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New York’s BQE plan is flawed, would widen highway, former DOT commissioner says
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Jul 11, 2023
Modified Jul 11, 2023
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Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Jul 11, 2023
Modified Jul 11, 2023
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Hank Gutman, a former city transportation commissioner, thinks Mayor Eric Adams is taking the wrong approach to fixing a crumbling stretch of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
The controversial project has been held up for more than four years, but is inching forward after the city released preliminary designs last year.
During an interview with WNYC on Monday, Gutman said the city’s current plan to repair the roadway’s triple-cantilever structure would result in an even wider highway.
That’s because a rebuilding of the BQE would force city officials to meet modern federal standards, which require wider traffic lanes than the ones currently in place on the roadway.
“At two lanes it would be wider than it is today,” said Gutman, who led the Department of Transportation during former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s final year in office. “And if they expanded it to three lanes, it would be dramatically wider.”
DOT officials are considering three options for fixing the triple cantilever. It was built in the 1930s and is tucked beneath the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. New designs could integrate the roadway into Brooklyn Bridge Park below and the promenade above.
DOT officials said one option would rehabilitate the existing highway instead of replacing it with a wider roadway.
“Perhaps we could do with the highway that is smaller,” Gutman suggested.
Gutman lives in Brooklyn Heights and now sits on the board of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation.
During the interview, he said he was impressed with how quickly crews built a temporary roadway to replace a part of I-95 in Philadelphia after a bridge collapsed in June. But he cautioned against comparing it to the complicated repairs needed on the BQE.
He said the limited space in Brooklyn Heights makes it more difficult to rebuild the roadway than the one in Philadelphia. And he criticized the city’s current approach — which includes options to build a temporary highway while the existing roadway is rebuilt.
A similar strategy was shelved in 2018 after outcry from local residents. The DOT at that time planned to build a temporary highway atop the promenade, which would have forced the area to close for several years.
“The only alternatives that have been proposed since, including in this latest round of effort by the DOT, has involved moving that temporary highway over to Brooklyn Bridge Park,” said Gutman. “So that instead of being exactly next to the promenade, it would overhang the park.”
DOT officials said there is space to rebuild the area of the BQE without impacting Brooklyn Bridge Park.
He also said city officials should consider building parks over areas of the BQE south of the triple cantilever, where the roadway runs in a trench that slices through neighborhoods.
“Those should be capped over,” he said of the trenched areas of the BQE. “If you’re going to spend billions of dollars, why do it all on the cantilever?”
Gutman said Adams was right to focus “on the notion of reducing our dependence” on private cars and trucks.
“So if all of that is true, why is the current DOT assuming that it makes sense to rebuild the BQE bigger than before?”
DOT spokesperson Vin Barone said the city will begin interim repairs on the roadway later this year.
“We will not wait decades and needlessly spend hundreds of millions of additional taxpayer dollars keeping this outdated structure as it is today,” said Barone.
This story was updated with a response from the DOT.
Tagged
new york city
transportation
brooklyn
Stephen Nessen
Stephen Nessen covers transportation. Since 2008 he has reported on everything from Occupy Wall Street, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, Hurricane Sandy, to Trump’s campaign for president. His transportation reporting has taken him everywhere from the MTA’s secret Rail Control Center to the gleaming subways of Seoul. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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