Mamdani pitches $4B plan to fix NYCs crumbling BQE

He won’t leave it B-QE.A crumbling section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway will finally be fixed under a $4 billion plan unveiled by Zohran Mamdani on Monday — the latest pitch to tackle a dangerous problem that has long bedeviled New York City mayors.Groundbreaking won’t happen until at least 2030, but the plan would rebuild the expressway’s troubled stacked roadways — known as the “triple-cantilever” — rather than demolish them completely, as proposed by some long-frustrated New Yorkers, officials said.A temporary highway running along Brooklyn Bridge Park will be built to avoid sending tens of thousands of cars onto local roads as crews complete the fixes, which are set to take about 10 years, Mamdani said in one of his signature slick social media videos.“This will extend the life of the BQE for another 40 years,” he said.“This plan allows us to safely fix the current problem, without slowing our city down and wasting decades more waiting while the BQE continues to get worse.”New Yorkers have heard mayors promise they’d fix the BQE before.Former Mayors Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams both fielded and pitched various plans to address the deteriorating cantilever section — part of a 1.5-mile stretch of the BQE near Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street in Brooklyn that’s solely under the city’s control.But the myriad proposals all fizzled, notably de Blasio’s 2018 idea to temporarily divert traffic through the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.Hoity-toity Brooklyn Heights residents wary of losing their beloved promenade for six years helped scuttle the plan, forcing de Blasio to backpedal when he announced another project three years later focused on “preservation.” Adams unsuccessfully tried to get the federal government involved for a longer-term fix.But his administration also laid the groundwork for Mamdani’s plan, as Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) pointed out — accusing the new mayor of underhandedly taking credit.“This...