BQE Expert Panel Background Documents

The materials on this webpage were presented or provided to the BQE Expert Panel for informational and background purposes. The materials may have outdated estimates or information and do not represent final determinations by the City. NYC DOT does not make any representations as to the accuracy of information provided by other organizations, agencies, or entities. The ideas included are not necessarily endorsed or proposed by NYC DOT.


In April 2019, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed Executive Order 43, convening an independent panel of experts to review the project assumptions and concepts for the city’s BQE project. At the first meeting of the panel, on April 11, 2019, NYC DOT presented information about the existing conditions of the BQE as well as the outside proposals developed to date. This preliminary presentation shaped the conversations that followed, with the panel requesting more information on existing conditions and additional ways to rehabilitate the BQE.

Existing Conditions

To better understand the existing conditions of the BQE, the panel conducted site visits, reviewed data gathered by NYC DOT and its partners, and directed NYC DOT and its consultants to conduct additional studies. The following presentations were developed for the panel to help answer its questions. The date the panel received each presentation is included in parentheses.

How do people and goods use the BQE?

What are the corridor constraints and opportunities?

NYC DOT provided the panel with a narrative summary of constraints and opportunities along the project corridor.

The agency also hosted the Expert Panel on several tours of the BQE project corridor. The purpose of the tours was to better understand the corridor constraints and opportunities arising from the surrounding infrastructure and open spaces. The tour packet, linked below, provides a synopsis of the major constraints and opportunities, while the individual presentations given by outside entities provide additional information.

In addition to infrastructure-based constraints, city agencies provided materials about processes that guide project development and implementation:

Ways to Move Forward

The Expert Panel was particularly interested in learning more about how NYC DOT inspected and monitored the condition of the BQE, which led the agency to draft a summary of its process.

NYC DOT also provided a memo describing design criteria for tunnels so that the panel could better analyze tunnel concepts proposed by outside stakeholders.

From July to September 2019, NYC DOT and its consultants created a series of iterative presentations that described existing conditions, potential rehabilitation options, and potential replacement options, with the purpose of analyzing ways to get additional service life from the existing structure.

This process resulted in a summary, provided to the panel for use in the appendix to its report, that gives the most up-to-date description of the options:

Expert Panel Final Report