By Dennis Holt
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN -- One won’t see any physical work on “fixing up� the Downtown Brooklyn portion of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) and its Brooklyn Heights “cantilever� for some seven to 10 more years, but the long process of talking about it has begun.

Last week, members of the state Department of Transportation met with members of the Transportation Committee of Community Board 6 and others to begin that “long process.�

It has been known for some time that much of this 1.5-mile stretch from Sands Street to Atlantic Avenue needed some attention and some rebuilding. Just exactly what will be required is not yet determined, another reason for the “long process.�

This seemingly short piece of highway is far from ordinary. It is the half moon-shaped section that touches on busy Downtown Brooklyn and is getting busier by the day. It also includes the 0.4-mile cantilever (a triple-decked structure supporting two lanes of the BQE and the Brooklyn Heights Promenade) that was built in lieu of tearing down most of Brooklyn Heights, which planner Robert Moses wanted to do.

Among scores of other elements, all of which will have to be studied, this part of the BQE includes five major exits, more than 20 bridges and 367,000 square feet of decking. As people living or working near can testify, it also contains a lot of noise.

About 150,000 vehicles use this part of the BQE every day, including many large trucks, making it essential to the overall economy of the city. (In the 1920s, there was a plan to build a freight railway about where the BQE was eventually built, but that idea never got off the ground.)

Peter King, head of regional planning for the state Department of Transportation (DOT), gave a presentation last Thursday that covered all these details and sketched out all the other issues that must be looked at.

One of these will be Brooklyn Bridge Park. At one time, opponents of the park were hoping this work would interfere with building the park. But all the park work will be done by the time the highway work begins. In fact, a meeting has already been held between the state DOT and the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation, and King indicated that the communication process between the two has already begun.

(One of the interesting features of the park plan, which will affect the BQE, is the idea of a pedestrian staircase from the Promenade down to the park. Decisions on whether and if to build such a staircase must be made within the next decade.)

One doesn't have to be a civil engineer to realize how complicated and challenging fixing up the BQE, especially the cantilever, will turn out to be. How to keep the traffic flowing, especially trucks, and keep it off local streets won't be easy.

King, in fact, noted that extra efforts will be made to keep trucks off Atlantic Avenue, since that street will anchor two major projects within two miles of each other -- the park and Atlantic Yards. Public meetings will begin next year in part to help prepare for the critical Environmental Impact Statement, whose zone of study will be expanded far beyond the normal limits of an EIS.

While it will be a “long process,� it has at least begun.

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