For Once, Good News About the B.Q.E.

Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll get an update on sensors that can tell when trucks on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway are overweight. We’ll also get details on a guilty plea by a teacher at a Brooklyn prep school who was accused of soliciting lewd photos and videos from students on Snapchat.

Almost no one ever has anything positive to say about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The rare exception is a new report from the city’s Department of Transportation.

The report says nothing about the usual complaints — too-narrow lanes, too many potholes, too-frequent slowdowns. Its main finding is that fewer too-heavy trucks are heading toward Queens from the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.

City transportation officials credit hidden sensors, essentially electronic scales under the pavement. The sensors can spot trucks that weigh more than regulations allow. The city says that the number of overweight vehicles dropped 60 percent after the Department of Transportation began sending out violation notices based on readings from the sensors, along with $650 fines.

“The results speak for themselves,” said Ydanis Rodriguez, the transportation commissioner. In the report, he wrote that the “incredible effectiveness” of the sensors showed how they “could be expanded to protect and extend the life span of other transportation infrastructure.”

But the life span of the state law that authorized the sensors is short. Like a separate law that lets the city use traffic cameras to enforce speed limits, the sensor law is set to expire before the end of the year. So Rodriguez is going to Albany today to press legislators to renew it.

He also wants permission to put sensors in other places with heavy truck traffic like the Washington Bridge — not the George Washington Bridge, but a shorter, older span that connects Manhattan and the Bronx.

The city also has expansion plans on the B.Q.E., where the sensors currently track trucks in only one direction, going toward Queens. Sensors will be activated in the Staten Island-bound lanes later this year.

The section of the highway known as “B.Q.E. Central” has exceeded what the report called its “design life” and is crumbling. Its three-level layout was an engineering marvel when the B.Q.E. was on the drawing board in the 1940s and 1950s. But the city says that trucks are 11 percent heavier now. “Overloading on the structure contributes to accelerated deterioration,” the report said.

Several years ago, a study panel concluded that that stretch of the B.Q.E. was deteriorating faster than expected, in part because of overweight trucks. At the panel’s suggestion, the city eliminated two of the six lanes. The weight sensors were another step in trying to lighten the load on the B.Q.E. and extend its life.

In 2023, the city installed sensors on the Queens-bound lanes, a major artery for freight bound for New York City from New Jersey. Data from before the city began assessing fines showed that more than 20,000 overweight trucks rumbled along the B.Q.E. in a typical month, with the number climbing to 30,000 in some months.

The transportation department said the sensors counted 7,920 overweight trucks heading to Queens in a typical month. Once the sensors were switched on and fines were levied, the number dropped to an average of 3,041 a month. The city says it gives trucks a 10 percent margin of error. A truck with a maximum gross vehicle weight of 40 tons is fined only when the sensors determine it weighs 44 tons, for example.

As for the Washington Bridge, it crosses the Harlem River from Washington Heights in Manhattan to High Bridge and Morris Heights in the Bronx. Its opening ceremony was supposed to take place in 1889 “to add éclat to the Washington centennial celebration,” The New York Times reported — the 100th anniversary of George Washington’s inauguration as president.

The first vehicle to cross the bridge, a horse and buggy, made the trip illicitly, thanks to what The Times called “a smart trick” by the horseman and his passenger. They told guards on the bridge that they had a pass. The pass they had was only to traverse the span on foot. They made the crossing before they could be stopped.

The bridge underwent a $33 million reconstruction beginning in 1989. Last year, as part of a major redesign, the city added a dedicated bus lane and a two-way bike lane separated from traffic by a barrier.

Weather

Expect a partly sunny sky, with the temperature in the low 50s, though the wind chill in the morning will bring that down to between 20 and 30. Clouds will form in the evening, and the temperature will drop into the low 40s.

ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING

In effect until Wednesday (Ash Wednesday).

The latest New York news

Forced out: The top F.B.I. agent in New York City was forced out after a clash with the Justice Department. James Dennehy had told agents to “dig in” in the face of the Trump administration’s culling of officials who investigated the Jan. 6 attack.
A commute that ended in violence: New York’s transportation system has been flooded with patrols to prevent crime and stop fare evasion. One Sunday in Brooklyn, it all went wrong.
Video against congestion pricing: Trump administration officials made a man-on-the-street video to show what they say is public opposition to congestion pricing. The video racked up more than 237,000 views after Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, posted it on X.

Candidate Cuomo’s first policy proposal: Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who announced over the weekend that he would run for mayor, unveiled a detailed plan to tackle affordability.

Prison death: The state police are investigating the death of a prisoner over the weekend in a medium-security facility near the prison in central New York where another inmate was fatally beaten late last year.
Plastic bags persist: It’s been five years since New York banned single-use plastic bags. Despite penalties that go as high as $500 for repeated violators, plastic bags are still a common sight on city streets.

Guilty plea from schoolteacher in sex crime case

Winston Nguyen, who taught math at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn, was charged with soliciting lewd images from students. On Monday, he pleaded guilty to a felony and several misdemeanors. He could face a prison term of seven years.

Nguyen’s guilty plea was the latest chapter in a scandal that has marred the reputation of Saint Ann’s and the administrators who hired him.

Nguyen had been convicted of a felony in 2019 after pleading guilty to grand larceny and other charges. He had been accused of stealing more than $300,000 from an older couple he worked for as a home health aide. He served four months at the Rikers Island jail complex.

About a year later, he was hired by Saint Ann’s, a prestigious private school that charges tuition of about $60,000 a year.

But the second chance the school gave him backfired when he was arrested and accused of preying on students days before the end of the school year last June.

Nguyen had told the administrator who initially hired him — to be an administrative aide — about his conviction. He became a fixture at the school, teaching a seminar called “Crime and Punishment,” and the school promoted him to math teacher in the fall of 2021.

But Saint Ann’s did not alert parents to his criminal record until after students found news articles about him on the internet. “I can assure you that as with any teacher we hire, we are confident in Winston’s ability and fitness to educate and care for our students,” Vince Tompkins, the head of the school at the time, wrote in an email to parents.

Within a year, students at several private schools including Saint Ann’s began to receive solicitations via Snapchat for lewd photos and videos. By February 2024, Saint Ann’s had been notified by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office of an investigation. School administrators did not notify parents.

Nguyen told my colleague Katherine Rosman that he suffers from a mental illness, bipolar II disorder, which he said went untreated during the coronavirus pandemic. He also said that he had experienced sexual abuse as a child.

He declined to directly address the students he targeted, saying he would do so when he is sentenced. But he expressed remorse for the damage he caused to the school. “I really, really regret that my actions have painted them in a horrible light,” he said.

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