BQE AND THE ROAD TO NEW YORK’S FUTURE: HIGHWAYS THAT SPLIT NEIGHBORHOODS ARE THINGS OF THE PAST

Daily News: Rather than plow ahead with a rebuild of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway running through Brooklyn Heights, Mayor de Blasio set up a panel to discuss alternatives.

The panel was appointed only because the residents of Brooklyn Heights — one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city — greeted with a deafening “NO!” the city’s plan to turn the beloved Promenade into a temporary highway, spending more than $100,000 of their own money on consulting experts and lobbyists to fight this plan.

Kudos to the residents of Brooklyn Heights for stepping up and investing their resources to show an alternative way — we all benefit from civic leaders who have the means and bully pulpit to get City Hall’s attention. Nevertheless, when City Hall responds, shouldn’t it be in a way that ensures equity throughout the city?

Communities throughout New York (without the same financial means as residents of Brooklyn Heights) have been dealing with the Robert Moses legacy of highways that divided neighborhoods from each other or from the waterfront. For a generation, these communities have proposed plans to overcome this legacy and reknit their neighborhoods together. Read more >>

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