Mayor's $2.7 Billion BQX Street Car Proposal Still Chugging Along

LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — Mayor Bill de Blasio's proposed Brooklyn-Queens connector, a $2.7 billion emission-free streetcar known as the BQX, is still chugging along: City officials will present the plan to residents along the Astoria-to-Red Hook route in a series of public workshops starting in February, according to a new website dedicated to the project.

De Blasio started pushing the plan in 2016, after a group of real estate developers and community leaders formed the nonprofit Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector to draft a proposal and donated $245,000 to the mayor's Campaign for One New York, the New York Daily News reported.

The original streetcar plan was estimated to cost $2.5 billion and would run from Astoria to Sunset Park, whose residents, fearing displacement, fought to keep the streetcar out of their neighborhood, according to Gothamist.

The city released a new, 62-page plan in August 2018 pitched an 11-mile streetcar route from Astoria in Queens to Red Hook in Brooklyn, calling the idea a "game changer."

But all's been quiet on the BQX front since its first City Council hearing, in May 2019, when elected officials asked why it was a necessary alternative to just improving bus service and noted the streetcar's vulnerability to flooding exacerbated by climate change.

BQX advocates insisted better bus service still wouldn't be as efficient as the streetcar, which they claimed would also increase property values along its route and bring in added tax revenue that could pay for more than half the project's cost.

Supporters will make their case and collect public feedback on the plan starting Feb. 6, when a series of five public workshops kicks off in Downtown Brooklyn.

Meanwhile, the MTA is collecting feedback on its draft of a new bus map in Queens, which includes a route from Astoria to Downtown Brooklyn that is eerily similar to the proposed BQX route, as Streetsblog as noted.

Under the updated timeline on the BQX website, the city would begin drafting an environmental impact statement to review the project's potential effects and alternatives in spring 2021.

Here is the full schedule of public workshops:

Downtown Brooklyn

Date: February 6
Time: 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Location:Brooklyn Borough Hall - 209 Joralemon St
Click here to RSVP

Red Hook

Date: February 13
Time: 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Location:P.S. 676 - 27 Huntington St
Click here to RSVP

Astoria

Date: February 25
Time: 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Location:Museum of the Moving Image - 36-01 35th Ave
Click here to RSVP

Williamsburg / Greenpoint

Date: March 3
Time: 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Location:Bushwick Inlet Park - Kent Ave (btwn Quay St & N 9 St)
Click here to RSVP

Long Island City

Date: March 10
Time: 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Location:CUNY Law School - 2 Court Square W
Click here to RSVP