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NYC job alert: City seeks BQE czar to rebuild ramshackle triple-cantilever
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Stephen Nessen
Published Jul 8, 2026
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Gary Hershorn/Getty Images
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Jul 8, 2026
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New York City’s Department of Transportation is looking for a “creative” engineer to run one of the country’s most challenging infrastructure projects: fixing the decrepit triple cantilever section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
Last week, the department listed a job for an “assistant commissioner to address the aging infrastructure” on the BQE between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street, which is used by 130,000 vehicles daily.
The project centers on a 0.4-mile stacked highway tucked beneath the Brooklyn Heights Promenade that has bedeviled city planners for a decade.
In 2018, the city DOT under then-Mayor Bill de Blasio went public with warnings that the structure could collapse by 2026 under the weight of trucks and cars if nothing were done. The department proposed building a temporary roadway atop the promenade while the BQE was rebuilt beneath — but that plan was shelved following widespread pushback from nearby residents.
Since then, the DOT has extended the triple cantilever’s life by investing in short-term repairs, removing a traffic lane and installing sensors that automatically issue tickets to overweight trucks. But the city has never agreed to a plan that would make a long-term fix.
Michael Flynn, the transportation commissioner appointed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has said he “won’t kick the can down the road” on repairing the structure. The job posting indicates that Mamdani is moving ahead with the project.
“This is an urgent infrastructure priority project, and leading that effort is a career-defining opportunity,” Flynn wrote in a LinkedIn post promoting the job, which comes with a salary of up to $250,000.
The listing likens the job to that of a BQE czar with broad authority over the roadway's future and as the main voice in deciding how it will be repaired or rebuilt.
The assistant commissioner will have to navigate the environmental review process, deal with the federal and state governments and manage concerns Brooklyn Heights residents may have about the construction's impact.
Lara Birnback, executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, a neighborhood group that was a fierce critic of the de Blasio plan to build a temporary highway atop the promenade, said she hoped the incoming assistant commissioner would listen to the community’s concerns.
“What I really don't want to see is a repeat of the last wasted four years of effort trying to push something through that had no support from anyone, neither the community, neither the electeds, et cetera,” she said, referring to a series of preliminary proposals floated under previous Mayor Eric Adams that never moved forward. “So hopefully they'll approach it a little more smartly this time.”
Birnback said she also hoped the city will consider tearing down the roadway entirely, a more radical proposal that’s been pitched by some advocacy groups.
“My expectation is that the city will at least give those alternative visions a fair hearing before they make a decision about rebuilding the BQE forever and always,” she said.
Kaan Ozbay, a professor at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering who served on a panel that recommended extending the roadway's life, believes fixing the triple-cantilever requires both technical prowess and people skills.
“It's not an impossible task unless you make it impossible,” he said. “If you want to focus on the whole corridor, the whole BQE, then it becomes very difficult. I'm a believer in baby steps, so you need to focus on the main problem, which is the cantilever section right now, but then of course, you have to plan for the long term. But if you want to do everything at once, it's not going to happen.”
The job listing notes the assistant commissioner will have to work with other DOT staffers to support future work on other sections of the BQE.
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new york city
transportation
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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