A decades-long project to repair a ready-to-collapse section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway finally begins tomorrow night.
That’s when state transportation officials will present a preliminary overview of their gargantuan project to replace the triple cantilever section of the BQE in Brooklyn Heights — a project so complex that plans for the work itself won’t even be finalized until 2018.
The section of the highway that runs under the famed Brooklyn Heights Promenade was built 60 years ago to last just 40 years. And old age is not the only problem with the roadway; it’s now carrying tens of thousands of cars more every day than it was designed to hold.
The meeting on Tuesday centers around the scope of the future repair work, a project that terrifies Brooklyn Heights residents, who fear that traffic will be diverted through their residential neighborhood, and planners of Brooklyn Bridge Park, who claim their project will be fully completed — just in time for the highway repair.
“We have to balance the interests of the residents, the motorists, the businesses and Brooklyn Bridge Park,” said Adam Levine, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.
The public meeting on the triple cantilever, Tuesday, May 12 at NYU–Polytechnic University [5 Metrotech Center, corner of Jay Street and Myrtle Avenue in Downtown, (718) 482-4526], 6:30 pm.
