SEEING BRIDGE’S FUTURE Project Meetings In Greenpoint, Sunnyside by Robert Pozarycki Plans for the new Kosciuszko Bridge over the Newtown Creek will be available for public review at two meetings the state Department of Transportation (DOT) will hold this month in Greenpoint and Sunnyside. Sprucing Up Abandoned M.V. Gas Station CB 5 Committees Eye Plans For Eyesore agreed the inevitable graffiti may blend in with the proposed artwork. As for other capital projects, it was noted, the Metropolitan Avenue drawbridge in East Williamsburg is slated to get a new pull system by replacing the bridges hydraulics and mechanics. The group agreed the current pull system’s timelines is lengthy, at around 40 minutes, causing people to be late and traffic to back up considerably. The project, which has no start date as of last Tuesday, will be a night project, according to Giordano. Board 5 Chairperson Vincent Arcuri sent Hall a request to install east and westbound bike lanes on Metropolitan Avenue between 80th Street and Cooper Avenue (through St. John Cemetery) in Middle Village. The committees also requested a no parking zone from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on school days outside of Little Wonders Inc., a child development center at 88- 66 Myrtle Ave. in Glendale, to leave space for the bus that drops students off throughout the day. The next Community Board 5 Transportation and Public Transit Committees meeting is tentatively scheduled to take place in September at a date and time to be announced. The committees meet at Board 5’s Glendale office, located at 61-23 Myrtle Ave. in Glendale. For more information, call 1-718-366-1834. traffic the BQE generates every day. In a June press release, State DOT Commissioner Joan McDonald noted the Kosciuszko Bridge carries up to 160,000 vehicles daily. The Kosciuszko Bridge is also notorious for being featured on traffic reports, as its narrow lane configuration leads to regular bottlenecking and delays. Phase 1 of the bridge project begins this summer with the demolition of structures on the southern side of the span that the state previously acquired. Once the land is cleared, crews will erect the first cable-stayed bridge, which is likely to be completed in 2016. Expressway traffic will be shifted onto the new span once it is completed, and the existing Kosciuszko Bridge will be torn down in 2017. The second cable-stayed span will be built in its footprint and is projected to open in 2018. Once completed, the new Kosciuszko Bridge will feature wider driving lanes and shoulders, a reduced road incline and various parks and streetscape improvements on both sides of the creek. The design-build team selected to facilitate the project includes Skanska, a city-based contractor serving as managing partner; Kiewit Infrastructure; ECCO III and HTNB Engineering. For more information, visit www.dot.ny.gov/kbridge. TIMES, THURSDAY, JULY 3, 2014 • 8 The DOT’s Greenpoint meeting takes place this Wednesday, July 9, at the Warsaw/Polish National Home, located at 261 Driggs Ave., while the Sunnyside session is scheduled one week later, Wednesday, July 16, at Sunnyside Community Services, located at 43- 31 39th St. Both programs get underway at 6 p.m. with project displays available for public review. Representatives of the DOT and the design-build team contracted to erect the new bridge will give a detailed presentation at 6:30 p.m. Audience members will have the opportunity to ask questions and offer comments regarding the Kosciuszko Bridge rebuild, which is regarded as the biggest project in state DOT history. by Matthew Van Deventer The long-closed and crumbling gas station at Fresh Pond Road and Metropolitan Avenue may be getting a new look soon, members learned at the Community Board 5 Transportation and Public Transit Committees Meeting last Tuesday, June 24, at the board’s Glendale office. The gas station has been out of business for nearly a decade and currently has a chain link fence wrapped around it. Inside the fence are cracked concrete squares, knee high grass and weeds, windows boarded up; graffiti also covers the vacant building. Underneath the plot lay railroad tracks that can be traced on Google Maps from Montauk into Manhattan. That’s where the gas tanks were stored, underneath the plot, above the tracks, according to Board 5 District Manager Gary Giordano. Plans proposed by the committee to refurbish the plot, or at least beautify the eyesore, were submitted Ridgewood’s St. Matthias Salutes Graduating Class St. Matthias School in Ridgewood held its graduation Mass on Friday, June 13 in the upper church. The school’s Class of 2014 had 50 eighthgraders graduate this year, who collectively earned over $285,000 in scholarship money. The graduates are pictured in the lower church prior to the ceremony. The $555 million endeavor— advanced through the New York Works initiative—will replace the existing, obsolete 75-year-old span carrying the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) over the Newtown Creek with two parallel cable-stayed suspension bridges. When it first opened in 1939, the Kosciuszko Bridge linked Meeker Avenue in Greenpoint with Van Dam Street in Long Island City. The span was later incorporated into the BQE during the 1950s. Engineers indicated the bridge suffered significant wear-and-tear through the years, as it accommodated excessive amounts of to Department of Transportation (DOT) Queens Borough Commissioner Dalila Hall. However, Giordano reported they were told to “go back to the drawing board.” The Queens DOT office did agree to instal paneling on the fence with a mural on it done by a local artist, the sightliness of which was debated. Robert Holden, president of the Juniper Park Civic Association and a Board 5 member, said, “Graffiti delinquents tend to leave murals alone rather than blank walls.” At the same time, many members
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