New Reconstruction Project for Brooklyn-Queens Expressway

A new $123 million project to rebuild nearly a mile of the highway in Queens began earlier this year.

New BQE Rehabilitation

A $123 million rehabilitation project started this year on a stretch of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that handles 120,000 vehicles each day. Work on the .8 mi of roadway in Queens began in March and is slated for completion in December 2008.

The New York State Department of Highways awarded the contract to a joint venture of Perini Corp. of Framingham, Mass., the managing partner, and Tutor/Saliba Corp. of Sylmar, Calif.

Perini and Tutor will replace or rehabilitate 11 bridges over local streets, construct and relocate a ramp and a new retaining wall, install a noise wall, and realign and pour new concrete for the main roadway.

Work on a separate stretch of the BQE between Broadway and 25th Avenue in Queens was slated for completion by early summer. The five-year, $295 million rehabilitation, led by Slattery Skanska of Whitestone, N.Y., as general contractor, is finishing a year after the originally slated completion because of an expanded scope of work. The job involved construction of 16 new overpass bridges, new drainage and lighting systems, 4 mi. of new retaining walls, and 3 mi. of new concrete.

N.Y. Plans Transportation Bond Vote

New York's $106.6 billion state budget, approved this spring by the Legislature and Gov. George Pataki, earmarked $35.8 billion over five years for the capital programs of the state Department of Transportation and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The budget calls for putting a five-year, $2.9 billion transportation bond, whose proceeds would be evenly split between the two agencies, on the ballot this fall. If approved by voters, the bond will fund $300 to $400 million in additional highway construction projects annually over the next five years.

Without the bond, the total for new highway contracts let would run between $1.7 to $1.8 billion each year rather than increasing to $2.2 billion in 2009, according to a summary compiled by the State Senate.

The approved state budget gives the MTA less in capital funds than it had requested last fall, leading the agency to announce it will scale down, defer, or scrap projects.

The approved $21.1 billion, five-year capital plan fell shy of the $27.8 billion that the MTA originally requested for its major initiatives and for projects by its subsidiaries such as New York City Transit, Long Island Rail Road, and Metro-North Railroad. As a result, the authority will postpone building a new $198 million, 16-track LIRR storage facility for at least five years, delay full-scale rehabilitations for 12 subway stations, and cancel full rehabilitations on several other stations.

According to an MTA report from early spring, the agency will also proceed more slowly on several major projects, most of which are funded through its Capital Construction Corp. division, because the agency will receive only $2.5 billion of the $7.9 billion it had requested through 2009. The long-term projects affected include: the $6.3 billion LIRR link to Grand Central Terminal, known as East Side Access; the $16.8 billion Second Avenue subway; and a proposed $6 billion rail link from Lower Manhattan to John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens. None of those projects are slated for completion during the current capital plan. The report said the projects would be "effectively implemented at a slower pace."

The planned extension of the No. 7 subway line would not face delays, because New York City is separately funding its $2 billion cost.

West Street Tunnel Abandoned

The New York State Department of Transportation announced it would cancel plans to build an $860 million tunnel on the western border of the World Trade Center, instead opting for a $225 million at-grade roadway for West Street.

The department will restore the section between Vesey and Liberty streets to its original eight lanes. Most of the roadway, designated by the state as Route 9A, was destroyed during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and later replaced with a temporary six-lane road.

The department had considered the at-grade option, the bypass tunnel, or the possibility of leaving the temporary road. It abandoned the below-grade option after opposition from community groups over the tunnel's cost and concerns from Verizon and Goldman Sachs, corporations that had wavered on plans to occupy new office space nearby.

Gov. George Pataki, who had earlier supported the tunnel option, said during a speech in May that the state could reallocate funds earmarked for the tunnel to a planned $6 billion rail link between Lower Manhattan and John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens.

The Federal Highway Administration must approve the West Street project, and is expected to decide on it this month. The schedule will be developed in tandem with the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, with completion expected in 18 months.