On The Way: Unpacking Mamdani's big BQE plan

Mayor Zohran Mamdani has a $4 billion plan to fix a section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. But how is he going to pay for it?

Here’s an idea that draws inspiration from Robert Moses, the renowned-but-infamous urban planner who built the crumbling triple-cantilever that’s now in dire need of repair: Make drivers cover the cost.

Sara Lind, executive director at the transportation advocacy group Open Plans, said she supported the idea of finding a way for drivers to pay for Mamdani’s highway construction plan.

“The city should explore tools like tolling to reduce congestion, manage demand and pay for car-based infrastructure,” Lind wrote in a statement. “We should be using dynamic tolling around the city, including on the BQE, along with tools like low-emission zones that can mitigate the negative impacts of driving and freight on communities.”

But the administration would face significant obstacles if it sought to institute a new toll to cover the cost of the BQE project.

City officials pointedly said they won’t ask for federal funding to pay for the plan to build a temporary highway along Brooklyn Bridge Park so crews can fix the triple-cantilever beneath the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. The city owns that portion of the highway — and the transportation department wants to avoid the federal bureaucracy that could delay the plan.

Absent federal money, Mamdani’s push to rebuild the 1950s-era highway would presumably rely on subsidies from city and state taxpayers. The cost would be covered by far more New Yorkers than just the 130,000 drivers who use the triple-cantilever every day.

During his tenure as Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority chair, Moses managed to erect bridges and tunnels across the city without major federal subsidies. Instead, he’d take out loans from bondholders to cover construction, and pay off the debt with the money from tolls he charged to use the crossings.

Adding a toll to the BQE would require federal approval, experts said.