Mayor Zohran Mamdani, fresh off his weeklong upstate vacation, announced his return to New York City Monday with a declaration on the long-deteriorating Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. They’re “fixing” it. Actually. Mamdani and the city’s transit chief jointly announced Monday a $4 bil lion rehab project to improve the city-owned section of the highway, known as BQE Central. City Hall says it’s a glaring need that previous administrations have neglected for decades. According to the city, the BQE infrastructure is 20 years past its design life, and, daily enduring double the vehicle load — about 130,000 — it was designed to hold. The roughly $4 billion, 10-year rehab project announced Monday aims to extend the design life of BQE Central by another two decades. The mayor’s office says the project, which would break ground in 2030, is the shortest-term plan needed to keep the structure safe and stable while allowing for the city to work with the state, which controls the northern and southern segments of the BQE, on a long-term vision for the entire highway.  Mamdani’s office says every year of NOT improving BQE Central infrastructure costs the city $160 million in escalation and increases the risk of a shutdown that would force a significant amount of daily vehicle traffic — including all 13,000 daily truck trips — onto local streets. “For decades, prior administrations have failed to deliver urgent long-term repairs to BQE Central – but we can no longer afford to wait for the perfect solution,” Mamdani said in a statement. “We’re going to fix the aging concrete, repair the deteriorating triple cantilever, and build temporary roads that keep the highway operable during construction to avoid sending tens of thousands of cars and trucks onto local streets.”  The mayor’s 10-year plan calls for temporary bypass structures that allow city transit workers to repair deteriorated sections of highway and improve draining, railings, and lightining, while protecting local streets. This should facilitate commerce and preserve access to historic sites like the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. NYC DOT plans to build a temporary, two-level highway bypass on top of Furman Street, below the promenade, from Atlantic Avenue to Columbia Heights. This bypass will be no higher than the existing Queens-bound highway and will not block the promenade. The agency plans to build a second temporary, elevated highway bypass from Columbia Heights, over the Brooklyn Bridge approach, to the Manhattan Bridge.  “This plan allows us to safely fix the BQE without slowing our city down or wasting decades more on magical thinking,” Mamdani’s statement continued. “The cost of inaction is too high, and the risks to New Yorkers are too important to delay any longer.”  The mayor will likely be asked about the plan at an unrelated parks announcement later Monday morning. That parks announcement will mark his first public appearance in 11 days. His administration had said he was receiving regular updates from his senior staff while on vacation with his family upstate. This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. ...read more read less