Mamdani's BQE Repair Plans

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
Brian Lehrer on WNYC. So we were up in the cloud, so to speak, with all the social media stuff. Now let's get way down to earth and talk about New York City's new plan to fix part of the BQE. For about 20 years, as many of you know, the city has been trying to figure out what to do about the triple cantilever, the stretch of the BQE that runs underneath the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. It's carried traffic since the days of Robert Moses, and it's been falling apart for years. You know that. City officials actually warned back in 2018 that the roadway could fail as soon as this year, if nothing changed. Now the Mamdani administration is the latest to propose a solution, a temporary two-level highway built next to Brooklyn Bridge Park, so the city can shut down and completely rebuild the original structure underneath. The price tag is in the billions, and the timeline stretches into the decade after next, meaning ending around 2040 On its face, Mamdani's plan looks a little bit like the one the de Blasio administration killed in 2018 after fierce community opposition.
The opposition back then coalesced around the fact that de Blasio's plan would have required the promenade to close for six years. So what exactly is Mayor Mamdani proposing?
How much would it ease the headache that is the Triple Cantilever? And at what short or medium term cost? Let's ask who else? Stephen Nessen, Transportation Reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. Hey Stephen, welcome back to the show. Hey Brian.

**Stephen Nessen** (1:43)
Thanks for having me.

**Brian Lehrer** (1:45)
And listeners, of course, you're invited in. What do you want to know about the Mamdani administration's plan for the BQE, the Triple Cantilever? Do you drive the BQE every day or live in Brooklyn Heights, Dumbo, Cobble Hill? Are you ready for more construction affecting your commute or your neighborhood? And if you're someone who thinks the city should shrink this highway altogether rather than rebuild it, and we'll discuss that option, you can make that case too. 212-433-WNYC, call or text 212-433-9692.
So Stephen, I laid out some of it. Do you want to give us more details on what exactly Mayor Mamdani is proposing?

**Stephen Nessen** (2:27)
Sure. So we don't have a very detailed outline plan exactly, but they did release a fair amount of detail. So basically, the plan for now is to do some early design work now and next year as well. And ideally, in 2030, which is not that far away, spend two years constructing what you described as a temporary highway over Furman Street in Brooklyn Heights area right next to Brooklyn Bridge Park. And then from the years 2032 to 2040, while most traffic is on this temporary roadway, they will fix the existing BQE. And it's just like real basic construction stuff, Brian, just new concrete, fixing the joints, fixing all that rusting steel, which you can actually go down and look at yourself. It's exposed. They're going to replace all of that. They're also going to do better waterproofing because, as folks know, when it rains really heavily, the BQE floods, which is not good and adds to its deterioration.
So they're going to waterproof it, put on some better lights, some better guardrails on the side, things like that. Basically, just make it look new. So it'll last for another 40 years, is the plan. And that's really the thumbnail sketch of what's been released at this point.
The DOT, Mamdani's administration needs to now take it to the public and try to sell it to them.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:54)
The city says the temporary roadway will be, quote, tucked out of view from the promenade. How is that possible given it's the same height as the existing highway? Like what should someone who walks that promenade regularly actually expect to see or hear during construction?

**Stephen Nessen** (4:13)
There's a lot of questions about that, Brian.
I spent the last week down there on Furman Street, sort of walking it, taking a look, and the lowest level of the BQE actually hangs over part of Furman Street. So it's really unclear how they're going to put four lanes of traffic on this particular section, which is already so tight and really narrow and really it abuts Brooklyn Bridge Park. They say there won't be access to the park that's impeded, but it's really hard to tell. I did speak with some of the folks at Brooklyn Bridge Park who were describing, you know, the berms there, like those big, like mounds of hill that sort of separate the Brooklyn Bridge Park from the BQE. If you stand on the other side of the berm in Brooklyn Bridge Park, you actually can barely hear the traffic from the BQE. And it's because it's been designed so well that it blocks most of the sounds of the traffic. But if you put this temporary highway right there, all of the sounds of the highway are just going to pour into the park. So there's a lot of concern about that. There's a lot of uncertainty about, right, how do you build a temporary highway in such a narrow section of roadway?