This city is just about congested to death, and the liberals in charge have so much hatred for the poor driving class that they're just about ready to to do anything to make it worse. Downsizing from 6 lanes to 4 would... reduce traffic? Why would that reduce traffic? the majority of people who drive on the BQE are not there because they prefer this horrible daily commute. public transit in NYC is not an option for all people. Working and middle class residents that drive have to do so, and will unfortunately will continue to do so even thru 2 lanes.
23
@John "....Working and middle class residents that drive have to do so..."
And you know this how, exactly? I happen to know many car owners who decidedly do Not have to drive, and yet do so at every opportunity. The problem I see is brainwashing by the auto industry (a car = 'freedom' and 'independence'), pure habit, and sheer laziness... any or all of those.
19
The city council has an ATM comprised of disproportionately taxed property owners in less snazzy precincts of the city to pay for this benefit for the under taxed of swanky Brooklyn.
3
Please, I beg you NYC, do something equally progressive for the Lower East Side. Cover the FDR with a park. It will give us flood control we need. It will save East River Park from its impending doom. Right now, the city is planning to start demolishing the beloved, much-used park in our low-income section of the neighborhood, for a destructive, environmental catastrophe called the East Side Coastal Resiliency plan. It will raze the park and raise it eight feet. To cover theFDR won't cost as much as rebuilding the BQE, because the highway doesn't need rebuilding. Please do not let this environmental injustice of the ESCR go through. Demolition starts in a few months.
3
Please, I beg you NYC, do something equally progressive for the Lower East Side. Cover the FDR with a park. It will give us flood control. It will save East River Park from its impending doom. Right now, the city is planning to start demolishing the beloved, much-used park in our low-income section of the neighborhood, our best amenity, for a destructive, environmental catastrophe called the East Side Coastal Resiliency plan. It will raze the park and raise it eight feet. To cover theFDR won't cost as much as rebuilding the BQE, because the highway doesn't need rebuilding. Please do not let this environmental injustice of the ESCR go through. Demolition starts in a few months.
There is zero reason to worry about the highway condition if you have a congestion fee. Just take it down immediately and raise the cost to get into Manhattan by car. The people that really need to use a car will pay, and those that do not will find another way.
The money saved and the extra money collected from the higher fee will pay to upgrade the trains, which is how most people should be getting around the city.
There is literally zero need to maintain a highway running through a city like NYC, except in order to convenience suburban commuters.
3
This is a generational opportunity for unlimited overtime for the trades.
3
The BQE was a road to be avoided at all costs even when I left the NY area in the early 70’s. The lack of both reasonable roads and convenient public transport alternatives in any of the outer boroughs as well as the suburbs was a major driver in my leaving.
The solutions must be multiple and not absolutist. Personal transportation will evolve to all electric in major cities side by side with better public transport. Sounds like maybe an immediate restriction on heavy trucks to late night only would be a start, patch what you can while designing an underground or capped alternative. In that alternative separate the trucks into one heavily built lane each direction. Put in an extra space for a future railed commercial transport system. It “may” then be possible to have an attractive landscaped surface boulevard for both personal vehicles and pedestrians/bicycles in separate lanes, especially as we anticipate electric vehicles replacing gas. Key is to separate the trucks.
As to cost, good luck. It’s NYC. Just don’t expect me to pay for the nutty PC rules, union featherbedding, and mob contractors. NYC politics created all of these, and the rest of us want you to clean up your house before we are asked to help pay.
3
This proposal is a case study in climate change denial.
Climate change is more than an occasionally mentioned issue in a political campaign -- it is a hard cold reality. It is already too late to stop the sea level rise that dooms any project like this, and America with our much-vaunted "democracy" is moving in the wrong direction.
Major infrastructure projects like this are, by necessity, designed and funded with a planned lifetime measured in decades. The BQE was proposed in 1936 and opened in 1954 -- almost two decades later. It has been in everyday use for more than sixty years. It cost $8.1M when built -- an astounding SEVENTY EIGHT BILLION 2019 dollars. Boston's Big Dig was first proposed in 1982. Construction began in 1991 and finished in 2006.
If the BQE tunnel proposal follows a similar timeline, it will open in 2040 and used until 2100. The tunnels of New York City will almost certainly be flooded before the project is even finished.
New York City planners should be facing the monstrous task of mitigating the climate change that has already happened (even if its full effects are not yet apparent), rather than worsening the problem by building expensive new tunnels.
New Yorkers and Americans need to face reality about climate change.
4
@BrooklineTom While I agree with the premise of your opening paragraph, $8.1 million in 1936 dollars equals $151 million today due to inflation, according to multiple inflation calculators.
3
@Ken : Good catch, the hazards of counting places in a browser.
2
Sometimes the simpler solution is better. Reality check: the water in New York Harbor is rising. There are major storms in our future. This tunnel will flood. Building it will destroy areas it is supposed to save/serve; compare neighborhoods lost in the Bronx with what the Cross Bronx Expressway did to the borough. But: people live and travel here and have to get around. So, how?
The current transportation corridor for the BQE exists. Fix it in place! First, improve subways and buses to handle the influx of passengers. Next, take the deficient decking down and rebuild it in one as-quick-as-possible project - short-term pain but long-term gain. Third, plan for a realistic future: freight rail including cross-harbor ferries and reactivating existing rail corridors, requiring less heavy trucking. Finally, do not defer doing something "permanent" vs. a quick fix.
We don't need another "wonder of the world." We do need something strong and efficient that works for and serves New York, its citizens and those of us outside of the five boroughs who depend on this city as our region's core.
5
"Could be unsafe for traffic"?
1
Whatever the estimate is, triple it for accuracy.
6
Putting off the fix is what most governments do best. In the end, a new version of the highway will have to be built ASAP, and all the wild eye dreamers will be forced to adopt something that can be done quickly. The only choice is a highway built upon the water, just beyond the shore. It does not need to be a bridge, only a roadway elevated above the water-line. But, it should be elevated enough to withstand predicted rise in global sea level. Unfortunately, that will increase costs, hence will not be done because the politicians will think this is a temporary solution. Naive? Ignorant? Most rational people decide politics is not for them. So, most who enter the field are not rational.
2
It would be nice if the Times did an in depth article on the larger problem of cross harbor freight transportation, instead of flashy and superficial articles like this one. The Port Authority has been studying the issue a long time. Any plan for the BQE needs to be part of a holistic regional plan for moving freight from NJ to geographic Long Island.
4
The notion that this can be done in 10 years at 11 billion is so absurd that coverage should have stopped there and people reading the press release on it should have immediately referred the Council for therapy, if not shock treatment.
8
Can't this money be spent improving the subway system and thus, overall,encourage people to use the highway less?
4
I favor this project and can't agree with those who want to "break the car culture." Last week, I took the subway from Bay Ridge to Brooklyn Heights in the late evening, a six mile trip that took more than an hour. I did not feel safe during the entire journey given the large number of homeless people with serious emotional disorders who occupied the platforms and subway cars. My fears were not unfounded. Crime in the city's subways has risen dramatically since the city implemented bail reform and stopped arrested fare beaters. Yes, cars may be inefficient. but the next time I need to travel to Bay Ridge, I'll choose Uber over the subway.
7
@jrak
"next time I need to travel to Bay Ridge, I'll choose Uber over the subway."
Uber's prices are subsidized. Get ready for sticker-shock--especially when congestion pricing and a carbon tax force car users to actually pay for the externalized costs of their choices.
2
I don't hate this highway. It is one of the most beautiful urban highways in the world. Let us see how much money our mayor who is a pawn of the real estate industry and construction companies can give to his bosses. The studies say if we banned heavy trucks, the highway could last another 50 years.
7
@Michael Green Then where do all the heavy trucks go? Local Streets! No Thanks...
2
In Seattle, the viaduct is already down and the tunnel is already being used. The picture shown in the article must be several months old.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/viaduct-demolition-is-about-done-heres-how-to-get-a-free-piece-of-the-old-highway/
2
@Julie Yes, and the numbers of people using it since it is now a toll road, has decreased dramatically and the surface street traffic has increased dramatically, as well. More social engineering, courtesy of "wanna-be world class city" Seattle.
2
Raising half the cities property tax and spending 11B (likely more) on tunnel. I vote n.
5
Throw money at problems and make the middle class pay for it. Typical city response.
1
People lived in local neighborhoods on both sides of the CROSS BRONX EXPRESSWAY. Was there much of " carving a city in half " ? Offering a weak argument of Caro's great book if you stood by the road way ,counted the number trucks, it provided access to eastern N Y C and L. I. Tons and tons of building material,etc. These roads aerated the urban and suburban areas to expand and grow.
2
Change NY state law (scaffold, union strangelholds) and this will be affordable and buildable. Ignore the obvious and it will either never happen or will bankrupt the city.
6
Queens 7 train expansion?
Queens LaGuardia rail link?
Queens /Brooklyn 21 Street new subway?
Once again, Brooklyn projects jump the queue.
4
They plan on building an underground tunnel as the sea level is rising, how absurd. Also it would cost double or triple the $11 Billion estimate.
10
The $11 billion dollar tunnel will cost triple and yes, there is proof! Just take a look at the 2nd Ave. Subway Line. Thank you, I rest my case!
9
Other countries dig tunnels in complex environments all the time at far less cost. Why can’t we do that here?
6
Slow your roll there, Emma and Winnie. Seattle is now without the only marginally successful north-south roadway with a spectacular view now that our Viaduct is gone. "The space above..." is absolutely NOT an "...urban paradise." We are overrun with homeless people and whatever "improvements" our local government thinks they will make in this now-vacated space, I guarantee you it will soon become a massive homeless campground. What would have made total sense and would have been a great public benefit is if someone had listened to those of us pushing for an elevated park, such as The HIghline in New York, that would have retained the spectacular views of the Sound for all of us. Maybe you two could talk to some actual Seattleites before you make such profound statements about our city...
11
150,000 trips per day is ~50 million trips per year. Over 40 useful years, that would be 2 billion trips. To spend $11 billion (let's round up to 12, for easy math and for inflation) works out to $6 per trip. For one road! That's rather steep.
Auto use is going to have to go down - climate change. If you could cut auto use in half, and also cut the cost of the project in half, it would -still- be $6 per trip.
I live in Boston, where we recently spent $15 billion (your report says $24) for a comparable project. It was necessary, but a very bad deal, and should not be repeated elsewhere, be it in NYC or Seattle.
The time for these megaprojects - billions spent for rebuilding central arteries in major cities - is over. Just as we're going to have to learn to intelligently decide where to retreat from rising sea levels, we're going to have to decide where to abandon major roadways, and how best to move around without them.
This is a big shift. So is going from fossil fuels to renewables. The changes will be wrenching. They're both gonna have to happen.
In 1985, Pik Botha, Prime Minister of South Africa and a staunch defender of apartheid, realized the impossibility of continuing that system and said, "We must adapt or die" (he wanted to modify it, not end it). South Africa adapted, ineffectively, and was compelled by world pressure to release Mandela and end apartheid.
I hope we do a better job of adapting than did South Africa.
5
@Aram Hollman Long term thinking, that will be tossed out if the highway collapses.
1
If this proposed plan means more trucks on my local streets, then no way! The BQE, while terrible in so many ways, at least allows a few exits/entrances throughout south Brooklyn.
With the soon-to-be developed, "Last Mile Distribution Center" slated for 2nd Avenue and 21st street, one needs to wonder where all those trucks will go....
First thing we all can do is stop ordering every little thing off Amazon etc.
10
I’m not sure If you can say this thing is hated. People walk on it everyday and it has served its purpose. It’s definitely not pretty but people use it.
I don’t drive and I don’t think more people should aspire to buy cars. But when I visited a family friend in the the late 90’s he took us to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade to look back out at the city. Great view, weird traffic solution and unique place. The authors can probably do better than “hated” to describe it.
Also could you go into some more detail
about possible solutions?
5
good luck with that.
3
You have a highway ON SHELVES there?
Really?
8
@SB, yes, and it worked well until it ages out. Rebuild it (with an additional lane each way) and it will again.
1
why the city doesn't make more efficient use of its waterways always confounds me.
7
$11B ain't what it used to be.
10
bike. park cars at edge of city and take trains, or bike. bike. bike.
7
It will never be built!
New York hasn't been able to build a new tunnel to New Jersey for the last 50 years and it won't be able to do this either. Both are desperately needed. New York can't fix the subways either. The problems, as long as everybody enjoys fighting over the solutions, cannot be solved.
I did like one solution; Tear it down and eliminate that roadway entirely. Of course, a new tunnel could work. I've driven the new tunnels in Boston and frankly, it is an excellent solution.
And for what it's worth I lived in New York City, the Bronx before the expressway that divided that community in half, disrupting cohesive neighborhoods. I know what ill conceived projects can bring. They destroy cities. The new tunnel would allow a community to renew itself and remain a livable, cohesive place to live. Maybe its worth the price.
16
They plan to build and underground structure in a coastal city as the sea level is rising. Is anybody paying attention?
23
Everyone:
Rich People who have the time (literally): "Let's get people out of private cars. Let's break the car culture."
10
@nw Right. Because it's mostly 'poor folk' driving around in all the $30-40k Yukons, Denalis, F150s, Jeeps, Navigators, etc., that now litter our neighborhood streets.
5
@nw Mr. Dallas - not everybody in America drives from their lounge room to their kitchen in cars like where you live. Some older cities have a pedestrian culture. Which tourists from places like, well, Dallas come to visit and enjoy. :-)
4
@nw It's not all "rich people" There is one, a very rich guy (questionably so if paying over 180 million in settlements and fines in the last 10 years means anything) who's financing the anti-car movement,
Including paying at least one of the anti-car people posting here. He's paid for several local groups and blogs, all of which work together on this.
(moderator: I can prove this, 100%).
So the adherents aren't all "rich" but the "grassroots" movement is at least as astroturfed as the Tea Party.
1
That roadway has been under continual repair since my cousin Norm was in college when he was 20 years old, he is now closing in on 80. It can never be repaired, it is cursed.
10
This should be one in a long line of long-overdue infrastructure projects around the country with the federal government footing most of the bill. We spent about 10 trillion (with a "T") dollars and lots of young American blood on wars in the Middle East since 9/11. All they did was make US corporations richer and everyone else poorer. Now Trump gives them more money AND tax breaks. What a waste. Wake up America.
22
@Tommyboy This country is literally imploding.
6
@Tommyboy, Trump is a virulent symptom, not the cause, but we have to work on curing both.
If NYC wants to get people out of cars and on trains, demand that we fix the trains first. Example (of many): how about safe and adequate tunnels under the Hudson to Penn Station so that I don't feel like I'm in mortal jeopardy every time I board NJT or Amtrak?
1
Here's an idea: tear it down and don't rebuild anything. We shouldn't be enabling driving, especially not in New York City. If we make it harder to drive around, less people will be doing it. Trucks will just have to use other routes. Eventually, cars are necessarily going to become a thing of the past. Let's start showing them the door. We can put the $11 billion into public transportation instead for a win/win.
16
@Jeff you live in Brooklyn. What roads or routes do you propose all the cars and trucks (the trucks that deliver groceries and other essential goods) use?
9
@LS: Drones maybe?
2
@Jeff, 1. We live in the present. 2. People need transportation. 3. Creating inconveniences without alternative solutions is not the answer.
If this is projected to be $11 billion, then that means it will actually cost $22 billion when it is all said and done. This is NYC we are talking about so anyone who thinks the original estimate is actually true, I have a bridge I would like to sell them!
10
The people who are driving into or out of NYC are people who don’t have good transit access.
Maybe when NYC considers that it’s NJ, PA and even Delaware drivers coming in, as well as NYC residents visiting these places, they will see that their dollar spent there is a dollar not spent in this tunnel. The solution is not a 24 billion dollar 3 mile tunnel, but expanded rail access to all these communities, that would relieve the pressure.
15
@P Nicholson "The people who are driving into or out of NYC are people who don’t have good transit access." I have plenty of car-owning friends in NYC, and while I may not agree with their car-owning lifestyle, I can attest that....many people driving within NYC are not doing so out of necessity, but out of habit and/or laziness and/or a sense of entitlement (i.e., not wanting to have to rub shoulders with the transit-riding masses).
7
The protracted occupation and combat in Afghanistan and Iraq have depleted any possible funding for things like this highway fix, high speed rail, conservation efforts, and rebuilding our bridges, municipal water systems, etc. Maybe we can have nice things again if we elect people who are committed to improving the lives of the folks who elect them.
13
@Mark The area in question already is one of the most expensive in Brooklyn, so let's save the false gentrification narrative for another reactionary NIMBY fight.
1
Like Boston the working class and poor will be displaced with richer younger people. After everyone spends 11 billion who will profit from gentrification in the area.
2
@GUANNA Brooklyn Heights, the neighborhood which the highway runs through cannot be more gentrified - it already is and has been for fifty years or more so that is not an issue. There is no one here to profit from a tunnel. We, who live here in the Heights, would rather just see the Highway simply disappear for good. The only ones who benefit from it do not live any where near here and only use our neighborhood to travel through because they Are lazy and won’t take mass transit.
8
We aren't lazy we just can't afford to take an Uber everytime we need to either bring packages, multiple children or the elderly. How do you manage that in the current subway system?
5
@joebloe Ride a bike. I haul all my groceries and my kid to and from school (across the east River) on a bike. Even in the rain and snow.
7
Fix the trains. Before telling those of us that use cars we are in the wrong, let’s reevaluate public transportation. I can take a train to walk street in about an hour door to door. A car gets me there in half the time. If there was a train that get me there in 30 minutes I’d take it, but there isn’t.
6
@Ryan Raduechel You live in Jackson Heights. You can't afford one hour to travel to Wall Street/Lower Manhattan? It's that important for you to save 30 minutes, that you'd rather drive, adding to pollution, traffic congestion and then having to deal with finding parking/paying for parking?
I really don't think one hour travel time is unreasonable, considering the distance from Jackson Heights to Wall Street.
Sometimes the problem is that car people get so accustomed to living a certain way, that to change their lifestyle is unfathomable.
Also, I'm not sure what you mean by 'fix the trains'... are you suggesting that in an ideal public transit situation, you should be able to get from Jackson Heights to Wall Street in 30 minutes?
6
@Ryan Raduechel I find it hard to believe it takes less time to drive through city traffic than to take public transportation from queens. It is just less convenient because you depend on a train schedule rather than your own.
6
@Erika Rather than castigate someone all you need to do is plug in 1 Wall St on a google map and an address in central Jackson Heights and compare commuting times.
Outside of rush hour the fact is that driving takes 1/2 the time.
2
Here in Seattle there were many fights and lots of dithering before we replaced an ugly viaduct along the waterfront with a tunnel. It was worth the wait and the money. Our waterfront already looks better and once the work is done, we'll have a beautiful waterfront park--done by the same landscape architect who did your High Line. If you afford it, go for the tunnel. You won't regret it.
6
God it would be a blessing if they buried This nightmare and even enclosed the trench from Red Hook to Brooklyn Bridge. It’d be nice to have a park where there used to be a pit.
7
Well, there are only two choices. One, build a tunnel and tear it down or two, tear it down. Because to constantly patch it up will eventually cost as much as a tunnel.
Corruption? You bet. Design the tunnel then appoint a Moses-like person in charge. Have an oversight committee of engineers, architects and worker reps (preferably non-union) and no politicians, who can only intervene if they all agree that corruption/avoidable delays are involved. Then they can fine, cancel, recoup all monies and/or arrange prison time. Then sit back and watch them finish the project early like in Seattle and not double or triple the initial quote.
3
Moses created this mess to begin with, highways in cities?
2
@Ak, if Robert Moses had prevailed, NJ's Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge would be a redundant major airport and this region's water supply would be contaminated. His "sword" was two sided and the back side cut terribly deeply.
1
Hello NY, Boston here. Quadruple that price tag.
27
About the Boston tunnel: "The Big Dig was the most expensive highway project in the US, and was plagued by cost overruns, delays, leaks, design flaws, charges of poor execution, and use of substandard materials, criminal arrests, and the death of one motorist. The project was originally scheduled to be completed in 1998 at an estimated cost of $2.8 billion (in 1982 dollars, US$6.0 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2006). However, the project was completed in December 2007 at a cost of over $8.08 billion (in 1982 dollars, $14.6 billion adjusted for inflation, meaning a cost overrun of about 190%) as of 2006."
6
Beijing drills subway tubes for as little as $100 million per mile. Admittedly, NYC geology is considerably more complex.
1
@Steve Bolger and labor is more expensive. Thus products made in China.
3
The Cross Brooklyn tunnel idea would be transformative. And it was exactly what the State commission that studied it 10 years ago, recommended. (It was the idea of a local civic leader, Roy Sloane, who studied it for decades and wrote up his idea in 2011 and again last year). The idea of carbon recapture is also novel and seminal for our borough, too. Brooklyn is a leader in so many ways, now it might be in transportation as well. We need this fix because our borough has been lagging in this area despite the vast influx of residents to the downtown. The beauty of this thing is that the tunnel will pay for itself - by the users themselves, and for all the years it will be used . Those who don't drive don't pay but they do reap the benefits of less surface volume, carbon recapture and making 4th ave. a living street again. All incredibly good for residents and thru truckers alike. Win win.
4
I visit my daughter occasionally.She lives in Brooklyn and I use the BQE. Still I think this news piece is better suited for The Onion or April 1st. 11 billion dollars but we neglect our schools and can't "afford" healthcare for everyone? Have we lost our minds?
9
How about closing down the BQE and NOT replacing it. That saves $11 billion right there. In fact we could give $10k to every Staten Island resident to make them less unhappy and still come out $6 billion better off.
20
When Corey Johnson ranted about killing car culture, the only thing he killed was his political career. The bicycle lobby has convinced him and the other extremists on the Council to waste billions on bike lanes that only a small percentage of City resident use. In my area, they reduce parking, eliminate lanes, and increase traffic congestion, but are rarely used. Voters in the Boroughs hate him. He’s never going to be mayor.
9
I completely agree- check out the 4th avenue bike lane - no one ever in it! They really have to stop this rant about cars. It’s too much! And it’s contrived in so many ways!
9
@J
Reducing car culture benefits everyone.
9
@J So get a bike! Travel unimpeded!
2
Elevated roads cost less to build but lots to maintain. Most towns don't keep up with the required fixes. Tunnel cost lots more to build and yes, lots less to maintain. You can bet this project will cost more like $25 billion to complete.
What causing these issues is no check on growth. More buildings means more people, services and more vehicles clogging the streets. Stop vending air-rights, stop the growth.
The business of NYC is growth but it can't last forever. Stop building and put the money into fixing what we have. If money went to increasing subway and surface transport efficiency we'd work toward a steady and manageable state.
8
I’d like to see Elon Musk’s Boring Company take a look at this....
8
In what fantasy land do the authors, Emma Fitzsimmons and Winnie Hu, live? Precisely where has San Francisco "razed hulking, unsightly highways dividing the heart of their downtowns, pushed a new roadway underground and turned the space above into an urban paradise"?
6
@Steve Fankuchen I think they are referring to the Embarcadero freeway, although there is no underground roadway there.
@Steve Fankuchen The Embarcadero freeway was torn down and sparked a renaissance for that part of the waterfront. Doyle Drive (the SF approach to the GG Bridge) was replaced by more of a freeway that has two short "tunnels" which are really roads later covered with vegetation and landscaping as part of the Presidio Trust's improvements. Neither were near the scope of the BQE project.
2
The Seattle tunnel is a disaster!
Massive overruns and congestion due to incompetence.
Do your homework-Not a role model for NYC.
7
I'd like the over on this wager, please.
6
This takes me back to Westway, which was not supported by Cuomo and Koch. I now call 12th Avenue, the Mario M. Cuomo memorial highway.
3
Kill car culture. Great. Unfortunately it’s been replaced with the meteoric rise of amazon delivery / Uber culture - creating identical congestion issues.
12
@Andy Deckman This is a common refrain of private car owners. Instead of considering any personal responsibility or that they may have to change their ways, it's pointing the finger at someone else.
However, there is a huge difference between thousands of private individuals feeling the need to start the engines of their vehicles for 1-2, venturing out in our streets, and then looking for a place to park their private vehicles for the Majority of that day (i.e., the vehicle is mainly sitting Parked and not in active use).... versus deliver trucks, taxis, Ubers, etc. which are in active use for at least 1/3 the time of any given day, And which are providing a service to dozens if not hundreds of NYC residents, on a daily basis.
7
Having lived through the Alaska Way tunnel project in Seattle I can attest that it was painful and expensive, however the result seems to justify both pain and expense. Sort of like how we tend to forget unpleasant experiences and remember pleasant ones.
5
We need to keep in mind that Brooklyn is much bigger than Boston, Seattle and San Francisco combined yet has not had any significant transportation upgrades in decades. So 11 billion does not seem like much in that context. I'd expect city council to have a bigger vision than patching up this small section of the BQE. Hopefully, a larger plan that ties in to hurricane barriers or plans to address rising sea levels
18
The first estimate of the 'Big Dig' Boston tunnel was $2.8 billion. The tunnel ended up costing $22 billion including the interest cost thereon. So, take the $11 billion and compute what inflation and overruns will do to the cost.
10
Just like the Big Dig in Boston, the BQE tunnel will pay for itself many times over. To begin with just think of the good union jobs , then come the reoccurring long term financial benefits.
3
I would recommend that they just get rid of 278 (the BQE) from where it meets Flushing Avenue, just have it come to an end right there. Then demolish the rest of it which winds through Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens right up to where it joins with 478 again. Imagine how wonderful the neighborhoods would become where the highway now plows through? It's time to unwind Robert Moses' destruction of our great city.
16
@Pete and where would you have the cars and trucks go one the road ended?
3
The tunnel makes no sense in this context. This portion of the BQE is already compact and has a park on top of it. Cap it if you want it to disappear completely. It would make much more sense to create a tunnel for the Sunset Park or Williamsburg portion of the BQE. While they are at it, put a ceiling atop the BQE in Carroll Gardens. Use the the added real estate development rights to pay for it.
6
Doing nothing is what will cost the most. If you want a clear proof, I invite you to read about the old Champlain bridge in Montreal, which required nearly half a billion dollar in repairs, just to keep it safe until the new bridge was opened, 5 years later. 500 millions for something to be destroyed. No city can afford that, especially not NYC.
7
@Samuel S, sounds like the Hudson River train tunnels - but no new tunnels are yet under construction despite the imminent collapse of the current ones.
the Feds should fix this roadway or some alternative.
The city cannot afford it.
1
@perry r
Bigly. The President would like to put a golf course and casino hotel there instead.
1
NYC, as has been proven year after year, is not capable of handling a project of such magnitude and complexity at anywhere near the budget they are proposing and any timeline or schedule they offer will be pure fiction. By the time the politicians and unions are finished divvying up their cuts the budget will double and work will not even start until the years and years of lawsuits are settled. Needed as a fix for the BQE is, this will be an agonizing tragedy/comedy to watch for years to come.
15
Excellent idea, long overdue. Much cheaper and faster to tunnel through sand, which is what Brooklyn is made of, than to dig through rock (Manhattan)
3
@peter margolin
Parts of both Manhattan and Brooklyn are sand, and parts of both are rock.
I lived in Williamsburg in the general neighborhood of the BQE for years and dreamed of burying that thing regularly. But as much of an eye, ear, and nose sore as the elevated highway is, it paled in comparison to the issues caused by the traffic moving ON and OFF it around the local streets. That’s where the real damage to city life is done. And any structure be it tunnel or buried roadway with as many local exits and entrances as the BQE will amount to the same thing.
The main issue, as many here have pointed out, is truck traffic. One way to solve it would be to limit most large trucks to the perimeter of the city and confine most delivery of goods to smaller vehicles, and to mandate that those smaller vehicles are far more safe, quiet, and clean than the ancient, rattling, particulate-spewing disasters left over from the last century we have roaming our streets today.
A fantasy, perhaps, but one that makes at least as much sense as spending $20 Billion on a state-of-the-art tunnel that will essentially just maintain the status quo of traffic conditions in our city for another 50 years.
31
To all the non-NYC folks who are commenting with "Just tear it down and build a pretty park! Cars are SO 20th Century!": You're missing the issue here.
Unfortunately, it's not really about private cars and private transportation. That stretch of the BQE is THE ONLY WAY to get large commercial vehicles from NJ and points South/West into Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island.
I'm a car-owner who lives near the BQE and I wouldn't bat an eye if it was closed down tomorrow. I'd adjust quite easily. However, that would force the NJ to BK/QNS/L.I. trucking routes into Manhattan and that would be an absolute nightmare. This is a difficult issue and every potential NYC Mayoral candidate needs to take a stance on it. Tunnel and Capped Highway solutions work for me and I suspect the new Mayor will pick one over the other depending on the price tags for each.
67
@Tom exactly. I've lived on Long Island most of my life. I don't think I've ever driven that stretch of the BQE in a car. I've always used the Belt Parkway, but commercial traffic cannot drive on the Belt. For those readers from outside the area, most of the parkways around NYC are not open to commercial traffic and buses due to low bridges (the racist reasons for that are well-documented). There is only one limited access route open to commercial traffic from the Verrazano Bridge to points east, and that's the BQE. Ditch that highway, and truck traffic through Manhattan and the Bronx will explode.
The simplest immediate solution, as the article mentions, is to limit that part of the BQE to commercial traffic and buses only. That will buy us a little time, but only a few years at best. That highway needs to be replaced as soon as possible. We don't have the time or the money to build a tunnel.
9
@Tom
Look up Rep.Nadler's S.I. to Bklyn rail tunnel specifically for freight. Support that.
3
@Danielle That's an interesting idea. How much would it cost to make the Belt (and maybe some other parkways around NYC) available to commercial traffic and take the strain off the BQE? A lot less than $11B I bet.
1
That $11 billion could go towards the Second Avenue Subway, which has been desperately needed for over 100 years and reduces emissions, further chipping away at our toxic car culture.
Don’t rebuilt highways. Build subways.
9
There’s already a brand new “2nd Ave Subway”
We need our roads fixed!
3
@CP - High can Amazon get a package to you without good highways? Are you going to ship produce from Arizona to New York by subway?
1
Here's an idea. Spend less on your online purchases and fewer trucks will drive through the area from warehouses.
Also, the signs warning that overweight trucks are not permitted on this section of the BQE is a joke and a ploy. First, there is no enforcement or truck weighing. Secondly, these signs seem to be there to justify the proposed construction projects.
13
@Someone In your suggsetion doesn't sound like a very good idea, ordering less online is going to make the overcrowded highway repair itself?
2
The council proposed two options: 1) capping the current highway, and covering it with an extension of the brooklyn bridge park ($3.5B) or 2) the tunnel ($11B).
Option #1 appears to be much more feasible, lower risk, and far cheaper.
Yet the article focuses on the tunnel idea. Why?
Capping the BQE makes a lot of sense. This proposal simply makes a lot of sense, and would completely transform the area.
https://big.dk/#projects-bqp
12
Fixing what exists often costs less, and therefore there is less money to enrich favored special interests.
7
@William McCain
Actually, with infrastructure, the "patching" approach can be both MORE expensive and disruptive AND ... y'keep having to rinse-and-repeat. And the trucks will inevitably get even bigger - that's now believed to have cut a decade or 2 or more off the "expected life" WHEN BUILT.
For every "Roman aqueduct" and "Chinese Wall" there are probably 100 of these "bright ideas" that do NOT stand the test of time.
I'm surprised, I should note, living pretty close to "ground zero" in the context of this article that "precious" (in both senses of the word) Brooklyn Bridge Park gets near-zero mention.
It doesn't have the history or expanse of Central Park or Prospect Park, but anyone who knows the terrain knows that the obvious winner in this 2-horse race - putting the highway beneath Brooklyn Bridge Park for most of the park's length - is going to ruffle some feathers. Let the lawsuits begin!
2
"Cities like Boston, San Francisco and Seattle have all done it — razed hulking, unsightly highways dividing the heart of their downtowns, pushed a new roadway underground and turned the space above into an urban paradise"
Show me where this has been done in SF! Nope, some of the freeways have been torn down, but no long tunnels have been built, an equivalent of the "Big Dig" disaster.
1
@Rick I said the same thing, then realized the author thinks of the burial of 101 in the Presidio for 400 yards as being a tunnel... It is true that the highway was replaced and modified in design, but it is a far cry from a tunnel.
2
@Rick - Yeah, Seattle did it but it required "Big Bertha" to be built and that alone cost around $80 million. And of course it added to downtown traffic problems as they spent the years working on it. But in our case, it was replace it or watch it collapse in the next decent sized quake.
The idea was proposed in 2009 and was finished a decade later only $600 million over budget. But it had to be done. And $600 million is pretty much pocket change to a few guys in the county. Paul Allen spent half that amount for another yacht.
1
There should be no consideration of a major tunnel project in NYC until the issues that cause tunnel construction here to cost 3x more than even the most complicated projects in the world are addressed. This NYT article from 2017 was telling:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html?searchResultPosition=14
16
How about making that stretch of the BQE like the FDR Drive, with columns holding up the highway?
Sink columns into Furman Street.
Then you could anchor the lower highway to the columns, broaden the upper roadway and anchor it also to the columns, and then make the Promenade wider as the top tier.
Three even levels. Repair as you go. It'll take less time and cost less than any other solution.
6
@B. no trucks on the FDR..
1
But anchoring the BQE into Furman Street gives you stability. You'd still have Furman Street and a stronger BQE.
"In Boston, an elevated highway through downtown was torn down and put underground. A greenway was built aboveground."
And the traffic still remains.
The "BIG Dig" was "estimated" to cost 3 Billion. It cost over 15 BILLION when it was "done."
So, in NYC Billions, 11 Billion estimated will, in the end, cost you what????????? 55 Billion?
11
Why is the city council so bent on “breaking car culture”?
I don’t support the city council’s constant harangue in this regard. I like cars and cannot stand this holier than thou attitude. Who asked for this? I know I didn’t.
14
@The Truth
Because cars a) generate a ton of pollution, b) kill and injure lots of people every year, c) use space inefficiently in a very crowded city, d) cause expensive wear and tear on physical assets, e) aren't owned by most New Yorkers, etc.
18
@The Truth i don't have anything against cars so long as their owners pay for the true cost of using them. tax gas for the pollution cars generate, and make all parking in nyc market-rate. also introduce a congestion fee. if you can still afford to use your car to move around, you should by all means be free to do so.
again, this has nothing to do with a war against cars. it's just asking car owners, _for the first time_, to bear the costs of using cars in one of the busiest places on earth.
17
@Bogdan These suggestions amount to taxes on car users to reduce transportation expenses for others (mass transit?); an approach already used in New York City for decades.
Parking in Manhattan is limited by Federal law, increasing costs well above any free market rates, and congestion pricing is another tax looking for a base that will only prohibit those who pay taxes to build and maintain our roads and highways from using them. Except for some on street parking, which requires a different solution, one could argue that the car, more than any other form of transportation, pays its own way in the city.
On the other hand, $25 billion for a new 4 lane tunnel in Brooklyn; there are probably better ways to spend that money.
4
Best choice: Capped Highway!
Why does article barely mention, and thus it seems those commenting are missing, the other option proposed: turn the BQE into a BQP ("P" for park!) with a capped highway built at-grade rather than unwise digging a tunnel.
From article, just one paragraph, argh!
"The City Council is also looking at a second option, known as a capped highway, that would create a buried roadway beneath Furman Street and Brooklyn Bridge Park, with a deck built over it to expand the park. That option could cost about $3.5 billion and take six years."
From the NYC Council's announcement, the "Capped Highway" is actually scenario #1. I'd say it's also the #1 best option, for cost, speed of completion, safety, and dare I say aesthetics as it connects the Promenade with terraced gardens to an expanded Brooklyn Bridge Park. Voila, no costly, time-consuming tunnel necessary! Moreover, this option, derived from grassroots uproar, was already presented by very well respected civil project designers.
From the NYC Council's announcement:
"Scenario 1 – Capped Highway: This scenario is based on the Mark Baker Tri-Line and Bjarke Ingels Group Brooklyn-Queens Park concepts, in which the highway is reconstructed at-grade and then capped with an expansion of Brooklyn Bridge Park."
Here's more on the design of a capped highway:
https://www.dezeen.com/2019/04/03/bqp-big-news-bqe-brooklyn-highway-park/
6
why spend all that money on an auto system that will be OBSOLETE in 5 yrs.
tax single family autos out of existence and use the money for the future
7
And to think Council leader Cory Johnson, who hates cars in the city and would rather get rid of them, drives around in a city issued SUV. How hypocritical. Does he ever take mass transportation?
23
@Jimbo If that is true, then I agree. He should either be using public transit and/or a combination of taxis/public transit. I'm not a car owner, and I have a particular car-owning friend who seems to 'always' opt to drive her car (SUV) here or there, for no good reason. It's pretty clear to me that, like so many other car owners, she uses her car simply out of laziness/habit/being spoiled (not having to interact or being around 'gross strangers'), etc. This friend, after suggesting 'we can take my car there..', typically follows it up with '...though the traffic will be awful' or '....it just might take about 20 minutes to find a parking spot', at which point I'm just shaking my head to myself. I typically find an excuse not to ride with her, just saying that I'll be somewhere else running errands...that I'll just see her there (at the venue) etc. I figure (and as you suggested re: Cory) that...I'd be a total hypocrite to accept a ride with her.
This is my biggest problem with 'car people'. The majority do not need a private vehicle, much less a jumbo SUV. It typically boils down to habit, laziness, being spoiled, entitled, brainwashed (by the auto industry, and this supposed sense of 'freedom'), etc.
The typical private vehicle sits unused/parked 90% of any given day. It is a gross waste of resources.
To me, it is the ultimate 'freedom' to Not own a vehicle. Car ownership strikes me as a colossal ball and chain, not to mention the related expenses.
4
Just be sure all the stray underground plumbing is correctly identified and removed before the boring machine starts on its way. The boring machine Bertha struck a pipe, damaged a bearing causing a two year delay while a pit was dug and the cutter head removed and repaired. It was fortunate that the machine was not farther along and under buildings when it got stuck.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_(tunnel_boring_machine)
3
$24 billion would dent Mr. Bezos's wallet in the same way as buying a nice guitar would affect mine.
3
$11 Billion? Why not just close it gradually and see what happens? First, close it on Sunday. Then, how about the whole weekend? Then from 2am to 4am every day. And so on.
Federal aid will NOT be available for this project because the city refuses to comply with the U.S. Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, a federal and state law that regulates traffic signs, pavement markings and traffic lights.
2
So now that we can all agree that building highways through the middle of our cities was a terrible mid-century folly, the solution is....to build big highways underneath those cities? It’s much too late to throw big money at small ideas. Now is the time for innovative transit planning.
11
For the money to build underground highways, why not just offer incentives for 1 million people to relocate to upstate New York (the digital nomads can work remotely fine), and initiate creative ways for getting people out of their cars; more exercise and socializing via public transportation, when done right, would be very acceptable. And a lot less pollution.
4
@A Significant Other
It's been tried. Many Manhattan base companies farmed out back office work to New Haven and other Ct sites long ago.
It failed, because people didn't want to work there. Those jobs are back in Manhattan.
2
@A Significant Other Trying to get 1 million people to leave the city (what)...to move upstate and buy cars there? What?
Only in NYC ... The debate on how to replace this existing portion of highway drags on and on and on. There have been a variety of $3B proposals that DeBlasio and Company have stalled for years on. Meanwhile the clock on the existing roadway continues to tick down to zero. Then after further review, today, the NYC Council proposes an $11 Billion tunnel that would take AT LEAST A DECADE to build. Which in NYC time & dollars and time translates to $100B and 2 decades easy. Another waste of time. The best solution, IMO, is mentioned again in this article - the $3.5B capped highway which would allow for the expansion of Brooklyn Bridge Park above the buried roadway.
1
I believe that Robert Moses first plan was tho tear down the Brooklyn heights neighborhood and put the highway through it. The people fought and won and this was the alternative. Even though I have spent years driving it and countless hours on it I still love the view, something a tunnel won't give you.
4
The consensus in the comments among people from Boston seems to be that the Big Dig made getting around the city worse, by increasing traffic and creating more obstacles to modernizing their subways. Whatever reduces commuters’ reliance on cars within the city but still maintains adequate trucking routes into Long Island should be our solution. Probably expanding and modernizing the subways while reducing and repairing the roads they have now.
4
@Mark T
Those Boston folks criticizing the Big Dig for "increasing traffic," fail to understand the growth that Boston has undergone in the years since its completion, now exacerbated by Uber and Lyft, but also failing to understand that the jobs in Boston and Cambridge have exploded, and property values have tripled.
If traffic had remained at 1995 levels, you wouldn't be hearing these complaints, except from knee-jerk conservatives who only look at initial cost estimates vs completion dates 20 years down the road.
Boston, without the Big Dig and Ted Williams tunnel, is now difficult to traverse. It would be TEN times worse without these projects.
3
The improvements from Boston's Big Dig are ~almost~ worth the tremendous cost overruns. Even as a critic of the project, not all of the overruns can be attributed to the usual boondoggle of government contracting, graft, greed etc. Many were caused by the difficult and unanticipated construction conditions encountered digging in reclaimed marshes. The land between Quincy Market and the present harbor had all been filled in between colonial times and today and the designers did not adequately plan for the ground water levels they encountered when they dug. The contractors never reached dry dirt, so they solved the problem by developing technology to literally freeze the mud in order hold it back so the crew could safely work in the trenches to build the tunnels - not the cheapest way to dig a tunnel. Even today, MassHighway permanently runs pumps in the tunnels to remove flowing groundwater from the tunnel under the Greenway. So regardless of any future climate change, beware of what changes have happened to the land since the Dutch landed in Gowanus Bay in 1636 or you will end up with a giant frozen mud pie.
2
@Aurelia Cotta
"Many were caused by the difficult and unanticipated construction conditions encountered digging in reclaimed marshes. "
It's either bad planning, or it's lying about projected costs. Take your pick.
1
Since Sandy, we have been looking to build higher to be ready for the next storm. A tunnel will just become a new disaster if we get another super-storm. Look at the damage done to the tunnels below the East River and the Hudson. We would spend billions to build a tunnel that would flood and cost billions more to repair.
5
I live in Seattle. The tunnel replacing the viaduct is complete and operational. The water front looks great. it took less than 10 years to finish and all the hand wringing going on in New York sounds very familiar. None of the predicted disasters manifested themselves to a huge degree. The biggest issue was the digging equipment. the tunnel machinery broke and st idle underground for a very long time. New York can probably learn from that. In the end you will be happy you have a tunnel.
2
@alisonb98 There are about 20 subway lines in the area. there are 4 subway tunnels to Manhattan just under the current Promenade. The Tunnel can't connect to the Bridges without taking hundred of houses for the approaches...These subway lines move 100,000 of people a day. they can't be disrupted. There are major water and sewer intercept lines under the highway. It can't be digged it will need to be tunneled through bedrock. They are building the east side access tunnel to Grand central now. Its 2 miles of tunnel that so far has cost 11.5 billion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Side_Access
2
If Speaker Johnson and the rest of the anti-automobile constituency is serious about changing the car culture, especially outer borough-to-outer borough travel (non Manhattan-centric), then provide us with an actual alternative to driving.
I drive from Flushing to Brooklyn Heights via the BQE on a regular basis with my wife and 8 month old son, and the car trip, door-to-door - traffic permitting - takes approximately 35-40 minutes. The same trip on the quickest (and most expensive) MTA option (LIRR to Penn, A/C or 2/3 to the Heights) takes well over an hour, involves going into Manhattan (in the opposite direction of my ultimate destination) and involves schlepping an infant across several transportation modes.
Sufficed to say, I have little to no incentive to utilize public transportation for these journeys - the extra time involved plus the agita of carting an infant through busy Manhattan transportation hubs (unnecessarily, I might add) clearly incentivizes driving as the quickest, least painful option.
If I were presented with a reasonably quick public transportation alternative - say, a true BRT-style bus option in the near term, and a Triboro RX option in the long term - I would happily keep my parking spot in Flushing and take MTA. Until this happens, and the City gets serious about making these sorts of critical investments, I am going to continue making the drive to the Heights.
12
Does anyone actually believe that this project would cost $11 billion and take ten years to complete?
If I were to wager that it would cost almost ten times that amount and take three decades to build, I would be much closer to the mark than city and state officials.
(it's worth noting that Madrid undertook a project of similar scope that cost under $3B)
I'm amazed that the overwhelming corruption and ineptitude of our city and state's public agencies isn't more of a scandal. New York state (and let's face it, NYC) is ossified and third-rate in large part because our public agencies are staffed with people and organizations who don't care, can't actually do the work correctly, and are primarily concerned with lining their own pockets.
50
Yes, yes, and yes! From a former Bostonian turned New Yorker for the past 12 years: the Big Dig, despite its massive costs, transformed Boston’s downtown into a gem. It’s time to turn the tide on the Robert Moses approach to urban development in NYC and eliminate this nightmarish eyesore once and for all.
7
@Richard Hull As a current Bostonian - the Big Dig did bury the highway, but it also meant we lost a generation of potential to re-build and expand public transit.
The Big Dig should never have happened. Instead, the Artery should've been torn down and replaced with new transit tunnels and improvements in transit service to the suburbs. Instead, we doubled down on vehicle congestion and now have the worst traffic in the country.
3
@LEM
You're kidding, right? You thought that people would agree with your view, completely abandon their cars and their perceived mobility via those cars, walk away from their Boston jobs while the city & state killed off the expressway while taking years to implement more public transit?
1
@LEM
Having lived in both cities, I don't think Boston's traffic situation is worse than NYC or L.A. And it was atrocious prior to the Big Dig. But your point is well-taken: more better public transit is always preferable. : ) Not sure if that option is really on the table...
"Boston’s Big Dig project — moving a highway underground and lining the street above with parks — cost $24 billion and took more than a decade."
The Big Dig was scheduled to be completed in 1989 with a total cost of 2.4 billion, was actually finished in 2007 and won't be paid off until 2038.
NYC would do better with more subway lines, relocating MSG and restoring Penn station.
8
@Lawrence; It was also fraught with corruption, poor quality workmanship (remember the falling tiles), and continues to require expensive repairs and re-engineering.
2
@Lawrence Honestly, probably half the Big Dig cost here in Boston was graft and corruption (which NYC will also face). But even so, the "budget" of $2.4 B was always a bait and switch number. The people building the project knew it was going to cost much more, they were just low balling to sell the project.
That said, it was also probably worth every penny spent, both in terms of transforming downtown Boston the Seaport district, and Airport access, and in the increased value of property (and hence taxes) along its route.
5
@Pamela And you don't think NYC will suffer the same fate?
I've got a bridge to sell you.
1
Oh, I well remember the many years of construction of the BQE that was inadequate by the time it was finished.
Knock that thing down, substitute public transportation, and begin to eliminate cars from Manhattan. Everyone will benefit!
25
Closing the BQE might have some easy work arounds for cars, but not for trucks. Perhaps this could be done if the Belt Parkway was reconstructed to allow trucks from the Verrazano around to the Van Wyck Expressway.
At the same time, the Belt Parkway could also be built as flood protection for much of southern Brooklyn.
If you look at the truck route map for NYC, https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2015-06-08-truck-map-combined.pdf, you'll notice the critical role that the BQE plays in access to all of Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island for trucks coming from the south and west of NYC. Unfortunately, there is no freight rail access from NJ to Manhattan or Brooklyn (which I believe was the impetus for the Port Authority of NY and NJ--99 years ago.)
Aside from the Verrazano Bridge, the other truck crossings of the Hudon River are the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels which take you into downtown and midtown Manhattan, respectively, or the George Washington Bridge, which also takes you through Manhattan, and then directly into the Bronx, north of geographic Long Island.
17
@chris Trucks on the Belt
Another zombie idea from the 70's. It just wont die.
How about no large trucks
Reopen the freight train line from the Army Terminal (its just hanging out not being used) to the sunnyside yards then freight lines to smaller branch sized trucks throughout brooklyn, queens and long island
7
$11 billion will be $22 billion. Mark my words.
And if this plan ever comes to fruition, a new and hefty toll should be placed on the existing BQE and the completed tunnel to pay back the bond holders.
5
It makes sense to do it right. The cost is high but the useful life is long worth the investment.
The cut and cover option in Seattle, while cheaper and potentially providing better downtown access, suffered from the necessity of several years of impact on the waterfront, including the port. Completing the tunnel before removing the old viaduct minimized disruption and economic impact. While there were problems and delays, none were crippling and we now have a tunnel and a newly open waterfront. Figuring the cost of the project in New York (and of course it will be more than initially projected) should nonetheless be balanced against the eventual cost of doing nothing, as well the costs of doing what may seem a cheaper short-term solution such as cut and cover.
2
@Jim This can't be cut and cover...There are 4 subway tunnels to Manhattan under it(at various deep depths), there is a major sewer line just under the surface that handles the effluent for 100,000 people.
3
As a person who lives down Atlantic Avenue from this project. if NYC could pull off a new approach to a public works project, this tunnel would be a great solution.
However the severe problems we encounter over and over in managing public works would be no different with this tunnel, i.e. think 2nd Avenue subway ($2.5 billion per mile!!!) and LIRR East Side access projects. Cronyism, corruption, mismanagement at the agency level, mismanagement at the contractor/union level results in projects with inflated cost and time estimates that are then grossly exceeded once the project actually starts. All the participants who profit off these projects know how to manipulate the bureaucracy. What will government do? Stop the project? Hold them accountable? No, we just tolerate it, enduring cost overruns and years long delays.
Such a project should be doable, but would need genuine accountability to be completed on time and within a reasonable project cost.
21
All things equal, a tunnel is definitely preferable to an open highway, but both options assume this road is necessary.
I'd love to see the city close this section off for a week or two and measure how traffic patterns change without this road to confirm the assumption that a road in this location is still needed before throwing $10-20 billion at a tunnel.
Maybe a more effective solution to the problem will come to light if they stop constraining themselves to this particularly tricky section of road and learn how drivers would adapt in the absence of such a road.
A week or two of downtime is a tiny price to pay for the possibility of discovering a better idea or for confirmation of the need to move forward in this location.
11
@AGuyInBrooklyn unfortunately what will happen this the volume of traffic AND TRUCKS that frequent the BQE will be using local streets where a lot of new residential development has blossomed. Think of the pollution, reduction in quality of life, risks to pedestrians plus the impact on local businesses. It will be painful building a tunnel for sure, but directing traffic to local streets will be a disaster (IMO).
4
@Debbie
People said closing 14th Street to cars would "direct traffic to local streets" and mire those areas in traffic too, but data shows that never happened.
Induced demand is an odd thing. Vehicles won't just show up where they used to drive, see the closed road, and shift one block over. Everyone is going to rethink every trip from the very start of their route including the critical decision of whether or not to drive.
Regardless, if it turns out that your hypothesis is correct, then there's great benefit in knowing with certainty that rebuilding the road is a must. The downside is negligible because you only impacted localities for a couple weeks during the closure.
But if it turns out that you're wrong and people would've utilized a bunch of other existing ways to transport themselves and their goods, then rebuilding would be a massive, costly, permanent mistake.
That's why step one should be testing out a closure. Just give enough heads up so people can plan for it.
9
@AGuyInBrooklyn
Close the BQE to all vehicles EXCEPT trucks, esp. thru trucks, for a least 6 months. Traffic will find other ways. It happened when we closed Prospect Park to cars, and when we have narrowed down other dangerous roads. Then, do a study of what is best for the trucks and freight. Do not be surprised when the answer is... RAIL.
3
If you want Fed money for this, elect Bloomberg.
20
@DG
Not sure how much love there is to and from Mike and NYC these days. NO WAY, however, that even HE would throw that much Federal money (or his own) at a problem that would have about a 10% approval rating nationally.
The sad part is that NY State - of which NYC is actually a PART!! - would probably be equally disinclined to "help."
Not sure what options will be open to the next mayor - the current one is only concerned about Brooklyn if his real estate holdings or gym are involved.
Weird that our elected representatives actually willing to tackle - how wisely is a different question - bail reform and the chokehold real estate interests have held the City & State for a century or more ... balked at addressing "income inequality." It's nowhere greater than in NY State, and you'd think that NYState, with a budget crisis in everybody's short-term view at this point, would be savvy enough to realize that folks who individually were given a $1 MM per year or more handout by Trump ... are not about to move if the State nicks them for a few hundred thousand of that.
2
@DG why? He did nothing as mayor for 12 years.
2
THE BIG DIG BOSTON FROM 2.8 BILLION TO 22 BILLION
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig
Or, to put it into a figure the average person can relate to. Have you ever done a home remodel that does not come in over budget?
The before and after in Boston is a huge improvement, but the cost is real.
1
@jk
It wasn't 22 billion. It was 15 billion.
1
@Moehoward this is NY the east side access tunnel was supposed to cost 3.5 billion. In 2018 they have spent almost 11 and its not done yet!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Side_Access
@Moehoward
Read the report from the Globe - the final cost after all interest paid into 2030 will be 22 billion.
3
As is, the BQE is always clogged with traffic. Maybe a tunnel in addition to to the BQE?
5
Sometimes, a not very subtle "principal author" (and decision maker) on a big report offers a Plan A and a Plan B ... the exact same way an unsubtle real estate broker may show a buyer 2 properties - one obviously flawed ... and the other one distinctly more appealing. It sometimes leads to a quick bid!
The DOT did exactly that when their Plan A was to replace Brooklyn Height's Promenade with 6 lanes of traffic ... and its Plan B was "repair in place" - long and costly, of course, but not as bad as a homicidal attack on a neighborhood not without a number of well-connected residents.
Sure enough, the bought-and-paid-for "commission" the Mayor impaneled all but dismissed Plan A as not viable ... and endorsed the aforementioned Plan B.
NOW we have much the same thing from the new team. Mr. Schwartz - genius though I believe him to be - does NOT raise the most serious objection. NO solution is likely to come "in time." There will be lawsuits and a Mayoral election and all sorts of things that push the "completion date" of a "fix" out past the no-longer-safe date for that section of the BQE.
The bigger problem is simple cost-benefit analysis. The tunnel all but screams, "Forget Boston - NY knows how to get things done!" ... Few in the City still believe that; apart from the electeds "doing time" in Albany, it's safe to say that skepticism about NYC acing a $10B plan is astronomic up there.
So Plan B's capped highway is an almost certain (and actually quite intelligent) bet!
1
Just close it.
Put a light rail line or busway on the existing decks.
9
@Jonathan Katz it won't stand the weight. There are parts that are fast coming to the end of its useful life.
3
De Blasio’s panel intends to reduce traffic by shrinking the highway from 6 to 4 lanes. Magical thinking. Similar logic also to Trump’s effort to reduce the number of refugees at our border by separating mothers from their infants. Make the experience as oppressive as possible and fewer people will try it—is the logic.
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@CitizenJ Reminds me of when the MTA tried to deal with the subway track and platform trash problem by...you guessed it...removing the trash cans.
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@CitizenJ Nice try with the apples to oranges/PC analogy. But the fact is, far too many 'car people' opt to drive, not out of necessity or a significant reduction in travel time, but out of sheer habit/laziness. If lanes were reduced from 6 to 4, I can guarantee that some drivers will think twice before 'automatically' reaching for their keys, as they've been so accustomed to doing.
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The initial cost estimate for the Boston tunnel was $2.6 billion final bill was 24.3 billion
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@brujo
NO IT WASN'T
Wikipedia is WRONG!!!!!
It was 15 billion.
1
What will be the tunnel elevation?
Sea will be up ten feet by the turn of the century.
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@David Anderson
Sometimes, I wonder about the folks who live a million miles away ... in terms of their "sechel!"
Um, tunnels actually can be rendered WATER PROOF, would you believe? It's not a novelty at this point. I'll bet you've even driven your very own car under a river or a bay somewhere ... through a tunnel.
But - in a remarkable coincidence - you come close to identifying what's wrong with these "plans," particularly the one looking to tunnel under an area with a few hundred thousand people living just about on top of the work site -
It's the proverbial band-aid on an ax-sized wound. The few miles of the BQE that are closest to falling down are a tiny portion of a major traffic artery in NYC.
A much longer stretch was actually sunk - but open to the elements - about 20 feet BELOW sea level when it was constructed around 1950. It's a miracle that many lives weren't lost when Hurricane Sandy struck.
Today much of the BQE is about as "fortified" against storms as the City of New Orleans.
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@David Anderson The longest deepest tunnels in the world connect NYC to its water supply upstate, the longest being the Gilboa tunnel at about 150 miles. An entire mountain chain (Catskills) supplies this water. These tunnels are deep underground and are huge and have worked well for around a century. Very few ever complain about them or the quality of water that is transported in them. Expense is not the question. This whole thing is about that vision thing, if you can imagine it then you can build it.
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11 billion. Now that's funny. More like 30 billion in actuality .
Big Dig in Boston is a great example of cost over runs and corruption.
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Got a transportation story and you need comment? Call self-appointed consultant Sam Schwartz, who almost singlehandedly forced congestion pricing on the city and is guaranteed to always find a new toll to foist on the public.
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@Perfect Gentleman Ummm.... ALL consultants are self-appointed. You don't get to be a consultant by staying in a salaried job, which by the way is where he got his expertise in the field. He is a hero for doggedly pushing for congestion pricing to reduce the number of vehicles coming into some of the most crowded real estate on the planet. The only thing wrong with his congestion pricing scheme is that it doesn't cover an even larger area.
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@Steve No the problem with congestion pricing is that if adversely effects those who live on the periphery of the City while benefiting those who live in the (Now more desirable) central core.
As someone who in very familiar with the RPA and its RX for transportation.
Several things MUST be done before congestion pricing should EVER go into effect.
Build the existing subway lines to the eastern edge of Queens. ( J, F, 7 F A)
Also for lines in Brooklyn. (L back to Jamaica Bay)
Start and finish the Utica Ave Subway at least to Kings Plaza.
All subways in the Bronx to Yonkers and on the east past CoOp city to Pelham.
Add back the 3 ave el.
Too many people are so eager to do things that only help their situation and conveniently omit things that impact others.
This is enough for now. If interested see the full RPA proposal from the 1990's. Great work.However remember it was the RPA in the 1920's who called for funding to be shifted from mass transit to cars and got us in this mess and who are now calling for congestion pricing.
I thin they got some splainin to do before we just take there word for it again. At lease an apology
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How about we build that train from south Brooklyn to Queens instead??
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@Connie That's not going to help people trying to get upstate.
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Two words: Big Dig
Boring Company to the rescue?
Don't do it!
Underground tunnels are for trains, not trucks and cars. Build another much-needed tunnel under the Hudson River, and finish the 2nd Avenue subway that was promised 60 years ago when the 3rd Ave L was dismantled.
The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is an eyesore highway that passes through an eyesore landscape. Give people and businesses a fast train through and out!
Has the City Council ever heard of city planning? Have quarrelsome politicians ever planned anything? Probably not.
A senior city planner from Chongqing or Chengdu could help NYC clean up its transit and transport priorities! Don't hope for any more help from the British; they're hard at work on Crossrail and HS2.
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@AynRant
As an European who settled into the USA (NYC) after living 10 years in Shanghai, China... I was shocked (and i still am) at the state of US infrastructure, lack of city planning, lack of hierarchy that does not seem to keep anyone accountable for this. The US truly is a first world country with the third world infrastructure (it’s a quote from the NYT article about Penn Station).
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@J "The US truly is a first world country with the third world infrastructure."
Indeed. And so it continues to stupefy me that, in the Greatest City in the Greatest Nation on earth, we still have Front-Door Only boarding on the majority of our MTA bus lines. Riding the bus is an exercise in sheer torture, with all of us losers having to stand in a line, and then one by one by one by one, we insert your Metrocard in the machine, wait for it to be spit back out, next person inserts their card, and so on. And mind you, at some stops there could be up to 30 passengers board at a time. Repeat this process at each of the 20, 30, 40 etc. stops along the route, and you have bus rides that are far longer than they should be.
Front-door only boarding also means that when its time to Exit the bus, you may be met with less-than-accommodating back doors. If you are small, weak, sick, elderly, carrying an infant or heavy bags, good luck exiting the bus with ease.
The fact that we all accept these third-world conditions in the MTA shows how little faith we have that anything will change. Ever. No one complains for the most part. It's just 'how it is' in NYC.
And with regards to our streets, indeed, there appears to be Zero planning. Everything is done piece mail with no one taking an eagle-eye approach. Our streets have become the Wild West, with pedestrians/cyclists suffering as a result of this.
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"In New York, the idea of replacing the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway with a tunnel has been debated over the years and dismissed largely because of the enormous price tag — money that officials and transportation advocates say could instead be spent on fixing the subway and other mass transit."
So nu?
2
Hmm...here is an idea--rip out the road and put a bike path in its place. Take just a small part of the 11 billion (not including cost overruns) and use it to compensate the small businesses and residents that would be hurt. Would this make it harder to "get around"? Certainly! Over time people would adjust, especially with a bit of that 11 billion going around. The parallels between an ostrich sticking its head in the sand, and putting a road underground, are stunning.
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It may sound ridiculous but why not eliminate the BQE? On first thought the question becomes where does the traffic go, both car and truck? Think of roadways as troughs for the flow of water, autos and trucks being water. Water always seeks the path of least resistance, where there are no roads there would be nominal traffic. Emergency vehicles and re-supply vehicles are a necessary element. Roads can be designed (not re-designed) with these exigent elements in mind, they don't need to be built on the scale or intrusiveness of current design requirements. Reducing private carriers is equivalent of reducing water flow. Drastically fewer autos and increased mass transit services will help mitigate the current out of balance conditions. Land use can be given over to local needs of residential or industrial areas and logistical areas not installed helter-skelter as currently seems the methodology. Smaller feed lines for local trucking and well aimed taxing of road usage by private vehicles will begin the change over to humanocentric design elements, unlike current eminent domain administrations where traffic comes first; human and mass transportation is second or a matter of convenience. The parameters of design elements listed here only begin to address the issues. Calling for the elimination of the BQE is actually a call for the institution of an entirely different way of solving these issues, which touch every aspect of urban conversion.
8
Advice from a longtime Seattle resident: Build a tunnel and knock down the elevated freeway. Aside from the cost, there will be no regrets. For a quicker investigatory field trip, go to Boston and check out the urban transformation there post Big Dig. Elevated freeways are urban blights. The sooner they get knocked down the better.
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If we are considering to spend $11 billion on this, then we should at least do some minimum due diligence and shut down the BQE for 3 months to analyze the traffic impact and see whether we actually need it.
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@Matthew "... shut down the BQE for 3 months to analyze the traffic impact."
A Governor Chris Christie GW Bridge shut down type traffic study, but for 90 days instead of a few hours. What a great idea! Who are you trying to punish?
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@Matthew
The BQE is about busiest road in the world, for good reason, it’s the only road, there is very few alternatives. It narrows to only two lanes frequently. There’s a place going South under the Brooklyn bridge which is around thirty feet wide. The road would be crowded if it were six lanes going each way, it’s that bad. There are no shoulders, a flat tire and the whole column comes to a griding halt for hours. The situation is at a point where it’s, “what ever it costs."
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i hate cars in the city, and we need less of them, but i doubt the bqe can be eliminated. build the tunnel
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The idea of spending tens of billions of dollars to facilitate automobile traffic is just deplorable. I'm sure there are many transit projects that would move more people per dollar.
The crumbling freeway? Jus tear it down and replace it with a surface boulevard.
Here in San Francisco, we demolished two freeways which were structurally compromised after the 1989 earthquake. In both cases, blighted parts of the City bloomed and are flourishing. In the case of the Central Freeway, only a section of the former freeway path was replaced with a boulevard, and the project freed up numerous lots on which new mixed use projects were built, and there are hundreds of new housing units.
A new opportunity has emerged to knit together neighborhoods divided by the freeway project. Remember-people managed to get around before the freeway.
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@SFO Roberto People didn't get around before the freeway. It was a lot more difficult.
3
@SFO Roberto People didn't get around before the freeway. It was a lot more difficult.
And you're comparing apples and oranges. SF tore down a couple of freeway spurs. BQE is a vital artery of traffic and the vehicles that use it now would probably be forced onto FDR drive if it were tore down.
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@Will
There was once a train system in the USA
7
Our nation's cities are already at soul-crushing levels of traffic with all that entails: ever longer commutes, more fuel burned, more aggravation, and on and on.
Reducing vehicular traffic, private cars mostly, must be front and center of whatever solution is proposed. Making private driving more inconvenient and expensive is likely they only way to incent people to find better ways to get around.
The present course is simply unsustainable.
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@Robert Cities have blown billions on new mass transit systems to get people out of their cars. The result? A reduction in ridership. People are not giving up their automobiles.
2
@Will
No we haven't. NYC has all of 4 new subway stops since the 1930s. It hasn't invested in new mass transit.
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@Robert Infrastructure expansion for public transportation and automobiles are not an either or proposition, as both have been severely neglected for decades. Why not add to both and actually try to make getting from A to B easier for everyone?
4
This article would be more informative if, instead of focusing on the 11 billion dollar estimated price tag, it focused on the difference between the tunnel cost and other alternatives.
It should also list what operational costs the tunnel would increase or decrease. Thus, a tunnel requires the cost of generation of fresh air. One or the other option may decrease or increase costs to drivers, such as traffic jams, accidents, etc. Inconvenience to the public is seldom factored in, but may cumulatively costs the public a huge amount.
Similarly the tunnel option may materially decrease costs relating to snow removal, flooding, heat deterioration of the roadway, etc.
Focusing upon out of context sensational aspects, does not fulfill the informational requirements necessary for readers to make an informed judgement.
Another area that should be covered is the time within which the various options will take to complete. There are ways that any construction option can be safely expedited, i.e., not performed with the slow business as usual approach taken with most NYC construction. In most instances, deliberate speed and careful planning can substantially decrease construction costs.
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As a Long Island Railroad commuter, I am still waiting for the east side access tunnel to be finished. It was suppose to be done more than 10 years ago and now has almost tripled in price. I'm sure that I will retire before the completion. Another tunnel especially with seas rising is just crazy.
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@Matt586
In the long run, the cost overrun of East Side Access will pale in comparison to the economic benefits to the region.
1
So we can afford this tunnel but we can't afford to pay for the more critical Gateway Tunnels for the Hudson? It seems as if no one blinks when it costs this much for a road but honestly we could buy a new subway line for this and it would do a lot more to transform the city and increase mobility and economic activity.
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@bengrohr The MTA is a bottomless money pit that already receives huge amounts from car owners in New York and New Jersey.
2
@bengrohr Gateway is a two-state issue and involves the federal government to a higher degree. The BQE is within NYC.
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@Will The MTA has nothing to do with the Gateway Tunnels. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Gateway would be owned by Amtrak and used by Amtrak and NJ Transit.
The MTA doesn't get any money from NJ car owners, other than the tolls that they might be for crossings between the boroughs. Vehicular crossings from NJ to NY are owned by the bi-State Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Why don't you stay in Massachusetts and not comment on subjects that you know nothing about?
14
The beauty of depressing the central artery in Boston is incredible, and the life it brought back to the center of the city is truly remarkable. But one has to weigh that against limited budgets and cannibalizing mass transit, as was done in Boston as the MBTA was forced to pay off debt for the big dig
5
@Richard Kiley How much money is diverted from gas tax revenue to the MBTA every year? It's a lot more than the Big Dig.
1
@Richard Kiley It helps alot when your Congressman is the Speaker of the House as in the case of Tip O'Neil.
6
I also live in Seattle. The tunnel is completed and the viaduct is being demolished. It's a project well past the "planning" stage.
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@Shaun
I was also puzzled by the apparent lack of realization that the Seattle tunnel has been in successful operation for a YEAR.
It calls into question what other information in the article is incorrect.
Any explanation, NYTimes?
9
@Mouser I wondered the same thing. I used to commute to work on the Viaduct so ended driving the waterfront daily. I watched them take down the Viaduct bit by bit. The photo caption should be in the past tense.
3
That picture of Boston's $24 billion example of the "urban paradise" that awaits us with a tunnel doesn't look so paradise-like to me. Perhaps it might be better to fix up the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway at a fraction of the cost so it is better integrated.
A tunnel is about the worst choice I can think of for NYC what with sea levels increasing and bigger hurricanes forecast which will likely again flood the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel that took it out of use for years after Sandy. You want to add another tunnel to that?
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@GerardM The BBT was open to traffic within 4 months after Sandy. I know, I work there.
1
A similar project stated in Seattle about 10 years ago to eliminate the U.S. 99 bottleneck which runs right along the Seattle waterfront on an elevated highway. The project is still on going and it will be on going for a long. long time at taxpayer expense. New Yorkers can get ready to pay through the nose if the same project comes to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
6
I live in Seattle. The tunnel is open and opened early actually! It’s connecting downtown to the waterfront. It’s really cleaned up the whole area.
Yes, there is still congestion on 99, but that’s more due to the influx of Amazon at South Lake Union right by 99.
The tunnel project in Seattle makes airport trips from Queen Anne and Phinney Ridge extremely quick now too. Everyone here loves the tunnel!
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@paul $3.3 billion for two miles in Seattle. There were certainly moments when we all held our collective breath, and the contractor and the state are still working things out in court regarding overruns and liability. It could have been worse. The tunnel boring machine was the largest ever used, at more than 53 feet in diameter. The tunnel didn't open early, but it wasn't as bad as some other tunnels (sorry, Boston).
They tried to make the tunnel boring machine a "pet" of the city, by giving it a name. That never worked for some of us.
6
The 99 tunnel has been complete and operational for months. The viaduct, like the BQE, was in such a state of disrepair that it had to be taken down, or would come down with the next substantial earthquake. The ongoing work in Seattle is the completion of a surface roadway (in my opinion it is overly wide and diminishes the intent of the transformation of the waterfront in a continued accommodation of an unsustainable mode of transportation, single occupancy vehicles.) The Times still has a fact-checking department, right?
The city should have pursued the much less costly cap and cover option which could have been executed concurrently with the reconstruction of our seawall in less time. This with a similar end result, a restored waterfront that better accommodates sustainable modes of transit.
3
A tunnel? Probably the right move, but you might as well double the $11M to $22M right now. And good luck finding that.
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@Steve BILLION!
4
@Steve The price tag is in the Billions, not millions
1
@ALB
Still, his point stands.
1
Good that they're thinking big but they're not informing the public that the federal government will not pay for it because it will improve things in a 'blue' city and state. Witness the draw bridge in northern NJ over which all Amtrak and NJ Transit trains go over--it was built in 1910, is badly in need of repairs, congress approved funding but the work has not started because the admin is deliberately holding up the money, like NJ is Ukraine. Same will happen with this big project.
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@Bruce Egert Yup, and the old drawbridge fails when it's too warm out, or too cold, or too wet or too dry.
2
So the tunnel idea was dismissed for years because of the whopper of a price tag, but now is being reconsidered because ventilation systems are better, though it still has an enormous whopper of a price tag?
Yes the BQE --particularly that stretch-- is in horrible shape. Me thinks the impetus behind "rethinking" this hugely expensive tunnel idea is actually that the extremely wealthy people who now live and/or frolic between the expressway and the water disike the eyesore, and salivate over what making the highway disappear would do for their property values.
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@Clotario Luxury skyscrapers! The project sells itself. Hudson Yards East.
1
The idea of constructing a tunnel in the age of global warming and rising sea levels is antithetical. A better solution must be available to the city council. Think harder and outside the box.
22