The highly anticipated Brooklyn Queens Connector (or BQX) streetcar was first announced by Mayor de Blasio in 2016. After two years of looking into potential routes, running tests and talking with consultants, in 2018, the city released an updated plan for the BQX that will eventually run along the East River.
The Brooklyn-Queens Connector streetcar is planned to connect Astoria, Queens, to Red Hook, Brooklyn, and many stops in between.
Just last week (January 9th), the New York City Economic Development Corporation launched a new website dedicated to the project on which you can see the first steps involving the draft of an environmental impact statement (DEIS), which they saw will be complete by 2021.
Starting this February, the first public community meetings will begin taking place in Downtown Brooklyn, Red Hook, Astoria, Williamsburg/Greenpoint and Long Island City. You can find the the full schedule of meetings on their website here.
The streetcar was originally projected to begin running along the waterfront in 2024, however, is now scheduled to start in 2029. The price of the infrastructure project is estimated at $2.73 billion, up from the original $2.5 billion. The city is hoping that $1 billion of that money will come from the federal government.
“The BQX is one of the biggest, most ambitious projects in a generation,” the mayor said in a statement. “It will be a challenge, but New York City is taking it on.”
The revised plan details a streetcar system that is smaller than the original proposal, but with a much larger price tag. There are now a proposed 26 stops along the 11-mile route.
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