Mayor Silent as Community Protests State Gowanus Project

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Community leaders in western Brooklyn want to hear from the Mayor. City Hall is ignoring their biggest concern-what the State Department of Transportation intends to do with the Gowanus Expressway. Mayor Giuliani and the City DOT have yet to issue comments on State's myopic plans to rebuild the highway without seriously examining other possibilities.

Rebuilding an elevated Gowanus Expressway would be a nightmare project. It would suck up close to $1 billion, take six to ten years to complete and divert thousands of cars to already clogged Brooklyn streets. A report by a local business group showed that the majority of Sunset Park businesses would move to New Jersey if the State DOT proceeds with its plans. Real alternatives exist: the Regional Plan Association has nearly completed a $75,000 feasibility study that looks at replacing the highway with a tunnel from Bay Ridge to Red Hook. Staten Island elected officials, including Borough President Guy Molinari and Councilman John Fusco, want to consider a rail line over the Verrazano Bridge.

T.A., the Gowanus Expressway Community Coalition and several elected officials have called on the State DOT to: perform a Major Investment Study (MIS); fund a community engineer and; seriously examine replacing the elevated highway with a tunnel while improving mass transit.

An MIS would look at the possible options for the entire travel corridor. The study would assess how these options would affect the economy, public health and the environment. Although a highway tunnel and the Mayor's recent proposal to build a rail freight tunnel under the harbor would require an MIS by federal law, the State DOT still refuses to begin one. Starting a study now could shave as much as two years off either project.

The Mayor can stop the State from going ahead with the highway project by vetoing the Transportation Improvement Program, a list of all construction projects in New York and its suburbs. Westchester Executive Andrew O'Rourke recently won an environmental review of a project by simply threatening to veto the list. The Mayor needs to exercise leadership rather ignore the 400,000 Brooklynites whose lives and futures will be seriously affected by the decision. Let the Mayor know that you want an MIS, not a new copy of an elevated highway that was a disaster the day it opened:

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani
City Hall
New York NY 10007