NEW YORK—Mayor Bill de Blasio today announced the formation of a new expert panel to evaluate options for the replacement of the aging Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) from the Atlantic Avenue interchange to Sands Street in Brooklyn. The new panel will be chaired by Carlo Scissura, President & CEO of The New York Building Congress and will include a range of leaders in the fields of urban planning, engineering, construction, traffic modeling and historic preservation. Panel members’ backgrounds include academia, industry groups, civic organizations, labor, and business. They will consult community groups and elected officials, and evaluate all suggested concepts — as well as provide their own perspectives. They are expected to conclude the process by this summer. The formal environmental process for the BQE reconstruction will take these recommendations into consideration when it begins at the end of 2019.
“The BQE is a lifeline for Brooklyn and the entire city – which is why we are bringing in a panel of nationally renowned experts from a range of fields to vet all ideas and make sure we get this right,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “We will be engaging in a transparent, collaborative process to find the best solution for one of the most critical transportation corridors in the nation.”
The new BQE Panel was created in consultation with local elected officials and civic associations. It will bring together a group of independent, interdisciplinary experts to evaluate the BQE project assumptions and concepts, with meetings beginning this month. This outside expertise is expected to find new perspectives and ask probing questions on how best to design and implement the BQE reconstruction, one of the largest and most complex infrastructure projects in the entire country.
The members of the new BQE Panel* are:
Carlo Scissura, NY Building Congress (Chair)
Rohit Aggarwala, Sidewalk Labs
Vincent Alvarez, New York City Central Labor Council
Kate Ascher, BuroHappold Engineering
Elizabeth Goldstein, Municipal Arts Society
Henry Gutman, Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp./Brooklyn Bridge Park
Kyle Kimball, Con Edison
Mitchell Moss, NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
Kaan Ozbay, NYU Tandon School of Engineering
Hani Nassif, Rutgers School of Engineering
Benjamin Prosky, American Institute of Architects
Denise Richardson, General Contractors Association
Ross Sandler, New York Law School
Jay Simson, American Council of Engineering Companies of New York
Tom Wright, Regional Plan Association
Kathryn Wylde, Partnership for NYC
*Additional panelists may be announced
Panel Process: The panel will begin meeting this month, and are expected to produce their conclusions by this summer. It will evaluate underlying project assumptions and review existing proposals, including those that have been generated by elected officials and community members, no-build or reduced capacity options, and other ideas as generated by the panel. The panel will also hear from and consult with a group of elected officials and community, civic, and business associations at key points throughout its review.
At the end of the evaluation process, the panel will submit a brief report, outlining key recommendations, which could address both design concepts and construction innovations.
BQE – Atlantic to Sands: The approximately 1.5-mile section of the BQE between the Atlantic Avenue Interchange and Sands Street is among the most complex highway structures in the country, and includes the triple-cantilever structure of which the Brooklyn Heights promenade is the top-most tier. Originally constructed by Robert Moses, the road was completed in 1954 and carried fewer than 50,000 vehicles daily when it opened.