One of the city’s leading architecture firms has a new plan to fix a crumbling stretch of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, and they say it’s better, faster and cheaper than the $4 billion option put forth by the Department of Transportation.
The idea, dubbed the Brooklyn-Queens Park, would save the revered Brooklyn Heights Promenade from closing for six years while rehab work is completed on the highway, and would turn the triple-stacked road into a multi-tiered green space.
The proposal, expected to be revealed to the public Wednesday, was done pro-bono by Bjarke Ingels Group, which is also behind the “Big U” flooding mitigation solution for lower Manhattan.
The team wants to build a new, capped six-lane highway at ground level that is topped with a public park, an addition that would expand Brooklyn Bridge Park by more than 10 acres.
“The idea is to build the highway once, not twice,” said Jeremy Alain Siegel, an associate at BIG. “We can build it while the actual BQE is still operating.”
One option put forth by the DOT would construct a temporary highway above the promenade while rehab work is done on the BQE. Another option would reconstruct the highway on a lane-by-lane basis, which would come with regular closures and traffic issues.
In its proposal, BIG floated two options for the crumbling parts of the stacked BQE: leave them in place and turn them into a three-level park, or deconstruct them and use the rubble to create a sort of cliff-scape.
Because the plan would not involve building a temporary roadway, Siegel said it would require less time and less money than the DOT’s proposals.
BIG’s plan comes three weeks after city Comptroller Scott Stringer released a proposal to make the stacked stretch of the BQE truck-only and turn one of the lanes into a two-mile park that extends above the highway all the way to Carroll Gardens.
The Brooklyn Heights Association and advocacy group A Better Way are hosting a town hall meeting on the BQE construction plans Wednesday night, an event that’s estimated to draw more than 1,000 attendees as well as three potential 2021 mayoral candidates: City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and Stringer.
BIG has already shown its proposal to city officials and community groups. Representatives from the firm will present it to the public at the town hall.
“This plan flips the problem around,” said A Better Way spokeswoman Hillary Jager. “It sees the decay of urban infrastructure as an opportunity to invest taxpayers dollars on something permanent for all New Yorkers.”
The Regional Plan Association, which assisted with BIG’s proposal, put out a study of its own Tuesday, noting that congestion pricing and carpool lanes could allow the stretch of the BQE between the Gowanus Expressway and the Brooklyn Bridge be reduced to four lanes.
“That will only make our scheme cheaper and more feasible,” Siegel said of the RPA’s study. “We wanted to keep six lanes [in our proposal] just to prove that it’s feasible.”
The proposals for the project are set to begin environmental review later this year, a process that will drag on for up to two years.
