Does Adams Want to Keep Existing BQE? Repair Plans Announced; Public Discussion Forums Coming

According to Cate Corcoran in Brownstoner, “It seems the mayor has made up his mind.” He wants to repair the triple cantilevered section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that sits below Brooklyn Heights and leave it and the rest of the highway as is, while mitigating the damage the BQE has done to other neighborhoods with “parks and plazas.”

Meanwhile, as Mary Frost in the Eagle reports, the City’s Department of Transportation has announced its plans for “[e]mergency repairs” to the BQE that will mean

closing most of the busy highway between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street during three weekends and an unspecified number of nights between March and October of 2023.

Queens bound (northbound) BQE traffic will, during these periods, be required to exit at Atlantic Avenue, and will detour along Atlantic, Boerum Place, and Tillary Street before rejoining the BQE. Left turns off Atlantic to Hicks and Clinton streets will be prohibited to prevent through traffic from using them. Heights bound traffic will have to take Atlantic to Boerum Place, turn left onto Boerum Place, then left onto Schermerhorn or Joralemon, from Joralemon right onto Court, then continuing on to Cadman Plaza West, left onto Montague, Clark, or Middagh. According to the Eagle, “[t]he Brooklyn Heights Promenade will remain open during this work. DOT says it will be providing noise and dust mitigation.”

The DOT will solicit community input on all aspects of the project. There’s more information concerning “BQE Central” — the portion of the BQE between Atlantic and Sands — here. Here is a schedule of public events, some virtual and some in person, concerning the BQE repair and long-term plans. When more information is available about these events. we will publish it here. According to our friends at the Brooklyn Heights Association:

It is critical for our community “show up” and demonstrate to DOT that we care deeply about this issue, and that our voices must be heard and respected.

Share this Story:

, , , , ,

  • Mike Suko

    This is obviously a complex problem, and this solution WILL have a much greater impact on Brooklyn Heights than either the article or the DOT projects – and almost surely for a much longer period of time than 3 weekends in 2023.

    The Brooklyn Eagle has a long story about it – sorry, I cannot make the link to that one function.

    The impact I predict has to do with my certainty that the DOT’s proposed re-routing is like hip replacement surgery using Venetian glass. When affected drivers – many in trucks – are told by their GPS that it’ll be 90 minutes before they’re “back on their way” to Manhattan or LGA or points north, they WILL make a right on Henry and a couple of turns later, they’ll be streaming (more likely, crawling) through Bklyn Hts on Clinton & Hicks.

  • Jorale-man

    “Heights bound traffic will have to take Atlantic to Court Street, turn left onto Court Street, then left onto Joralemon, Montague, Clark, or Middagh.”

    So they’re proposing to route traffic up Court Street, making it a two-way street? That’s surprising if I’m reading this correctly.

    It sounds like Adams has zero interest in doing anything transformative with the BQE. Meanwhile, other cities from Seattle to Rochester, NY are eliminating their urban highways or turning them into tunnels.

  • Mike Suko

    I noticed that, too, but the real “source material” is free from that blunder. Park Slope and Sunset Park are represented by Assemblyman Carroll, and he’s questioning parts of this plan. The 3 or 4 “electeds” who represent Brooklyn Heights should be pushing back on this plan, because our community will be very negatively impacted.

    Adams is cautious-to-unimaginative in a number of areas, but he’s dead serious about REALLY delivering for “people of color.” Somehow, real estate development in Red Hook will be extracting $ from the save-the-BQE pot (mostly Fed. money.)

    Beware comparisons between NYC and others – especially re infrastructure and even more esp. re the BQE. The DOT – to the extent that they are even consulted seriously – is not staffed entirely by idiots.

    The notion that one can “phase out” a route carrying hundreds of thousands of vehicles without some horrid outcomes is akin to “Suppose we just banned oil and gas, starting next year.” “Cold turkey” may work on occasion with addiction, but even leaving aside politics/democracy, the tunnel route through Park Slope as a replacement for I278 is precisely as (IM)practical as Trump’s wall separating Texas & Mexico.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com/ Claude Scales

    My bad. I’d forgotten that Court was one way between Joralemon and Atlantic. I’ve changed the text accordingly.