DAILY NEWS OP-ED: A HIGHWAY THAT HURTS THE CITY
On November 25, 2019, CNU NYC Chair John Massengale and former Congress for New Urbanism Chair and President John Norquist published an Op-Ed in the New York Daily News. The topic was what to do about the falling-down Brooklyn Queens Expressway and to improve city life in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
The drawing above illustrates this part of the text:
On the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge, Chambers Street used to go through the Municipal Building to a dense urban neighborhood. Now the gateway to Manhattan is a 24-hour mass of irritated drivers honking at pedestrians trying to get from the subway to City Hall Park. There are enough existing ramps that all the cars could be redirected back towards Water Street and the FDR Drive. That would free up the no-man’s land between Park Street and Centre Street for a great new public space at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge.
John Norquist has decades of experience with highway tear downs. When he was Mayor of Milwaukee, Norquist was one of the first American mayors to tear down a city highway. As Chair and President of the CNU, he started a program called Highways to Boulevards that has worked with states, cities, and Congress. Their 2019 report Cities Without Futures can be downloaded here.
The online version of the Daily News Op-Ed is here, with the title “Buck the BQE: The city should not replace a key stretch of the cantilevered Brooklyn highway.” Twitter replied, “Don’t need no stinkin’ BQE.”
