Transform or tear down? The BQE reconstruction, explained

Here is an excellent summary of the BQE situation. Thanks to Roberto Gautier for finding it. It seems this “expert panel” that the Mayor put together reached a conclusion that the roadway should be fixed asap. Duh. – K. Klein

Built in the 1950s by storied city planner Robert Moses, the BQE carries some 150,000 vehicles per day. Now, 65 years later, a 1.5-mile span of the highway between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street is crumbling, and city and state officials are mulling ways to repair the roadway. 

Complicating matters is the fact that the Brooklyn Heights Promenade is perched atop the BQE’s triple-cantilever section. The 1,825-foot esplanade, with sweeping views of Manhattan and the East River, is structurally connected to the roadway, so any changes that happen to the BQE inevitably extend to the promenade, which has become a sort of communal backyard for Brooklyn Heights. 

The chorus of community, preservationist, and urban planners’ concerns has coalesced in the form of an alternative proposal put forward by the Brooklyn Heights Association, a prominent voice in the neighborhood; a bold plan put forward by Comptroller Scott Stringer’s office, who suggests converting part of the triple cantilever into a truck-only road with another level transformed into a High Line-esque linear park; and a blockbuster vision put forward by famed architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group that would transplant the expressway entirely and build over it with up to ten acres of new parkland. Read entire article here: https://ny.curbed.com/2019/3/12/18248873/brooklyn-heights-bqe-repair-dot