
soon as 2026, according to an
“expert panel” appointed by
de Blasio to study fi xes.
De Blasio convened the
brain trust after the city’s initial
2018 proposal to build a
six-lane replacement highway
atop the beloved promenade
during repairs was widely
panned by local neighborhood
civic groups.
The January 2020 report
concluded that much of the
damage comes from illegallyoverweight
trucks barreling
down the 65-year-old roadway,
but any progress on
the massive infrastructure
project stalled for a year after
the study’s release as the
COVID-19 pandemic ravaged
the city.
DOT has been doing some
smaller-scale repair work to
mend parts the triple-cantilever,
such as a fi x to the wall
at Hicks Street near Poplar
Street.
A bill by Manhattan state
Sen. Brian Kavanagh to install
so-called weigh-in-motion sensors
on the highway to catch
the heavy haulers just passed
the state Senate on June 3, but
still has to go through the Assembly
before legislative session
wraps up on June 10.
Area advocates and politicians
have long called on offi
cials to think bigger and beyond
the triple-cantilever in
an effort to transform the Robert
Moses-era highway that
tears through the borough
from the Verrazzano-Narrows
Bridge in Bay Ridge to the Kosciuszko
Bridge in Greenpoint,
which would involve the city
collaborating with its state
and federal counterparts.
Alternative proposals
over the years include tearing
down the highway and replacing
it with a linear park,
or boring a pricey tunnel from
Gowanus to Williamsburg.
One Brooklyn Heights civic
leader urged de Blasio to act
fast, especially as President
Joe Biden is negotiating a trillion
dollar infrastructure bill
in Washington.
“The Mayor must respond
with urgency to prioritize
the safety of the cantilever
while at the same time start
laying the foundations for an
inclusive planning process
for a transformed BQE,” said
Brooklyn Heights Association
Executive Director Lara Birnback.
“Communities up and
down the BQE corridor have
a vision and ideas for how to
right the wrongs of the BQE
that will better our environment
and our neighborhoods.
With a federal government fi -
nally prioritizing infrastructure
and climate change, we
don’t have any time to waste.”
The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway’s triple-cantilever section in Brooklyn
Heights. File photo by Todd Maisel
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