By Jeremy Miller
The Kosciuszko Bridge, a 64-year old span of concrete and steel bridging Newtown Creek on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, and a persistent headache for motorists with its steep grades and narrow, curving lanes, has been slated for major renovations that will begin in early 2008.
Photo wirednewyork
Completed in 1939 and rehabilitated in the 1960s, the Kosciuszko Bridge has suffered under the strain of heavy traffic volume.
Completed in 1939 and rehabilitated in the 1960s, the Kosciuszko Bridge has suffered under the strain of heavy traffic volume: 170,000 vehicles a day traverse its 1.1 mile length. And in spite of three major rehabilitation efforts in the last 13 years, the bridge is showing the signs of heavy wear and outdated design. As trusses warp and beams crack, cars continue to collide. In fact, the accident rate on the bridge is four times higher than the average rate on comparable New York state highways.
On Thursday November 20, representatives from the state Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) and Parsons Transportation Group, the private contractor who has been awarded the Kosciuszko Bridge Project contract, joined with Maspeth and Greenpoint residents at Martin Luther King HS in Maspeth to discuss 11 proposed alternatives for improvements, with cost estimates ranging between $100 and $200 million.
Despite assurances from DOT officials, local residents and community leaders have been worried for some time that the large scope of the project will involve significant impact to the community, including potential environmental damage, increased traffic through neighborhoods during construction and potential loss of property under the state’s eminent domain authority.
Steve Bennett, manager of the Kosciuszko Bridge Project, reported on 11 alternative plans, which were arrived at from an initial group of 24 plans.
With the help of the Stakeholders Advisory Committee (SAC), a group of local leaders, business owners and residents, an intensive screening process was undertaken last June. According to a state Department of Transportation document, the joint screening process eliminated alternatives that "did little or nothing to improve operations, had serious environmental impacts, or prevented navigation on Newtown Creek."
Among the 11 potential project designs are plans to rehabilitate the existing bridge, to rehabilitate and expand the existing bridge, to build a new bridge in place of the existing structure and to build a tunnel that would negotiate Newtown Creek slightly north or south of the existing bridge.
Most of the plan designs involve increasing the number and the width of current lanes while decreasing the bridge’s steep grade, which was designed 125 feet high at center span to accommodate the passage of large war ships and cargo freighters on Newtown Creek.
According to a project bulletin published by NYSDOT, the tallest ships that currently pass beneath the bridge are 65 feet high. However, any alteration to the height of the overpass must first be approved by the United States Coast Guard.
Over the next year, NYSDOT officials and contractors will meet to evaluate this short list of alternatives and select the most viable project design.
Bennett would not say if he believed any of the projects were more feasible than the others and pointed out that the level 2 screening, which will begin this fall and include comprehensive environmental, community impact and financial assessments, will reveal which design is the best fit.
"Until the level 2 assessment happens, I can’t say. There are too many factors: costs to be considered . . . environmental studies to be carried out," Bennett said. However, Bennett conceded that the tunnel design would almost certainly entail the largest degree of environmental disruption and carry the highest price tag.
In terms of eminent domain, Bennett and Robert Adams, NYSDOT project manager, said that current plans project disruption to three residences near the 53rd Avenue off-ramp. NYSDOT officials have attempted to contact the property owners, but have not been successful.
Maspeth resident and Community Board 5 Member Tony Nunziato said that he and other residents are worried that increased traffic pressure from construction vehicles, delivery trucks and commuters trying to avoid the construction zone will occur during the project. "We don’t want this traffic coming through the neighborhoods," Nunziato said.
Another attendee said that she feared that current design plans did not take into consideration population growth in the city and that a spillover effect would cause congestion in the neighborhoods flanking the BQE.
"Our traffic designs are based on 30-year projections," replied Bennett. "And although we will be improving and expanding lanes on the bridge, there is a natural limit placed on traffic flow by the roadway on both sides of the bridge."
Bennett also insisted that the temporary structures to be built to maintain traffic flow during construction should operate as well as the existing structures do.
Other residents also inquired about potential construction conflicts between the Kosciuszko Bridge Project and the Crossharbor Freight Movement Project, which upon final approval would bring a network of rail lines from New Jersey beneath New York Harbor, making cargo transport more environmentally friendly and efficient throughout the region. The project would also effectively connect the long isolated but massive consumer markets of Queens, Brooklyn and Long Island region to the commercial railways of the continental United States.
About the Crossharbor project, Douglas A. Currey, Regional Director of the NYSDOT said, "The state Department of Transportation will continue to closely monitor the progress of the Cross Harbor tunnel project, as it is certainly in the vicinity of the area we are studying for the Kosciuszko Bridge effort. At this time, however, we do not anticipate that the work from the Tunnel Project will impede our study in any way."
Project design documents are available for viewing at various locations throughout Queens and Brooklyn, including the borough presidents’ offices and the NYSDOT offices at 47-40 21st St.
From The Queens Gazette
