Board 5 Committees Hear About New Kosciuszko Plans
Building the new Kosciuszko Bridge over the Newtown Creek was the focus of last Tuesday’s (Dec. 16) meeting of Community Board 5′s Transportation and Public Transit Committees at the board’s Glendale office.
Robert Adams, the state Department of Transportation (DOT) project director, explained that the Kosciuszko Bridge project will be done in two separate phases. Each phase will have its own contract.
The first phase, which is already underway, will construct the Queens-bound structure. This phase was contracted to Skanska Kiewit Ecco III (SKE) for $555 million, “the largest contract in the history of the New York State Department of Transportation,” Adams said.
The second phase contract has not been awarded yet, but Adams assured that “the state is committed in their five-year plan to complete phase two.”
Adams explained the new Kosciuszko Bridge will improve traffic safety, reduce congestion and improve operations for motorists.
These benefits will be implemented by providing drivers with standard travel lane widths, improving shoulder widths, reducing roadway incline, providing merging, or auxiliary lanes in both directions and by increasing both sight distances and travel speeds, Adams said.
The new bridge will also include a bikeway/walkway along the Brooklyn bound structure, that will provide alternate modes of transportation across the bridge as well as views of Manhattan.
Along with the construction of the new bridge, streetscaping improvements will be made to the local streets on both sides of the structure that will “improve the area immediately around the bridge,” Adams said.
These improvements include tree plantings, decorative lighting, new sidewalks and new parks and open green spaces in both Queens and Brooklyn.
Bill Moore, superintendent for SKE, laid out the timeline for phase one of the project to the board. The underground utilities and drainage work is nearly complete, and the demolition of the surrounding buildings is slated to begin this month. This will be completed by March 2015.
The Queens bound approach and substructure will be built from April 2015 to June 2016, followed by the Queens-bound LIE/BQE connector construction beginning in May 2015 and ending in December 2016.
The demolition of the current Kosciuszko Bridge will take place in 2017.
The first phase is expected to be completed by the beginning of 2018, with the entire Kosciuszko Bridge project expected to be finished by the middle of 2020.
Other news
A few traffic issues were brought up during the meeting, including new parking signage and changing of the time limits on some of the parking meters around the neighborhood.
Lynn Pham, director of Community Alliance Initiative, a non-profit organization asked the board to consider sending a request to the DOT to add a “No Parking from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday thru Friday” sign for two parking spots outside of its location at 60-85 Myrtle Ave. in Ridgewood.
“We have to adhere to food bank rules and regulations,” Pham said so the request for this sign was to ensure that delivery trucks can properly drop off food to the building, which is used as a distribution center for a food bank.
It was noted that some of the parking meters along Myrtle Avenue between Fresh Pond Road and Wyckoff Avenue have different time limits. Board 5 will request to the DOT that all of those hourly meters be uniformly set to two hours.
The committees’ next meeting is Jan. 27, 2015, at 7:30 p.m. at Board 5’s office, 61-23 Myrtle Ave.
