The Eagle’s Mary Frost interviewed prominent Brooklynites, asking for their views on Brooklyn’s future. Carlo Scissura, head of the Mayor’s panel studying the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, predicts that “the BQE will get some much-needed love and attention.” Love? He also thinks the Nets will make the playoffs. Karen Johnson, owner of DUMBO’s Olympia Wine Bar, thinks the BQE will continue to be an issue, along with subway overcrowding (that’s what happens when your only convenient subway is the F train). Both Lara Birnback, executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, and Regina Myer…
WSJ: BQE Panel Considering Short Term Repairs; Long Term Re-Design – Report Now Expected January
The Wall Street Journal reports that unidentified members of the panel appointed by Mayor de Blasio have said data from sensors indicates the cantievered section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway under brooklyn Heights is in worse shape than prevously believed. Some panel members have indicated that trucks over a certain weight may have to be banned from this part of the BQE as soon as next year, and that repair work, meant only to stabilize the highway and to allow the city time to design a solution that …
Recent Developments on BQE Controversy
There have been several recent developments concerning the plan to repair the cantilevered portion of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that lies below Brooklyn Heights and its Promenade, including the City Department of Transportation’s “innovative” proposal to replace the Promenade with a six lane highway while the two levels of the BQE below are repaired. This would cause complete loss of the use of the Promenade for a period the DOT estimates as six years and, according to public health expert Laurie Garrett, as reported by Mary Frost in the Eagle, would cause dangerous increases in airborne pollutant levels in the Heights.More developments are summarized very well in another Mary Frost Eagle story. City Comptroller Scott Stringer…