4 FEBRUARY 10, 2022 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
City delays fi x for ‘treacherous’ Ed Koch-Queensboro
Bridge bike and pedestrian path for another year
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
EDITORIAL@QNS.COM
@QNS
Cyclists and pedestrians will have
to fend for space for a year longer
than expected on the Ed Koch-
Queensboro Bridge’s dangerously tight
shared path because the city decided
to postpone giving walkers their own
lane until the end of next year.
The bridge’s south outer roadway
was supposed to be dedicated to foot
traffi c by late 2022, but the Department
of Transportation pushed that deadline
back to December 2023, when the
agency wraps up a 20-month construction
project on the upper deck of the
span, according to a notice DOT sent to
local stakeholders last week.
Currently, cyclists and pedestrians
have to share the notoriously narrow
northern outer roadway, while vehicle
traffi c takes up nine lanes across two
levels of the bridge.
The plan announced by former
Mayor Bill de Blasio a year ago was to
give the southern outer roadway to
pedestrians and make the northern
one bikes-only, mirroring the setup
on the Manhattan Bridge.
“This current situation is quite
treacherous already as pedestrians
and bikes cross the bridge together in a
narrow space on the north outer roadway,”
the pols wrote in a Feb. 3 letter.
“It is urgent that the city convert the
south outer roadway into a pedestrianonly
path and the north outer roadway
into a bicycle-only path to create more
space and remedy the safety concern.”
DOT’s contract for the work was
already “well out the door” before
the then-mayor’s announcement, an
agency rep revealed to local Queens
Community Board 2 in November, and
offi cials want to fi rst fi nish the repairs
fi rst, which begin this month and last
until the end of next year.
DOT has since bundled the bike
and pedestrian revamp into the same
project, according to the agency.
The overhaul will extend the upper
deck’s lifespan by between 50 to 75
years aft er more than a century of wear
and tear since it opened in June 1909.
During the repairs, one lane on the
upper deck will be closed at all times
and another one will be out during off -
peak travel times, leaving the bridge
with seven or eight lanes for cars,
depending on the time of day.
Agency reps have described the
112-year-old Queensboro as the “workhorse”
of its four East River bridges,
carrying around 89,000 cars a day,
compared to 51,000 on the Brooklyn
Bridge, according to April fi gures.
In their letter, both politicians
agreed with DOT’s assessment that
six lanes were not enough for cars and
that the southern path must remain
reserved for vehicles during the rehab,
but at the same time lamented the
yearlong setback.
“It is infeasible to remove cars from
the south outer roadway until the
construction is fi nished given the lane
closures required. At least two more
years of a shared pedestrian and bike
path is not the best outcome for our
constituents,” they wrote.
Nearly 175,000 cyclists crossed the
span in August, or more than 5,600
BY JULIA MORO
EDITORIAL@QNS.COM
@QNS
On Thursday, Feb. 3, A&E Real
Estate announced its purchase
of 92-40 Queens Blvd., a sixstory,
mixed-use elevator building
in Rego Park.
The 56,482-square-foot property
has 60 rental units, seven groundfl
oor commercial units, fi ve retail
storefronts and 16 parking spaces.
The price for each residence is
$200,000 per unit.
“Our recent multifamily acquisitions
in both Queens and Manhattan
are a refl ection of our strong belief
in New York City and the attractive
valuations we continue to see in the
market,” A&E Co-Founder Douglas
Eisenberg said.
A&E is continuing to expand its
Queens portfolio — in September
they purchased two properties in
Jackson Heights.
The new Rego Park property A&E
purchased was built in 1948, sitting
a day, the most recent agency counts
show, but the steep and confi ned space
along with a hairpin turn on the Manhattan
end make for a daunting trip,
according to Shepard.
“A lot of people are afraid to take it,
whether walking or biking just because
it’s so chaotic and cramped,” she
said. “That really shouldn’t be the case
at the time when we want to encourage
more people to walk and bike.”
DOT reps said there were delays in
building the new deck, but Commissioner
Rodriguez vowed to fi nish the
overhaul quickly.
“I am absolutely committed to putting
a new and separate pedestrian path on
the Ed Koch-Queensboro Bridge and
bringing the span into a state of good
repair,” Rodriguez said in a statement.
“This project is a priority for me, and I
know New Yorkers are excited about it,
so we are going to get it done properly
and safely.”
92-40 Queens Blvd. in Rego Park has been sold for $15 million.
Photo courtesy of A &E Real Estate
between Eliot and 62nd avenues,
with easy access to the E, G and R
subway lines.
The Rego Park Shopping Center,
the Queens Center and Flushing
Meadows Corona Park are also
nearby.
A&E was founded in 2011 and has
grown from a single 49-unit building
in Fort Greene to more than 15,000
apartments across Brooklyn, the
Bronx, Manhattan and Queens.
A rendering of the proposed new walkway.
Developer purchases mixed-use Rego Park property for $15M
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