Aging BQE getting $4 billion restoration, Mayor Mamdani announces
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled a $4 billion plan to repair the city-owned section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
It's one of New York City's busiest, and oldest, stretches of highway. About 130,000 vehicles use the 1.5-mile stretch every day - more than twice its designed capacity. It is 20 years past its design life.
The city expects construction to start in 2030 and take about 10 years to finish. The stretch involved is known as the BQE corridor, and runs between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street. It contains the triple cantilever section.
"Every year we don't do something about the BQE it costs the city $160 million," Mamdani said in a video announcing the project.
Improvements would include repairing the aging triple cantilever and fixing drainage, railings and lighting.
Once it's done, the project is expected to extend the life of that part of the BQE for another 40 years.
The city's plan is calling for temporary bypasses to keep traffic moving while crews get to work. There would be a two-level bypass along Furman Street, below the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, running from Atlantic Avenue to Columbia Heights.
Another elevated bypass would run from Columbia Heights, over the Brooklyn Bridge approach toward the Manhattan Bridge.
"It's gonna be a lot of problems for the people who live here or have to commute through this area," Brooklyn Heights resident Michael McCabe said.
City officials want to keep the highway open to prevent major traffic, including 13,000 daily truck trips, from ending up on local Brooklyn streets.
"This plan allows us to safely fix the BQE without slowing our city down or wasting decades more on magical thinking. The cost of inaction is too high, and the risks to New Yorkers are too important to delay any longer," Mamdani said in a statement.
The bypasses are a long-term fix that will come with long-term construction.
City Councilman Lincoln Restler, who represents the surrounding community, said he's "concerned about the damaging impact of temporary highways in our dense neighborhood."
"There's not a lot of room here anyway, so the question is while they're building that highway, will there be traffic diverted through local communities?" State Senator Andrew Gounardes said.
Deputy Mayor of Operations Julia Kerson said the city will pay for the repairs.
"We aren't anticipating having any federal funds, and that enables us to advance this project on our timeline with our design, our scope and having complete control over our community benefits," she said.
"Four billion dollars is a lot of money, especially at a time when we just bailed the city out for $7.5 billion this year," Gounardes said.
The state owns the other 88% of the highway, and a spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul's office said the rest of the BQE doesn't need repairs in the same way that the triple cantilever does.
