Last week, NYCDOT released a report called "BQE North & South: Safe, Sustainable and Connected." The report sets forth a number of near-, medium-, and long-term proposals intended to enhance safety, connectivity, and public spaces surrounding the BQE. These proposals include streetscape and intersection redesigns, dedicated bike and bus infrastructure, highway capping, and new plazas. (Note: this report and the ideas within are all outside of the "BQE Central" zone, which covers Atlantic Avenue to Sands Street, including the triple cantilever.) While some of the near-term ideas to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety, create cleaner on-the-ground conditions under the elevated sections of the roadway, and improve accessibility are certainly welcome, it remains to be seen what might actually come to pass. Many neighborhoods that have been promised improvements that prioritize the health and safety of people over cars have been disappointed by proposals that have been "delayed, watered-down, or subject to flip-flopping." The BHA whole-heartedly supports the sentiments of our partners in the Brooklyn Queens Expressway Environmental Justice Coalition, who responded to the report by saying, "Any BQE Plan must make tangible steps to complying with NY State’s landmark climate bill, the CLCPA. Although the proposals in the recent report that seek to enhance safety and usability of streets and public spaces near the BQE are essential, they are only meaningful in the long term if they are paired with a comprehensive plan supported by both the State and City DOTs that transforms the infrastructure along the entire corridor to meaningfully reduce pollution and vehicle miles traveled, and center environmental justice." Furthermore, as our partners at the Cobble Hill Association noted in their newsletter this week, "Absent are any near term solutions to specifically address the traffic congestion posing serious safety and health issues for our neighborhood and those living along the BQE Trench. We continue to advocate for traffic calming and reduction measures on Hicks, Clinton, and Columbia Streets. The DOT can and should do something now, in the near term, to reduce the traffic spilling over from the BQE Trench traveling northbound onto our local streets and into our residential neighborhoods." Read the latest about the report in the Brooklyn Eagle. Read the City & State Opinion Piece "The BQE is 75 years old. It's time to Tear it Down" |