The New York City Department of Transportation has revealed new design plans for communities both north and south of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
These designs will impact BQE North from Atlantic Avenue to Verrazano Bridge and in BQE South from Sands Street to the Kosciuszko Bridge.
DOT’s goal with the new corridor design toolkits is to “illustrate how the City can better connect communities along the BQE” utilizing both long term and short term changes to the city-owned infrastructure with the BQE Corridor Vision process.
The toolkit incorporates direct feedback from participants in DOT community workshops as well as from community partners and other stakeholders. The designs themselves focus on three major approaches to improve public safety, prioritize transit and active transportation.
Further design additions include projects along the BQE to deliver and improve immediate safety and mobility enhancements starting this year.
“This design toolkit is a blueprint for how the City can reclaim space from cars for safer and more environmentally friendly uses, like pedestrian plazas, mass transit priority, and cycling infrastructure,” said DOT Commissioner Rodriguez in a statement March 21. “We look forward to continuing our close collaboration with residents along the corridor to craft this vision.”
DOT collaborated with New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ office to work to create the design toolkit, specifically with the intention to commit to centering the “historically overlooked communities in the BQE Corridor Vision process”.
The design plan announcement came in conjunction with the second round of community workshop meetings held by DOT officials to have an opportunity to listen to community members and their needs and demands for the BQE corridor.
In order to develop concepts and ideas for the corridor’s improvement, the DOT worked to collect community input through virtual and in-person meetings with 160 attendees, through the department’s 18 community partners and with focus groups consisting of 2,600 survey respondents.
“Sharing these ideas for BQE North & South about what could be is a critical step towards giving the communities a vision of what the future includes, such as safer and more public space,” said Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi. “Together with our community, local and state partners, we are excited to get this critically important work underway.”
DOT will continue to work in tandem with their community partners and will also continue its efforts at equitable planning in both BQE North and South neighborhoods in order to reach their goal of implementing some short term projects as early as this year to improve mobility, safety and public spaces.
To view the DOT’s new BQE North and South design plans, visit the department’s flickr.