With political turmoil at all levels of government, many problems may get overlooked or delayed. But I worry about one in particular that could have calamitous results as time goes on: The BQE’s triple-cantilevered section in Brooklyn Heights. It doesn’t care who is mayor or that a U.S. president may cut off transportation funding because of congestion pricing.
Approaching 80-years-old, it continues to deteriorate and crumble. That it is a multi-level cantilever, i.e. supported on just one side, adds to my angst. Think of yourself standing: On two legs you can do it a long time, on one leg not so long. The BQE has been standing on one leg for more than 70 years.
For 20 years now, the state and city have futzed around with ideas on what to do. The state gave up after about two years of meetings with the community; they were no match for Brooklynites! City DOT picked up the project around 2015 and floated numerous ideas including building a temporary road at the beloved Brooklyn Heights Promenade level. That landed like a lead balloon.
The de Blasio administration convened a panel of civic leaders who recommended, “an immediate fix…reduce traffic volumes… and [plan] for a corridor-wide vision…” In 2021 the NYC DOT Commissioner, Hank Guttman, who previously served on the panel, took the bold step of reducing the load on the structure by narrowing it from six lanes to four.
The Adams administration has taken up the mantle and has implemented an ICU protocol (my term) for the highway that includes reducing the number of overweight trucks, monitoring remotely with sensors, and making urgent repairs.
The heaviest trucks do the most damage and even though there’s a limit on the weight of trucks at 80,000 pounds, monster trucks are flouting the law. Using high-tech weigh-in-motion sensors that trigger violations (first in the country), the city has reduced the number of overweight trucks by nearly two-thirds. But some heavyweights continue to cause damage.
The city continues to do quarterly inspections of the structure and has outfitted it with electronic sensors that can detect problems in real-time that may be invisible to the naked eye. It also has teams of consultants and contractors at-the-ready to evaluate conditions and make repairs as needed. In fact, two spans (out of 195 spans in this stretch) were fully rehabilitated last year requiring complete weekend shutdowns of the roadway.
Is all this enough for the next decade until the BQE is fully rehabilitated? I hope so. I was NYC DOT’s chief engineer in the 1980s when 15 people died in bridge collapses in the region. One that has stayed with me was the 1989 collapse of the underside of elevated FDR Drive at E. 20th St. killing a dentist from Brooklyn driving his car below. The cause: deteriorating reinforcing bars in the concrete deck loosened a slab weighing about 600 lbs. It fell and crushed the dentist’s car.
This is eerily similar to the condition of the deck of the BQE. Steel bars are embedded in the rigid concrete deck to make it a little more flexible so it won’t crack under heavy loads bouncing along. De-icing salts seeped into the deck, corroding steel bars within. The byproduct, rust, is larger in volume than the original bars, pushing the concrete the only way it can go — down. Steel mesh is drilled into the underside to keep concrete from raining down on the public below. This is a Band-Aid.
Because of the delays and the condition of the structure I see only one prudent way forward: forget all the wonderful dreams of a depressed or covered boulevard. Yes, if they can be built with the snap of one’s fingers — great. But they can’t. Instead accept a serviceable structure that no longer just hangs out there. No more standing on one leg — support both sides.
Make the structure two lanes wide, which is sufficient for the current traffic. That reduces construction time, costs and difficulty. And of course, continue the ICU approach until the structure is completed.
City DOT released sketches of just such a plan last spring. The project is nearing federal environmental review after two years of public engagement, a milestone that has eluded past state and city administrations. I hope President Trump and US DOT Secretary Sean Duffy will act and do what is needed to finally clear the path for this critical project that will ensure safety while benefiting the region and the nation’s economy.
Schwartz is a former NYC traffic commissioner.