The city will delay construction on the infamous Triple Cantilever portion of the BQE.
File photo by Todd Maisel
The city has delayed its timeline on reimagining the infamous Triple Cantilever portion of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, stalling the start of construction by at least a few months.
Rather than conducting a comprehensive traffic study concurrently with a two-year environmental review, as was initially planned, the city’s Department of Transportation will now carry out the traffic study first.
The results of the study, along with feedback from an additional round of public engagement, will help the city select between two designs for the environmental review — with either two or three lanes of traffic moving in either direction on the dilapidated roadway.
The delay will also allow the agency to incorporate changes in traffic volumes brought on by congestion pricing into the study, a DOT rep said.
Per the new timeline, the environmental review — which was scheduled to begin this fall, after being delayed for the first time earlier this year — will start in early 2024. Final design and construction has also been pushed back, from early 2027 to the later half of the same year.
Delays and deterioration on the BQE
“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine BQE Central, and we are determined to get it right,” DOT spokesperson Vin Barone said in a statement. “This revised timeline, developed with our state and federal partners, streamlines decision-making and allows for additional public engagement — maximizing our chances of getting through the federal approval process, securing critical federal funding, and delivering a safer, greener BQE.”
In order for the BQE redesign project to qualify for needed federal funds, the environmental review must be finished within two years of its start date, Barone explained, and the results of the traffic study are necessary to keep the review on-schedule.
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