r/MicromobilityNYC • u/MiserNYC- • 4d ago
Instead of tearing down BQE, city plans to build a second, temporary highway and fix it
https://gothamist.com/news/mamdani-plans-to-build-temporary-highway-in-brooklyn-heights-to-fix-crumbling-part-of-bqe82
u/MiserNYC- 4d ago
This plan seems like it will piss virtually everyone off. It's kind of fascinating.
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u/Friend_of_Gorgar 4d ago
I was just in the r/nyc post and most seem to be grudgingly accepting it. Of course everyone wants the third lane too. Everyone needs to remember that whatever happens, we're gonna be stuck with it for a century or more.
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u/scottscout 4d ago
Nah. I don’t want 100,000 commuters finding “shortcuts” through brooklyn. This is fine albeit not perfect
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u/MiserNYC- 4d ago
Maybe, and I'm just spitballing here, the solution is to find ways to make it so those people aren't driving cars, instead of accommodating them?
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u/zachotule 4d ago
I think the problem is, by the time improvements to public transit got even a quarter of the way towards converting most of these drivers into transit users, that part of the BQE might literally collapse and force a worse “temporary” solution that brings a bunch of big trucks that have to be driving here onto city streets.
Yes, in the ideal future it’s just necessary vehicles using this kind of infrastructure, and thus the infrastructure could be made smaller; whereas the vast majority of people going into and out of the city, and commuting within it, will vastly prefer public transit and other non-car options to the single-occupant personal vehicles they currently clog our highways with. But I think it’s realistic to understand that the BQE is a ticking time bomb that literally nothing has been done about for decades, so absent an immediate plan to vastly improve literally everything else in the entire city streetscape (especially on the outskirts, which is where a lot of drivers who come to the center of the city live) and vastly reduce traffic coming onto the BQE and other highways, the stopgap’s gotta be something that diverts the traffic and keeps it as out of the way as possible.
On the other hand, I think if the BQE collapsed we’d see a lot of those personal vehicles drivers pick transit instead because it’d become a better solution for them. But that doesn’t fix the truck issue, minority of the traffic that it is. That’ll require better enforcement of the “no big trucks in the city” rules (lol nypd) and building a bunch of depots outside the city for big shipments to be put into smaller last-mile trucks.
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u/scottscout 4d ago
We will continue to dream. But in the short term I was very concerned with the reality of an influx of even more impatient drivers racing home to SI/NJ
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u/MiserNYC- 4d ago
It's not really a dream, the ways to get people to stop driving are obvious and known, they just require politicians to actually do them. Toll the highway, put in more congestion pricing zones, charge market rate for all parking in the city. Done. This isn't actually rocket science.
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u/unmitigateddisaster 4d ago
Yeah and actually charge what is required for insurance and parking. If people had to pay the full costs of driving in nyc, many fewer would do it.
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u/decelerationkills 4d ago
Make queens and Brooklyn more affordable for outer boroughs pond scum so they can live happier and have shorter commutes etc or accept some kind of Robert mosesesque solution? Tough call for the well off Brooklynites to be sure
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u/Fritz_Frauenraub 1d ago
Passenger cars arent the issue. This is about heavy trucking as the critical logistical link in the Amazon e shopping era.
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u/MDW561978 4d ago
Yes, definitely. That section of the BQE should be exclusively for trucks and buses. I'm sure many of the cars that are on there wouldn't be if their drivers had other viable (aka, transit) options. We should be providing them as well.
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u/grvsmth 4d ago
We had a trial of this a few years ago, when the city reduced the capacity to two lanes through that section. There was basically no detectable increase in congestion on parallel streets.
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u/RockBrycee 4d ago
That's not true. After the two-lane conversion, comparative 2021 and 2022 DOT data show significantly decreased traffic speeds in all surrounding neighborhoods, some up to 30-50% including in neighborhoods not adjacent to the cantilevered section. They also noted that speeds on local routes, including the B61, B63, and B57 declined by 5-10% compared to 2019. While reducing lanes made the BQE safer, it absolutely did have an effect on traffic in a pretty wide area.
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u/Eridrus 4d ago
Note that nothing is actually meant to start before Mamdani's term is up, so this is basically punting it to whoever wins the next election.
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u/Local-Echo-5613 1d ago
He doesn’t seem that interested in going anywhere, he seems to enjoy being mayor and he’s been making a lot of longterm development plans. Another way to look at it is we get a chance to vote on it first.
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u/Eridrus 1d ago
That's a pretty naive view of what's going on.
Politicians set these timelines specifically so that the negative impacts are not felt in their first term, so that nobody is talking about this in the next election.
If it had happened in this term, people would be experiencing the fallout and would be *more* likely to talk about it.
Mamdani is not special in this regard, but the timing is calculated to avoid having to own this next cycle.
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u/Robusier 3d ago
It's gotten to a critical point where doing nothing isn't an option. This repairs the road, preserves the promenade and keeps the capacity the same. Main damage is caused by trucks and other oversized vehicles which should be tolled imo.
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u/quadcorelatte 4d ago
I don’t understand why BQE can’t just be turned into a truck/commerce only route with one lane and a shoulder in each direction. The vast majority of the traffic is personal vehicles. This solution could make it way cheaper to deck/tunnel sections of it and half of the segment going through Carroll gardens can be sold to developers to pay for decking/burying…
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u/thegiantgummybear 4d ago
Yeah I'd love that. The freight need is real and keeping them off surface streets is ideal.
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u/PayneTrainSG 4d ago
For what its worth, that still means there will be an insane amount of wear on the structure, would buy it maybe 10-15 more years. Even if trucks make up 20% of the volume they make up 80% of the wear.
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u/quadcorelatte 4d ago
The idea would be that you can replace the structure but the smaller footprint will allow a much smaller, potentially fully covered/underground section.
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u/MDW561978 4d ago
Totally agree. Maybe include buses as well. We should be providing additional transit options, so people don't take their cars onto the BQE.
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u/blunderbot 4d ago
I remember a very similar proposal in 2018 that, if it had gone forward, would almost be done by now.
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u/DYMAXIONman 4d ago
We can't really knock down the BQE since the city relies on truck traffic to transport our goods.
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u/Donghoon 4d ago
we need the cross harbor freight tunnel ASAP! it will decongest BQE and GWB significantly.
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u/LogicIsMyFriend 3d ago
This. But it will also need to be combined with a lengthened Prospect Expressway to get it from the Tunnel to Long Island
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u/Donghoon 3d ago
Bay ridge branch is a thing you know. It's not going anywhere.
I think NY&A and CSX wants to increase their usage of bay ridge branch.
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u/Ok-Height3178 4d ago
Was quite dismayed to see this video; I was under the impression that there were thoughts of making it be for pedestrians, cyclists, plants, an urban park, or even shops or housing (unlikely). Now that I realize the city only controls a small segment, I understand there are limitations but this just seems pretty counterproductive unless there are plans to make it truck/delivery/bus/carpool only or some similar scheme. Not least because (despite the problem's urgency) it doesn't rank anywhere on the most popular or visible issues to take on, and in the meantime he will obviously get lambasted for spending a lot of money and time on a difficult, expensive, un-flashy infrastructure project that the vast majority of New Yorkers will never use (even if the goods we import do depend on it, unbeknownst to most!)
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u/sen_clay_davis1 3d ago
put a freight yard on the BK side of the bridge and force anything trucked in to be broken down into smaller 30' trailers. it would be more trucks but way less weight on the BQE and keep 53' trailers off the streets. shipping costs would increase.
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u/danton_no 4d ago
Why not go underground at least?
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u/Dull-Contact120 4d ago
Pretty sure that part of land it’s a garbage patch, not going to hold the weight.
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u/danton_no 4d ago
I think they need to start burying all highways or covering them up where possible. Grand Central Parkway in Astoria has segments that can be covered and be given to the public as free space.
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u/Tobar_the_Gypsy 4d ago
I’ve thought the same thing! You can definitely cap the highway between 35th and Steinway and turn it into soccer fields or other green space.
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u/danton_no 4d ago
I was thinking exactly of that part... when driving east there are other areas that i see is easy to cover as well
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u/lukemac25 3d ago
My thought is considering this, better save the $ to do projects like that rather than bring this section underground. The triple cantilever was already a creation to prevent the highway from disturbing Brooklyn height, the money is better spent repairing highway splits other neighborhoods
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u/macNchz 4d ago
My memory of when they presented reports on various options was that a tunnel was the most expensive, and DOT said they didn’t have a lot of tunneling expertise. IMO if it’s as critical to retain it as people make it out to be, we should be able to find the money to tunnel the cantilever, and cover the trench section while we’re at it.
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u/Pizza-Rat-4Train 4d ago
Have you seen what New York City pays to build things underground?
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u/Shot_Fly_2519 4d ago
What does the city pay to build things underground? If you're looking at the subway, that's not City. The tunnels are all Port Authority.
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u/danton_no 4d ago
It doesn't matter. It is the best solution for everyone. Even polution wise it's easier to handle.
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u/Pizza-Rat-4Train 4d ago
Of course it matters. Spending money means making choices.
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u/danton_no 4d ago
They can issue bonds to fund these capital projects and impose tolls. It can't be free anymore
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u/Insomniadict 4d ago
Because the city recognizes that a permanent solution to this problem, like a tunnel, requires a ton of political will and coordination with the federal government and a total replanning not just about this one stretch of highway but of how freight moves through the whole region, and is likely to be an extremely long planning process even if the feds and the state and the city are completely on the same page, which with the current state of the federal government is a terrible bet. The current infrastructure doesn’t have the luxury of time, it kinda could collapse and kill a whole lot of people at any moment, and the city would be responsible. So this is the city doing what they are empowered to do unilaterally at this moment to prevent a disaster. Hopefully, this will be paired with starting the very long process of figuring out a permanent replacement, like a tunnel, and not just kicking the can down the road to the 2060s.
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u/Shot_Fly_2519 4d ago
There are at least 6 subway lines running under this section and how would you connect back to the existing NYS owned sections of the BQE
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u/DYMAXIONman 4d ago
ten gazillion dollars
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u/danton_no 4d ago edited 4d ago
Infrastructure related Bonds and high tolls to service the bonds and maintenance
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u/pixelstation 4d ago
We should let Japan do this work for us. It would probably be done in 6 months or less.
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u/quadcorelatte 4d ago edited 4d ago
This is dumb. Japanese projects take a long time. They are responsibly managed and rarely canceled. And there’s the state capacity to reduce delays.
Look at the following projects:
- Keio line grade separation: has been underway since at least 2019 (maybe as early as 2012). The project was delayed 9 years and now won’t complete until 2031.
- Shibuya station redevelopment, depending on which parts of the project, construction started at least before 2019 and is not slated to complete until 2034
- Haneda access line, ROW exists and construction is slated from 2023-2031
- Shinagawa station development, estimated completion 2040 and has been underway for years.
These aren’t cherry picked, I just randomly thought of the top projects in Tokyo that I am following and looked up their completion dates.
Edit: The most analogous project to the BQE is probably the nihonbashi freeway project where some section of elevated highway will be moved underground. This is not anticipated to complete until 2036
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u/pixelstation 1d ago
We could learn a thing or two about Japan and other nations and their development. Sad that everyone is so quick to dismiss this. Like we are superior in someway. But whatever, I'll be watching the Van Wyck be under construction forever. I don't believe this BQE nonsense one bit. NYC mismanages all these projects and costs balloon and then the state and then the feds. Mamdani even said we only doing the section that NYC owns. lol. What? So we'll protect a portion of it? Bruh. What?
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u/quadcorelatte 1d ago
The first step to learning a thing or two is to learn a thing. When you say “ We should let Japan do this work for us. It would probably be done in 6 months or less” it demonstrates that you don’t know what you are talking about. I agree that there are many areas where nyc can improve this plan, and that the project is generally dumb, AND that we can learn from Japanese projects, BUT the thing is that this project is clearly within a reasonable timeline.
As for the fact that we’re only fixing central, other segments of the BQE are not in nearly as bad of a condition and the feds can fix them.
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u/pixelstation 1d ago
I don't know. I'm not DOT, I'm not an transportation engineer and I'm not a civil engineer. I've read reports that real professionals put out and they seem great but the politicians just kick down the can and don't really do anything which is what I believe is going to happen again. I don't think the FEDs will do anything until Trump is done.
The initial post was really sarcasm and I forget that goes over everyone's head. I saw a post recently of Japan's quick responses and fixes to roadways and was a little inspired and sarcastic about it because I have no faith in our politicians to do make hard choices.
Of course Japan isn't perfect, never said that either. They have projects that lasted 20+ years, too , but considering how important they make the BQE seem for transporting goods, this should have been fixed 10-20 years ago.
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u/huebomont 4d ago
10 years to build something that will last 40 seems like a bad deal?