BQE Rehab: Promenading No More?

This is asinine. You should double their estimates on both the cost & timeline (statistically, this would not too far off for most DOT project overruns). If this thing goes through, an entire generation will miss out on the promenade and have a loud, dirty highway erected in our backyards spewing noxious fumes into our community.

Show up on Thursday and bring every neighbor you can. We need to SHOW UP and represent our interests, or else we’ll just get steamrolled.

I’m also submitting a comment on the official project site, here, and urge you all to do the same: https://www.bqe-i278.com/en/contact

Here’s what I wrote – feel free to modify as appropriate and send as well.

***
Thank you for sharing the details behind the plan. I think everybody appreciates the complexity of the project and the challenges of the decisions that need to be made.

I am writing as a Brooklyn Heights resident, voting constituent, and NYC tax payer, to register my strong opposition to the proposed solution of building a 6 lane elevated highway and closing down the promenade for 6 years or more. This solution is placing a disproportionate burden on the residents of the Brooklyn Heights community and those who frequent the promenade from all across the city. The proximity of such a proposed highway to parks, residences, and historical landmarks is a non-starter.

I strongly urge you to consider alternatives and more rigorously question the assumptions behind this plan, and devise a more comprehensive solution that includes additional tolling that disincentives traffic through this corridor, and/or more creative solutions for diverting traffic across multiple streets so as not to burden any one single neighborhood disproportionately.

I hope you will be there on Thursday to address the questions and concerns of the community, as we certainly will.
***

I’d be very happy to hear BHA has not endorsed this. I think they have to go much further, though, to STRONGLY oppose it. Anything less, and it will be time to organize against the leadership there.

Every board president of every building in the neighborhood should be notifying their residents of Thursday’s meeting and this proposal. Let’s talk to our neighbors and make that happen.

Interestingly, the DOT presentation outright says the approach they do NOT prefer “avoids dramatic Promenade impacts, but has major impact on much larger group of residents and drivers”.

So they’re basically saying they prefer the choice that impacts Brooklyn Heights to make everyone else’s like easier.

I’d be fine with that if we got to charge a toll on the road to compensate us… but since the highway is for the ENTIRE city (if not the entire eastern seaboard) then the ENTIRE city should bear the brunt of the disruption.

Really, the only “benefit” for Brooklyn Heights they list is a Promenade that’s 35′ deeper… but I don’t recall anyone asking for a wider Promenade and I feel like making it bigger just attracts yet more people here.

Oh yes, they also mention “study[ing] new pedestrian bridge to Brooklyn Bridge Park” but that’s a false argument. Why can that only be explored with this approach? It seems like a bridge that crosses the BQE and heads down to the park could be built regardless of how they approach the rebuilding of the road.

This is very well written.

OK. I’ve read it. I’m all for the tunnel you mentioned earlier. I don’t see that mentioned here. Paving over the Promenade with 6 lanes of the BQE for a decade or more is not a feasible alternative to me.That cannot happen.

Given those two choices, I agree with the DOT. The way I see it; the cantilever saved the nabe from destruction it is only fair we take the brunt of its reconstruction woe. As much as I enjoy the Promenade and don’t want to see it closed, I cannot justify subjecting over a hundred thousand people a day to a decade of horrendous traffic delays, all for the preservation of a view.

The tunnel plan is a win for most everyone, it must be resurrected.

Speak for yourself.

How is it “fair” for us to take the brunt of this? 100s of thousands of commuters benefit while we get screwed is the opposite of fair.

How are you ascribing value/cost to inconveniencing drivers vs. costs of environmental impact, impact to historic landmarks, property devaluation, and the complete clusterf*** of having a highway dropped into your backyard for a decade that spews pollution and fumes into the local community, park, and school?

You don’t win arguments with insults, especially when your logic is flawed. I don’t think many people agree with your definitions of short-term and long-term. In any case, many infrastructure projects are used longer than intended or are designed for. The most obvious example is…the BQE cantilever.

I spoke to Peter Bray yesterday. The tunnel is at this time not a feasible solution for many reasons. It was studied, ruled out and the time for it has passed. If like me, you don’t want to see this happen, let’s focus on other realistic solutions such as challenging the DOT to come up with a differently innovative traffic structure and challenging our politicians to view this as an opportunity to lead the country by example in reducing our dependency on cars by limiting the road to trucks and HOV at all times.

Oh boy… (rolls eyes)

As mentioned above, the pollution is a break even as we already have a 6 lane highway there, the exhaust fumes will go wherever the wind blows, nothing can change that.

It’s not just about commuters, it’s about commerce, the BQE is a vital part of the north-east trucking corridor (where do you think your food come from?). Slowing it down will cost business billons of dollars over the duration of construction.

There will be no permanent impact on the landmark status of the Heights.

Property values are not guaranteed for anyone. Besides, if they were affected by the construction, it would only be temporary.

Pollution is a huge issue. Columbia Heights and Pierrepont playground are currently shielded from a lot of pollution because the BQE is underneath them, not at street level, and has a wall along the eastern edge.
Compare that to air quality near the western edge of the BQE (in BK Bridge park), where the freeway is closer to street level and there’s no wall. Air quality is much, much worse along that western edge.
I notice it daily. I run through the park and walk along Columbia Heights every morning. There’s a huge difference in air quality.

Thanks for the correction. Federal differs from state/local. I didn’t realize there’s a copyright law war on the blog.

https://www.usa.gov/government-works

Sorry hon, Science doesn’t care what you believe.

Arch, a few of your statements are awfully glib and dismissive.

Of course property values are not guaranteed but that doesn’t mean each individual shouldn’t fight tooth and nail against anything that devalues their investment.

While you’ve lived here a long, long time (as I recall from past posts), there are many families that move after being here just 3 to 5 years. Sometimes they live in a 1 bedroom and get pregnant and need more space. Sometimes they have a kid but get pregnant with a second kid. Sometimes they have kids but didn’t get into the school the want. Sometimes they’re elderly and the can’t handle the stairs in their home. Sometimes their young and receive a diagnosis that requires relocation. Sometimes they get relocated for work. Sometimes they decide the suburbs are a better fit for their life. Sometimes they get divorced.

Bottom line, there are endless reasons people have to move that are outside their control. Having their home lose 10% to 50% of its value to benefit others isn’t really an argument I support.

Also, you say “there will be no permanent impact on the landmark status of the Heights.”

Unless you work high up in the DOT I don’t know how you could possibly make this statement with a straight face. While most of what we have to go on right now is rumor and conjecture, I was told last night by a member of the BHA that the Promenade-replacing approach will require driving piles deep into the ground the entire length of the Promenade, more or less right where the treeline is.

Assuming that’s true, how do you know that the vibrations won’t do serious, serious damage to the dozens of 150 year old buildings located just 40′ away?

In terms of commerce and the movement of goods, it’s not like these trucks are filled with goods manufactured in Brooklyn. The vast majority are simply looking for a slightly faster or cheaper route to move goods from Jersey, across Staten Island, through Brooklyn and into Manhattan or points north. There are numerous other routes that get to the same place. And honestly, if there’s any kind of regular minor backup due to this project I expect a large percentage of those trucks will redirect themselves away from the traffic.

Finally, while I’m the one who originally posited that net/net it’s the same amount of pollution, I’m inclined to accept the word of the above poster who spends time both in the park and on the Promenade. If her lungs note a difference, there’s likely a material difference. Certainly that’s easy enough to measure with the proper equipment.