Traffic was finally back to normal this morning, almost 18 hours after a truck exploded in a collision in the Queens-bound lanes on the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway underneath Columbia Heights.
The gravel truck collided with a black Lexus sedan at about 1:15 pm on Monday and exploded in flames near the Cadman Plaza West exit. Firefighters said the crash occurred after the truck scraped a guardrail and hit the sedan, igniting the truck’s gas tanks.
The blaze was put out in a half-hour. No one was killed, but the driver of the sedan, a New Jersey woman, was taken to the Long Island College Hospital with minor injuries.
The busy highway was completely shut for 90 minutes, and delays were still intense through the Monday rush hour.
After toiling through the night, workers were able to restore traffic to all three Queens-bound lanes just in time for the morning rush on Tuesday.
— Evan Gardner
