Fast-Tracked BQE Reconstruction Left Out Of Governor's Budget

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, NY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo left out a plan to fast-track the reconstruction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway which would avoid a truck ban on the roadway from his most recent budget proposal, the Brooklyn Paper first reported.

The move to leave it out of his second budget proposal comes after local elected officials held a rally in front of the highway earlier this month to get Cuomo to approve the plan. Despite the omission, politicians vowed to push to make sure it finds its way into the final budget.

“We are disappointed — but this isn’t the end of the road,” State Sen. Brian Kavanagh and Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon wrote in a statement.

“We will continue working with the Governor’s office and our colleagues to ensure design-build for the BQE is authorized in the final budget that will be negotiated and enacted next month.”

The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

City officials previously said the BQE’s roadway became so unstable they’ll be forced to bar trucks from sections and push them onto local streets if repairs aren’t finished by 2026.

However, the ban can be avoided if the state approves a process to let the project’s design and build work be bid on and completed by the same contractor — instead of the usual splitting them up. The Department of Transportation previously said it could shave two years off the reconstruction and save $113 million.

“It doesn’t make sense to give state agencies broad authority to use design-build on big projects, including the Mario Cuomo Bridge and Kosciuszko Bridge, while ignoring this critical project in New York City,” Kavanagh and Simon wrote in the statement. “Put simply: if design-build is good enough for state projects, it’s good enough for a city rehabilitation of a major highway in Brooklyn.”

If Cuomo doesn’t approve the process in the final budget next month, the DOT will limit the weight on a 1.5-mile section of highway and kick trucks off between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street. The ban would force trucks to exit at the Third and Fourth Avenue and drive on Flatbush Avenue instead.

Image: Kathleen Culliton/Patch