Day: September 10, 2024

The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway’s aging triple cantilever has been patched and repaired, and the city is moving now to further protect it from further damage.

For the next two weekends, a small section of the Staten Island-bound BQE in Brooklyn Heights will be down to one lane as the Department of Transportation installs weigh-in-motion sensors on the roadway. 

The lane will be closed between Adams Street and Washington Street on Sept. 14-16 and Sept. 21-23, from 1 a.m. on both Saturdays to 5 a.m. the following Monday. One Staten Island-bound lane will remain open for vehicle traffic, but the DOT is anticipating significant delays and urged motorists to avoid the area. 

City officials say keeping overweight trucks off the of the Triple Cantilever is paramount to maintaining its safety and structural integrity until it can be totally overhauled. In 2020, a panel of experts warned “the presence of many overweight trucks – a function of limited monitoring and enforcement — coupled with deterioration of the cantilever could cause sections of the road to become unsafe and unable to carry existing levels of traffic within five years.”

Construction on the long-planned redesign of the BQE has been delayed several times, and isn’t expected to begin until 2029. In the meantime, the city implemented several short-term fixes, including three rounds of interim repairs over the past 12 months. 

Weigh-in-motion tech automatically senses overweight vehicles on the and fines drivers accordingly. The aging triple cantilever in Brooklyn Heights has a weight limit of 80,000 pounds, but that limit was not enforced before last fall, when the city installed the tech on the northbound BQE. Drivers in violation of the weight limit are hit with $650 fines, and the DOT contends the program has led to a drop in overweight trucks traversing the roadway. 

During the first seven months of the program — which was preceded by a period where drivers in violation were warned, but not fined — an average 2,769 overweight trucks have traversed the Triple Cantilever each month, according to the DOT. Before the program was implemented, an average of 7,777 overweight trucks crossed the same portion of the roadway. 

“Weigh-in-motion technology has proven successful along the BQE in areas where it’s installed, leading to a 64 percent reduction in overweight vehicles along the triple cantilever,” said DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez, in a statement. “These limited lane closures are necessary for us to continue to keep overweight trucks off the BQE and we advise drivers to take mass transit or seek alternate routes if possible.”