Shrink The BQE? Plan Calls For Removing Lanes From Busy Expressway
Published on Jan 31, 2020 by
WCBS 880, 1.31.2020
The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway may lose a third of its lanes under a proposal by a panel that Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed.
The BQE is quickly falling apart, handling more than three times the weight that it was built to handle—over 150,000 vehicles every day. The panel said sections of the expressway could be unsafe for traffic in as little as five years.
The BQE is currently six lanes—three on each side. The plan would make it a four-lane highway, with two on each side.
A plan to fix a 1.5-mile section of the expressway would cost more $1.7 billion, according to the New York Times.
The head of the panel, Carlo Scissura, president and CEO of the New York Building Congress, told WCBS 880 this counterintuitive idea could help reduce congestion.
“We’re calling for a reduction in lanes to two lanes in each direction. And we think that will be a game-changer for reducing traffic and extending the life of this road,” Scissura said.
WCBS 880’s own traffic expert, Tom Kaminski, doesn’t think the plan will work.
“If we’re talking about that stretch where the Brooklyn (Heights) Promenade is from the Battery Tunnel on up to the Brooklyn Bridge… I don’t understand how you take one lane away and suddenly things move better,” Kaminski said. “Because it’s very tough in that area as it is right now, especially where you merge in from Atlantic Avenue.”
Scissura said the plan is realistic because of the city’s continuing effort to move cars off the road and next year’s implementation of congestion pricing.
Supporters of the plan said eliminating lanes will reduce congestion because more lanes—an approach that’s been followed for decades across the country—just leads to more cars on roadways.
“We’ve gone through a 70-year period of adding and widening but this is a failing strategy. It’s like solving the obesity problem by loosening your belt,” Samuel I. Schwartz, a transportation consultant, told the New York Times.
https://wcbs880.radio.com/articles/shrinking-bqe-plan-calls-for-removing-lanes-from-expressway
