James' World 2

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This triple cantilever was an engineering marvel when it was built from concrete and steel more than 70 years ago.

But the structure was designed for far less traffic than the 130,000 cars and trucks that cross it every day.

It’s now exceeded its lifespan, and decades of increasingly heavy trucks have caused the concrete to weaken.

Hundreds of steel mesh sheets keep crumbling concrete from falling on drivers below.

City officials declared in 2016 that this decrepit cantilever needed to be completely overhauled. It hasn’t happened.

The triple cantilever runs along the edge of Brooklyn Heights, a wealthy and politically connected neighborhood. It stands as a symbol of resistance to Robert Moses, the power broker who rammed highways through communities.

When Mr. Moses tried that approach here in the 1940s, Brooklyn Heights residents pushed back, and Mr. Moses rerouted the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway around them.

At the top sits the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, a cherished landmark with skyline views where generations of New Yorkers have come for their first date.

Below, two levels of traffic jut out like drawers pulled from a dresser. The highway is the main artery between Brooklyn and Queens, and it is part of Interstate 278, the only road that connects New York’s five boroughs.

The cantilever, which opened in 1954, was designed to be used for 50 years. The risks only go up as it continues to deteriorate year after year, even as its life span has been extended with interim measures. While city officials and transportation engineers say imminent collapse is not a threat, other catastrophes could still strike, like concrete falling off and hitting vehicles.

Since 2018, two New York City mayors — Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams — have announced that they would fix this vital artery. But both administrations were unprepared for the ferocious community opposition to their ideas on how to proceed. Both struggled to build any consensus at all as local residents countered with their own ideas. The endless back and forth led to more delays and inertia.

The standoff over the B.Q.E. has become, more broadly, a symbol of the power that local communities wield over critical infrastructure projects around the nation.

Though community opposition is hardly new, it is thriving today as residents have become more nimble and sophisticated at influencing projects, or halting them entirely. They strategize about just who to target with their ads and protests, assemble technical experts and consultants to argue on their behalf, and extend their reach with email blasts, online petitions and social media.

In Los Angeles, a plan to widen the 710 Freeway, one of the nation’s busiest freight corridors, was canceled in 2022 amid community opposition. A major street improvement project in Detroit was paused last summer, in part over the public’s concerns about its design, while state officials took another approach. And a Buffalo project championed by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to reconnect communities divided by a highway stalled recently after a state court ruled in favor of critics.

This community pushback is often characterized as NIMBYism — the “not in my backyard” impediment to change — but the reality is more nuanced. Many Brooklyn residents say they are not against improving the B.Q.E., and, in fact, are fighting for a better future with less traffic and more space for people.

But now, time is running out for the triple cantilever.

A highway in decay

The cantilever structure anchors a 1.5-mile stretch from Atlantic Avenue to Sands Street that is owned by the city. The rest of the 16-mile highway belongs to the state.

Even before the latest effort, state transportation officials had sought to rehabilitate the cantilever section in 2006. They dropped the project in 2011, citing fiscal concerns and other priorities. That left the problem to the city.

The triple cantilever was increasingly flagged for potential safety hazards, said Bojidar Yanev, a former city transportation official who oversaw inspections from 1989 to 2018. “The structure was unraveling,” he said.

Since at least 1996, the city has fastened metal mesh sheets to the underside of the roadway, particularly below joints, as a stop-gap measure to hold crumbling concrete in place and prevent accidents.

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