SHOCKER: Mayor’s private BQE meeting could divide Brooklyn politicians

Despite trumpeting a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) in a way that would reduce pollution and restore equity across the borough, the Adams administration appears to be quietly pushing to rebuild the same six-lane superhighway that was built 70 years ago in communities along the Brooklyn waterfront.


To accomplish this, City Hall is pitting southern Brooklyn against northern Brooklyn.

The administration has invited more than 70 southern Brooklyn elected officials and agency heads to a private 11 a.m. meeting on Friday at City Hall to line them up in opposition to limiting the highway to two traffic lanes in each direction. More than 20 district leaders (elected but unpaid leaders of the Brooklyn Democratic Party) were invited to the meeting — a move insiders say is highly unusual. 

The letter was sent out on Feb. 16 by Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi. Joshi said at a recent City Law breakfast that the city had heard from “electeds and people living north and south that want three lanes in each direction,” Kevin Dugan from Streetsblog reported.

BQE Central is the first section of the interstate slated to be reconstructed due to its dilapidated condition. The city-operated stretch runs from Atlantic Avenue to Sands Street near the Brooklyn Bridge, and includes the Triple Cantilever unpinning the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. 

All of the elected officials representing this area, joined by officials representing sections of BQE North and BQE South, recently signed a letter to U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, urging him to limit the planned reconstruction of the BQE to a two-lane solution. 

“Widening highways in public-transit rich New York City is in direct conflict with our shared public health, safety, and climate goals,” the officials wrote to Buttigieg.

The letter was signed by…