Pete Buttigeig to New York City drivers: Drop dead

 

AMNY

 

The Biden administration has rejected the city’s applications for $800 million in infrastructure grants to redesign and reconstruct the crumbling triple cantilever section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, amNewYork Metro has learned.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) rebuffed the city Department of Transportation’s (DOT) applications for grants under the Biden administration’s Infra and Mega programs last month, potentially imperiling the Adams administration’s hopes to redesign and rebuild the widely-maligned triple cantilever section of highway in Brooklyn Heights over the next few years.

The 1940s-era highway constructed by “master builder” Robert Moses has been deteriorating for decades, and in 2020, an “expert panel” convened by former Mayor Bill de Blasio warned the cantilever could be unsafe for travel as early as 2026.

After numerous false starts, in 2022 the Adams administration unveiled a series of “reimagining” proposals for the 1.5-mile “BQE Central” section between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street, which includes the 0.4-mile cantilever and is the only part of the highway directly owned by the city.

The plans — which would cost around $5.5 billion, and would rely significantly on federal money authorized by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — called for either a partial or total reconstruction of the cantilever and to cover it up with greenspace, reconnecting Brooklyn Heights to the East River waterfront.

 

Caption Linky reimagining the BQE

wE neEd mORe pROteCtEd bIkE lAneS

AMNY 

Almost $200 million in Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) repair funds may be shifted out of this year’s city budget if Mayor Eric Adams gets his way — raising concerns among local lawmakers that City Hall is kicking the can down the road when it comes to keeping the highway’s crumbling triple-cantilever section safe.

The mayor’s Executive Budget proposes to cut $180.5 million from the Department of Transportation’s spending on BQE fixes this year — a drop from $225.1 million to just $44.6 million — and moves those funds into later years, according to a City Council briefing document from Thursday.

City Council Member Lincoln Restler, whose district includes the Brooklyn Heights waterfront area with the deteriorating section of the highway between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street, accused the agency of moving the project over to the slow lane.

“The dramatic reductions in funding by upwards of $180 million that should have been spent this year… is of grave concern and, frankly, is indicative of the lack of urgency the DOT is placing on making the necessary repairs at this location,” said Restler at a lengthy May 12 Council budget hearing on transportation.

The city still plans to spend the same $1.5 billion overall through 2031 on BQE repairs, according to the brief, but Restler warned that holding off on short-term repairs could hamstring a larger revamp of the highway. 

“I am disappointed and concerned about the safety of our community, about our ability to preserve the lifespan of the triple-cantilever for these 20 years, so that a bolder, more transformative solution can take place,” the pol said.

The funding shift was first brought up by the Council’s Finance Committee chairperson Justin Brannan, who also questioned the move.

“Has it been determined that, with the cantilever reaching the end of its useful life expectancy, is shifting the planned work from ’23 into the out years safe?” the Bay Ridge lawmaker asked.

DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez assured the politicians that the structure remains sound.

“There is no issue related to safety,” Rodriguez said. “None of this decision to move money puts anything at risk.”

Limpdick Litterbug

Now, with part one. Sound on, folks. 😸 https://t.co/w5UpGFaqM5 pic.twitter.com/7yei4xEU5u

— Kween Kuntopia, New York Shitty (@newyorkshitty) June 23, 2021

City Council's tunnel visions for the BQE

 

NY Daily News/MSN

 New York City officials on Monday pitched an $11 billion tunnel to keep cars off a crumbling stretch of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

A consulting firm hired by the City Council last year floated the tunnel idea as an alternative to the city Department of Transportation’s previous plan to fix the dilapidated road, which would have cost $4 billion to repair and to build a temporary highway above the beloved Brooklyn Heights Promenade during construction.

The tunnel would stretch 3 miles from the Gowanus Expressway where it meets the Prospect 

Expressway to the BQE’s south Williamsburg trench near Bedford Ave. It’s modeled after similar projects in other U.S. cities, such as Boston’s 1.5-mile “Big Dig” tunnel that ended up costing the city $22 billion.

The Council’s consultant also recommended another $3.2 billion idea pitched by architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group last year to build a park atop a new capped six-lane highway adjacent to the promenade.

Council Speaker Corey Johnson called the rebuilding of the highway a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” but declined to endorse either pitch.

If the city goes with the tunnel option, it would cost more than the estimated $7.2 billion price tag for the first two phases of the Second Ave. subway, which hopes to extend the Q line to East Harlem over the next decade.

The tunnel, which the consultant said would take seven to 10 years to construct, would cost about 35% more. The MTA expects the first two phases of the Second Ave. subway will draw an additional 290,000 daily riders, while the Council’s consultant said the proposed tunnel would be used by some 153,000 vehicles a day.

The BQE tunnel idea was met with skepticism by other Council members, who questioned the city’s ability to build large-scale projects.

“We haven’t been able to build anything on this scale since the ’60s,” said Councilman Joseph Borelli (R-S.I.). “I am less concerned about the price tag than I am over whether a future mayor will have the intestinal fortitude to see it through.”

The DOT is in the middle of an environmental review process for all of the proposals to fix the BQE that is expected to drag on for at least another year.

Weigh in on new park for Nowhere's Land

The New York State Department of Transportation’s (NYSDOT) Kosciuszko Bridge Project includes open space opportunities, including development of a new public park in Queens. The location of the new park, which was selected in conjunction with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation and approved by Queens Community Board #2, is approximately bounded by 43rd Street, 55th Avenue, 54th Avenue and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (see map below). Design of the new park will begin this year, and it’s anticipated it will be completed between 2020 and 2021. The new Brooklyn-bound bridge currently under construction will include a bikeway/walkway that will touch down on Laurel Hill Boulevard at 54th Road, a short distance from the new park.

The Queens park consists of two (2) parcels, located north and south of 54th Road. The smaller parcel (approximately 8,000 square feet) and the larger parcel (approximately 24,000 square feet) will provide opportunities for a variety of active and passive features. The new park will include a comfort station. To identify those features that would be most suitable for the area, we would like the input of the local community and other potential users of this destination park.

Click here for survey.

BQE reconstruction is going to really suck

From Brooklyn Daily:

Work to rehabilitate the three-tiered 1.5-mile stretch of expressway from Atlantic Avenue to Sands Street can now start as early as 2021 — months after full L-train service is supposed to resume — and wrap by 2026, after state lawmakers in April passed a budget authorizing use of the streamlined design-build process for the city-led job, which will allow the Department of Transportation to solicit one bid for both the design and construction phases of the project, instead of contracting separate firms for each.

Green-lighting design-build, which proponents say will also shave about $100 million from the repair’s total $1.9-billion price tag, means the repairs will likely finish before 2028 — the year local transit leaders warned they might have to force the roughly 16,000 trucks that travel the expressway daily down local streets instead so the triple cantilever doesn’t collapse beneath their weight.

And residents shouldn’t worry about the decrepit, nearly 70-year-old roadway crumbling before then — even if they’ve read reports of other bridges around the world spontaneously collapsing — because the city’s top priority is making sure its infrastructure is safe, the mayor said.

But unlike said L-pocalypse — for which, city and state transportation officials are rolling out a plain to aid the roughly 225,000 L-train riders who cross the East River daily that includes more service on other trains, more ferries, new bike paths, and other options — there’s no backup highway for drivers to use when sections of the expressway are closed for its repair, DeBlasio said.

Community gardens coming to Woodside

From Sunnyside Post:

Woodside could see two community gardens soon, as the city is preparing to license out small plots of land in the area to a non-profit and community gardening program.

The two triangular lots in question are on opposite sides of one another by 41-38 69th St., parallel to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway below them and close to Woodside Avenue.

The sites are under the jurisdiction of the Department of Transportation, which owns the BQE bridge structure the lots are on.

The lots would be converted to community gardens run by both the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian aid organization, and GreenThumb, a NYC Parks program that supports community gardens around the city.

Bulova waves bye-bye to Boody Street

From the Commercial Observer:

Bulova, a maker of luxury timepieces, has sold its three-acre office campus at 26-15 Brooklyn-Queens Expressway for $25.2 million to Terreno Realty Corporation, according to the watchmaker’s broker Eastern Consolidated.

The company has occupied the one-story 83,000-square-foot building on the site in the Woodside section of Queens for more than three decades and owned it since 2007. The campus also has two parking lots that are a combined 91,000 square feet.

The site has 60,000 square feet of unused air rights, according to Crain’s New York Business, which previously reported that the property was in contract but did not report the price of the sale.

Terreno Realty, a real estate investment trust based in San Francisco which focuses on industrial properties, plans to renovate the building and lease it to industrial users.

BQX would hinder BQE reconstruction

From the Times Ledger:

Transit honchos in charge of fixing the dilapidated Brooklyn–Queens Expressway want the mayor to hit the breaks on his controversial $2.5-billion streetcar plan because the two massive infrastructure projects will butt heads.

The Department of Transportation must repair the 1.5-mile stretch of the decrepit roadway between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street in Brooklyn Heights before the triple cantilever — which runs beneath the neighborhood’s promenade and above Furman Street — crumbles beneath the weight of the thousands of big-rigs that rumble across it daily.

But Hizzoner’s plan to lay 14 miles of light-rail tracks from Sunset Park to the outer borough of Queens that would run along streets in Red Hook, Fort Greene, Dumbo, and Brooklyn Heights, including on Atlantic Avenue, will impact the city’s work on the expressway and cause even more chaos on the local thoroughfares, according to the city’s Deputy Commissioner of Bridges.

“I had a conversation with somebody who was working on the BQX. They are thinking about it going down Atlantic Avenue and across Columbia [Street], and I said ‘Look we’re going to be there, I don’t think it’s a good idea,’ ” Bob Collyer said during a public meeting about repairs to the expressway’s triple cantilever on Dec. 11. “That’s as far as we got.”

Should we send more trucks to the GCP?

From DNA Info:

Elected officials are calling on the Department of Transportation to allow large trucks to drive on a portion of the Grand Central Parkway — an effort to alleviate "paralyzing" traffic the big-rigs are causing on Astoria's residential streets, they say.

Commercial vehicles are currently banned from the parkway, with the exception of the stretch between the RFK-Triborough Bridge and the western end of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Currently, that approximately 14-block area allows for smaller trucks as long as they have "no more than three axles and ten tires," according to the DOT.

Astoria officials want that same stretch open to trucks of any size, which they say would keep larger vehicles making their way to the bridge on the parkway instead of on residential streets like Astoria Boulevard, where they're causing traffic mayhem, they say.

Smaller trucks have been allowed to drive on the Grand Central between the BQE and the Triborough Bridge since 2004, when the state legislature passed a bill — sponsored by Gianaris — in an earlier effort to combat Astoria traffic.

The senator said expanding that to include larger trucks would be a "win-win" for residents as well as commercial drivers, who would have a more convenient route between the bridge and the BQE.

This is what The Delta is

Always wondered just what the hell this was supposed to be and finally looked it up:

The Delta is the 1st building in NYC to be 100% powered by solar and utilizes many renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies that significantly decrease it's energy use by more then 75% compared with the average building.

Voltaic Solaire's goal with the project: "If we can develop a building that powers itself, on an unusual triangular lot in one of the most code-heavy cities in the world, our hope is to serve as a model, and inspire other developers around the world to do the same."

You can supposedly take a tour of it, too.

BQE bums

From the Queens Chronicle:

Assemblyman Francisco Moya (D-Jackson Heights) is looking to improve the situation at an underpass by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Jackson Heights, saying it’s become a hangout for vagrants.

“They’re lighting fires,” Moya said. “They’re smoking marijuana, drinking. It creates a very unsafe area for the residents who are living there.”

The lawmaker personally visited the underpass, by 35th Avenue and 69th Street, after a constituent emailed his office about the problem. They were joined by a community affairs officer from the 115th Precinct.

In addition to homeless people sleeping and loitering there, Moya said the underpass is “very dark, even during the daytime.”

The assemblyman has requested the NYPD temporarily place floodlights at the site and increase patrols in the area.

He’s also looking for the homeless people there to be brought to proper housing and get the services they need.

BQE to undergo 5-year overhaul

From CBS 2:

The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is slated for a major rehabilitation project — one that could cause potential traffic headaches for the thousands of commuters that traverse the aged outer-borough roadway every day.

The ambitious $1.7 billion undertaking aims to repair a 1.5 mile stretch of the highway, which features 21 concrete and steel bridges towering over city streets, WCBS 880’s Rich Lamb reported.

“The BQE project, what we’re calling “Sands To Atlantic,” is a huge, challenging, almost once-in-a-lifetime project,” Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said.

According to the DOT, the rehabilitation plan will work to revitalize the roadway’s crumbling, decades-old infrastructure, repair potholes and improve road accessibility.

The project is slated to begin in two years and will take around five years to complete, Trottenberg said.

Bad traffic situation in Sunnyside

From CBS New York:

The signs on a street in Sunnyside, Queens make it clear that it is for one-way traffic only, but some drivers are ignoring it.

As CBS2’s Dave Carlin reported, residents say they are scared for their lives. Living on what should be a quiet one-way street is like living on the edge, they say.

They say too many drivers are using 39th Place in Sunnyside to short cut away from an often jam-packed service road alongside the Queens-Midtown Expressway.

CBS2 spotted the driver of a sport-utility vehicle and a white van backing up the wrong way. More brazen was the driver of a blue minivan who moved forward illegally against the traffic.

Drivers trying to shortcut out of expressway traffic over to Queens Boulevard are not the only lawbreakers. Others set aside safety in a crazed competition to find parking.

Residents said another problem is that drivers see in the rearview mirror that a parking space opened up behind them. But instead of going around, they back up this one-way street.

Return to 110 Frost Street

Ah, we're back at 110 Frost Street, one of my favorite John Ciafone-owned properties.
This is the one that had a yard shed turned into an apartment.
The signs are quite unattractive and visible to BQE traffic.
There are quite a few complaints about this one.

BQE repair project called off

Billboard that collapsed was illegal

From NY1:

The slogan for the New York Lottery is "Hey, You Never Know," and only part of it remained early Saturday morning as crews worked to remove a collapsed billboard in Brooklyn.

The sign was atop 421 Meeker Avenue. It came crashing down Friday afternoon on the westbound side of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, sending debris flying through the neighborhood and onto the BQE.

A car and nearby buildings were damaged. Officials at the Department of Buildings say advertisements at the location are illegal.

DOB officials say the city has been cracking down on illegal billboards since 2009, but it hasn't been easy since many are old enough to be exempt from new restrictions.

So the State was advertising on an illegal billboard? How appropriate.

BQE's perpetual construction

From the NY Times:

New York City has plenty of aging, rage-inducing roadways, as drivers who have spent time on the Cross Bronx Expressway can attest. With its multitude of trucks and dangerous on-ramps, the B.Q.E. is a den of congestion at virtually all hours of the day.

But one factor has condemned this antiquated 16.8-mile stretch of highway to a place of longstanding infamy in the New York metropolitan area, if not all of urban America: construction that never seems to end.

As Gerry Michalowski, a truck driver who has traveled the B.Q.E. since 1978, put it, “It was under construction then, and it’s still under construction now.”

The first section of the road, which included the Kosciuszko Bridge, opened in 1939. After the 1950s, as most sections of the roadway were completed, Robert Moses, New York’s master builder, hailed the highway as part of a grand plan to solve the “problem of express travel.”

Repairs began in 1960, well before the road was officially finished in 1970. Today, the infernal color orange — seen on barrels, cones, “Work Ahead” warnings — is a permanent feature of the deteriorating landscape.

Happy Monday!

BQE Tractor Trailer Overturns: MyFoxNY.com

MYFOXNY.COM - A tractor-trailer has overturned in Queens on the northbound BQE.

Debris litters the off-ramp to the Long Island Expressway.

There is no access to the LIE in either direction on the northbound BQE.

SkyFoxHD was over the scene where traffic was backed up for several miles.