Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to widen the Cross Bronx Expressway, a move that advocates against the plan said Monday would shatter public health and put a dent in air quality.
A broad coalition of elected officials, environmental justice leaders and transportation advocates gathered with the Bronx River Alliance in the borough’s Starlight Park on Nov. 25 to launch the “No Cross Bronx Expansion” campaign to oppose the governor’s plan.
The Cross Bronx, which is part of Interstate 95, is often lined with heavy traffic from the tens of thousands of vehicles that travel it daily. As part of the expansion, the Hochul administration proposes a new mile-long elevated highway parallel to the Cross Bronx which she says would help ease traffic congestion during planned road work — but environmentalists argue would be “destructive” to air quality and local neighborhoods.
“This Cross Bronx Expressway plan is a throwback of the worst type, in a Robert Moses style with highway engineers working in secret to hoist destructive plans on a community they don’t believe knows what’s best for itself,” Siddhartha Sánchez, executive director of the Bronx River Alliance, said.
Hochul’s plan includes a series of new, parallel bypass highways – over the Bronx River and Starlight Park – that will divert traffic during years of heavy construction on the highway and permanently expand the corridor.
A $150 million federal grant is helping to pay for the project, which comes at the same time as the city and state examining ways to “cap” the Cross Bronx, reconnecting neighborhoods divided by the Robert Moses-era expressway and providing additional green space.
Hochul announced the plan in January. According to a press release from her office, the project would prevent the need to close lanes on the congested roadway.
“It will serve a critical role as a temporary diversion/detour road that will negate the need for a long-term closure of one lane in each direction of the Cross Bronx Expressway and allow construction on the bridges to be completed in four years instead of six,” the press release stated. “The project calls for a new detour roadway to be constructed first, which will negate the need to divert traffic onto local streets and allow work to proceed faster and more efficiently. Once the bridge work is completed, the detour roadway would be reconfigured to become a multi-modal community connector that provides new bicycle, pedestrian and bus lane access.”
Meanwhile, many area residents, including Rafael Moure-Punnett, district manager of Bronx Community Board 6, have raised concerns about the design and possible increased pollution if a new elevated road is built.
“New York State DOT’s proposal for a new service road along the Cross Bronx Expressway is a slap in the face to Bronx residents,” Punnett said.
Danny Pearlstein, policy and communications director of the Riders Alliance, a bus and subway riders’ advocacy group, said expanding the Cross Bronx Expressway would be a mistake “worse” than the canceled “backwards boondoggle” LaGuardia AirTrain.
“The governor’s Department of Transportation has tried desperately to greenwash the new highway as a ‘community connector.’ But another bridge over the river and the park will divide communities to the north and south,” Pearlstein said. “Vague intentions to improve bus service and bike access make little sense: There’s no bus route to begin with and the bike path would be extremely steep and inaccessible. Once again, we need the governor’s foresight to cancel this awful project,”
Stakeholders in the area are asking the state to make plan details more available to the public.
”With the public health crises we are facing, all we now know about climate change and the public participation that is necessary for democracy, we are calling on New York State to plan with the Bronx community to meet the mobility and environmental needs we have identified,” Sánchez, of Bronx River Alliance, said.
amNewYork Metro reached out to Hochul’s office for comment, and is awaiting a response.
