Musical route

A deeply disliked stretch of road has proven a powerful inspiration for a symphony written by musician Sufjan Stevens. The man was commissioned to write a piece of music about his home city by the Brooklyn Academy of Music and he opted to compose his piece about the infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Called the BQE by New Yorkers, the flyover features narrow lanes, has no hard shoulder and is badly potholed, while high traffic volumes mean that jams and accidents are frequent and it has the dubious honour
February 23, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
A deeply disliked stretch of road has proven a powerful inspiration for a symphony written by musician Sufjan Stevens. The man was commissioned to write a piece of music about his home city by the Brooklyn Academy of Music and he opted to compose his piece about the infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Called the BQE by New Yorkers, the flyover features narrow lanes, has no hard shoulder and is badly potholed, while high traffic volumes mean that jams and accidents are frequent and it has the dubious honour of being one of the two most congested roads in the US (the other is in Los Angeles). Stevens explained that the BQE is so loathed by its users that he wanted to transform the image of this despised route into something of beauty. The symphony also provides the soundtrack for a short film he made about the expressway. The city authorities plan to replace the road but in the mean time, some angry drivers caught in jams could be soothed if the music were to be played over a public address system.

Related Content

  • Julián Núñez, head of ASECAP offers a little Spanish enlightenment
    May 1, 2018
    Julián Núñez, president of ASECAP, gets his teeth into the vision of a European strategy for toll roads. David Arminas reports from Madrid Getting European politicians to agree to a long-term cross-border highway infrastructure programme for toll roads is extremely difficult. It’s a bit like pulling teeth. People want to avoid the pain. This is perhaps a bad analogy to use in the case of Julián Núñez, president of ASECAP - European Association of Operators of Toll Road Infrastructures. Núñez had just sat
    Read More
  • Golden route to success
    July 20, 2012
    Built in 1937 and still the ninth longest suspension bridge in the world, the Golden Gate Bridge across San Francisco Bay remains in fine shape despite its age - Andrew Bardin Williams writes The Golden Gate Bridge turned 75 years old on May 27 and continues to play a key role in the transportation, engineering, construction and ITS communities. The structure has played an important historical role, an engineering success that boosted the economy of the region. And it also led the way as the first major pub
    Read More
  • Show me the money at Australian Summit
    September 4, 2012
    The question of how to finance and fund major road infrastructure projects in Australia – including the potential role of user-pays charging as a funding solution – was top of mind at the recent Roads Australia National Summit in Sydney. The two-day summit, organised by peak national body Roads Australia, is the largest and most influential annual gathering of industry decision-makers in the country. This year’s summit was held against a backdrop of concern over the future of a raft of major road projects t
    Read More
  • Free flow tolling technology is booming
    April 10, 2013
    Jon Masters reports on the latest moves in the free-flow tolling segment. Free-flow tolling of roads and discrete infrastructure, such as bridges and tunnels, is an area of transportation that appears to be booming. Tolling in general is on the up, often still as a means for funding road projects where public sector budgets can no longer cover the necessary costs, but not exclusively so. Several high profile examples of road user charging for ‘demand management’ – the reduction of congestion as part of a wi
    Read More

Highlighted Content