The public reaction was quick and furious to a concept design for the downtown Brooklyn section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that would cut a new highway right-of-way through the Brooklyn Heights historic district and nearby parkland. NYSDOT, anticipating a bump in attendance, moved the next stakeholders’ meeting from a small classroom to a larger theater. They were not disappointed; the turnout was significant.
The crowd was patient as the Department presented several new concept designs based on the three options previously presented: two “Design Speed Compliant” options, formerly the Standard option that caused so much anxiety; several Tunnel options; and a “Context Sensitive Corridor” option, a retitled version of what had previously been called the Improved Existing Corridor.
It was not long before NYSDOT indicated that it had heard the public outcry. Noting that the Department “cannot talk about an option that runs roughshod over the community, even though it has other benefits,” Project Manager Peter King was quickly seconded, third-ed and fourth-ed when he suggested eliminating the two Design Speed Compliant options. The worst-case scenario for the community appeared to have been averted, and a round of applause followed.
What’s Left: Tunnels, Widening, Rehabilitation
Spared the worst of NYSDOT’s plans for the downtown Brooklyn portion of the BQE, the stakeholders committee now must evaluate the remaining alternatives. None of the three tunneling options presented call for the removal of the existing roadway. One retains it as a “collector/distributor” road, nearly doubling highway capacity; the other two leave its use in the air. The Department suggested everything from keeping it a functioning highway to converting it to a bike and pedestrian parkway (Brooklyn’s answer to the High Line?). Despite any benefits that may accrue from burying the highway, it would certainly be a step backward to end up with two highways in the neighborhood instead of one.
The “Context Sensitive Corridor” option sticks to the BQE’s current route, but expands the roadway to accommodate large shoulders for improved sightlines and space for vehicle breakdowns. The widening would also significantly impact the many parks along the route, including the new Brooklyn Bridge Park and the Brooklyn Promenade. The latter would overlook a widened BQE that would bring new air and noise pollution to the park and nearby homes. Project team members floated the idea of extending the promenade over the new highway, though it is difficult to evaluate how effective such an extension would be as mitigation without more engineering and design work.
The final build concept presented calls for rehabilitation only, with no design changes. NYSDOT clearly does not favor this option from a traffic safety and operations point of view. Of course, the stakeholder committee must balance this against the fact that the option doesn’t burden the area’s parks or residences.
The next Stakeholder’s Committee meeting will be held on September 22nd at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights.
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As you describe it, the “context sensitive” option would not completely spare Brooklyn Heights. Missing from the options is reducing the highway to four lanes, which would completely address the State DOT’s traffic safety concerns. There is also the possibility that the widening would create a “forgiving highway” that would wind up being just as unsafe.
Missing from an operations standpoint is the possibility of demand management – i.e. tolling the bridges. With appropriate tolls on the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, Queensboro and Kosciuszko bridges, there would be plenty of capacity on the BQE.
NYSDOT did discuss the possible removal of the existing highway as part of a tunnel option. However, one fact to keep in mind is the removal of the highway will result in the loss of a connection from the BQE to the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges (which, granted, is far from ideal as is). We’re years away from looking at proposed alignments, but it is conceivable that eastbound (Queens-bound) traffic headed towards the bridges may have to exit at Hamilton or Atlantic Avenues and take local streets the rest of the way.
I can’t see how the “collector/distributor” plan would work. Wouldn’t it just create unbearable merge conditions in both directions where it rejoins the main highway?
Disconnecting the BQE from the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges would be a step in the right direction, because the bridges aren’t designed to handle highway-level traffic. Out of town motorists, the freeloaders who DOT loves to cater to, just look on the map, see a ramp, and assume it is a highway ramp that will take them to Manhattan. Hence the ridiculous traffic jams we see on those bridges.
Disconnecting the BQE from the bridges will take away this false perception. There may be more traffic on Hamilton or Atlantic Avenues, but it will be more than balanced out by less traffic elsewhere, both on the BQE and local streets.
In general, DOT’s pretending that it’s looking at “all options” while only looking at expansion options is disingenuous. The best and cheapest option is to restripe the BQE from 3 lanes to 2 lanes in each direction, immediately creating the safe wide lanes and shoulders DOT seems to be so concerned with. Since the new restriping will allow for straighter and wider lanes, speeds will increase and probably provide no net loss in capacity.
Just take the BQE down–Brooklyn does not need an expressway running through it!
Cap N Transit – The BQE team has been excellent at answering questions and laying all possibilities out on the table. They cannot reduce lanes if vehicle volumes remains the same… there is a federal mandate to prevent that. However, you are completely right about the tolling ideas and demand management is another huge section of their presentations. This article is just a snippet of a single meeting, and many voices on hand are indeed calling for tolling changes… i.e. two way on the Verrazano reinstated, and possibly some East River tolls.
I don’t really see the usefulness of a tunnel unless it connects underground to both bridges and is built with enough capacity to remove all the ramps and elevated roadways to effectively remove automobile traffic visibly from downtown Brooklyn and provide new land for development and parkland. The huge funds that could be raised by selling off all the parcels near the bridges could fund this construction.
I would build a tunnel under Tillary and a tunnel under Adams with direct connections between each. This would have to be very deep to allow for all the ramps and existing subways. The tunnel under Adams would connect to a connecting ramp at Sands St which would connect to the Manhattan Bridge. The BQE between Tillary and Atlantic could be torn down and replaced with a nicely landscaped local road and/or bike paths which would increase development and knit the neighborhood together. Adams and Tillary at street level could be significantly narrowed and given over to bikes and/or dedicated bus lanes. The BQE between the northern edge of the promenade and the Manhattan Bridge could connect both bridges to the promenade and directly to Brooklyn Bridge Park for cyclists and pedestrians.
The collector/distributor roadway would have four lanes rather than the current six. Adding in the four lanes of bypass tunnels would only add a net of one more lane in each direction.
I don’t understand why this would be step in the wrong direction as this would reduce the number of lanes of traffic exposed to the community. At the very worst, it is the status quo. Can someone at the TSTC please explain their reasoning?
Thanks, Paco, for your eyewitness report! Do you know what this federal mandate is, or is it just something that was vaguely referred to by the State DOT planners?
If there’s a federal mandate that requires wide lanes with wide shoulders and smooth curves, but doesn’t allow us to remove lanes, then the Federal government is essentially forcing us to widen this highway.
I’m not sure I believe the State DOT about this – it sounds like a classic reverse Houdini. But if it’s true, then it’s a high-level policy promoting driving and sprawl. That should be a top mission for our advocates in Washington: to find it and take it down.
The “T1” tunnel option (shown) adopts the cost effectiveness of reusing the existing BQE cantilever restriped from three ten foot lanes to two twelve foot lanes for local access, while being the shortest — and plausibly the ceapest — of the three shown tunnel options.
Why TSTC placed an entirely different spin on it in its previous article, even while supporting placing the Gowanus Expressway in a tunnel, remains a mystery.
Thanks for all your comments.
Chris — Depending on the option chosen the bypass tunnels could include six lanes, for a net of two additional lanes in each direction when you include the collector/distributor. (The article shows a picture of an option with 4-lane tunnels; you can find more details at the linked presentation on Brooklyn Heights Blog – basically NYSDOT says it may mix and match parts of the three tunnel options.) Additionally, interchanges would be built at the north and south ends of a BQE tunnel in downtown Brooklyn. In any case, all of the road designs discussed should be treated as quite preliminary at this point.
From a regional perspective, we would expect such an increase in capacity to promote additional driving along the corridor (particularly without demand management). From a neighborhood perspective there are likely more beneficial uses for the BQE right-of-way than leaving it as a “collector/distributor.”
Cap’n Transit — As Paco mentioned, there is some study of demand management options, some of which are very interesting. You can read about them in the linked Brooklyn Heights Blog presentation. In our view, these options have been discussed by the study team in a pretty academic way, and we’ve asked that they be better incorporated into the study going forward. We will be sure to report on them as more detail comes to light.
Yes, Steven, very interesting lip service. They won’t consider any alternative to six “design speed compliant” lanes unless someone from “the community” pushes them, and the community hasn’t mentioned it.
Where did the four “Level 1 Screening Criteria” come from? Who cares about anything but Criterion 4? Not me, and not anyone from Brooklyn Heights. Unless those criteria get changed, we’re going to spend hundreds of millions to invite more cars and trucks to travel through the area.
the dictum of “don’t spend good money after bad” suggests that spending money on a tunnel to “improve” the BQE is a waste.
I would rather have my tax dollars go for restitution of bus service, better walk/bike connections to the Bklyn and Manh Bridges (on both sides), better transit to LGA, tolling both directions of the VZB, and a completed BQG. Let’s talk about our vision for the future of NYC, not how to “fix” a mistake.
“we’re going to spend hundreds of millions to invite more cars and trucks to travel through the area.”
Indeed lets allow and reconcile more human activity within our existing developed areas: to act otherwise would be parochialist.
I somehow doubt that this “intelligensia” doctrine against highway expansion regardless of how needed and done, includes any truck drivers.