BQE May Need Emergency Patch Job Before Full Renovation: Report

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — Leaked information from a panel analyzing the best way to fix a section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway shows that the highway may need an emergency patch job sooner than the city originally thought, the Wall Street Journal reported this week.

Sensors put on the 1.5-mile stretch of the highway by the panel — which was appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio after backlash to city plans earlier — show that the road is deteriorating faster than city officials originally thought, unnamed panelists told the WSJ.

The Department of Transportation had released two controversial proposals for the three-level section of the highway last year partly under the assumption that it will become unsafe for heavy trucks by 2026.

But the new information, panelists said, means the BQE might need repairs, or at least restrictions to trucks, as soon as 2021.

"Those repairs would require night and weekend closures or a full closure of the highway stretch until it is made safe," the Wall Street Journal wrote. "That would buy the city more time to design a replacement for the stretch of highway."

The leaked information comes about a month before the panel is meant to unveil its final report, though it is months after the due date for the report Chair Carlo Scissura told Patch back in September.

Scissura now says the report will come out in January. He told the WSJ that he couldn't comment on the new information given that the final report is still being finalized.

The unnamed panelists also told the WSJ, as Scissura has said previously, that the long-term recommendations for the BQE will likely not include either of DOT's controversial proposals for the highway, one of which would have closed down the Brooklyn Heights Promenade for at least six years.

Those plans in part led to the panel's creation after local groups and residents demanded they be abandoned.

Since the DOT plans, several other architects or organizations have suggested plans of their own, including an architect firm's idea to turn all three levels of the highway into parkland, a similar option developed by city Comptroller Scott Stringer and an alternative submitted by Brooklyn Heights Association-commissioned architect Mark Wouters.