Fixing the Hated Cross Bronx Expressway

0:00Let's talk about the Cross Bronx Expressway, one of the most infamous roads from the Robert Moses era in New York City. Since its inception, the Cross Bronx Expressway has been a point of antagonism, I think that word is fair for residents in the surrounding areas, building this highway tour through neighborhoods and displaced thousands of people, many thousands, who called the Bronx home. The communities left behind have been living with the consequences ever since. The Bronx has the highest asthma hospitalization rates in New York City. Children there are more likely to end up in the emergency room for asthma than anywhere else in the five boroughs and the Cross Bronx has considered one of the reasons for that. The highway is also by any measure, essential infrastructure, right? It carries 150,000 vehicles a day is the number I have and runs along a critical stretch

1:06of I-95, the main freight carter connecting everywhere in the East Coast for Miami to the Canadian border. But the highway is also falling apart. Five of its bridges were built before 1960 and the state says repairs can't wait. So, Governor Hoekle, if you haven't heard this yet, and the New York State Department of Transportation have put forward a $900 million plan to repair five of those bridges. But the project would also widen the highway's footprint, pushing traffic and pollution 50 feet closer to the Bronx River houses in particular, public housing complex where more than 3,000 residents already lived just across the street along one stretch of the Cross Bronx. So, today, the state faces a federal deadline to submit its chosen plan for environmental review and once that happens, it becomes much harder to stop.

2:06So, there's the news hook. This is happening today. Joining me now are two advocates who oppose the expansion, Sardartha Sanchez, executive director of the group called the Bronx River Alliance and CP, a local resident of the area and member of the group, mothers on the move. Sardartha and CP, thank you for coming on. Welcome to WNYC. Thank you, Brian. Have a nice day. Thank you. Sardartha, let me invite you first to brief our listeners on your group, the Bronx River Alliance. It's dedicated to the Bronx River itself. Yes, people in Queens, there is such a thing. What has the Cross Bronx Expressway done to the river over the decades and the surrounding areas? Yes, thank you, Brian, for the opportunity to share about our work and the impact of the Cross Bronx. The work of the Bronx River Alliance has really grounded in reclaiming and restoring New York City's only freshwater river.

3:08Incredibly, that river was a toxic sewer for a very long time and over the last 50 years community has worked with government and industry to really clean the river up and expand access, creating new parks and the impact of the Cross Bronx cannot be understated. In this case, I work in a park called Starlight Park. It's in the heart of the South Bronx and is considered the green lung of the South Bronx in many ways because of its location. The Cross Bronx crosses over Starlight Park and pollutes not just the park, but the adjacent housing. I'm glad you referenced Bronx River houses, just a hundred feet away from the Cross Bronx right now and with the state's proposal would be even closer. The truth is that back in 2023, the state built a ramp connecting to the Cross Bronx and that was the most recent impact that the highway had on the river when they built that ramp,

4:13the ramp that was there before was demolished and the debris from that demolition was actually put into the river in a way that was unlawful and very problematic, in addition to all of the other impacts with construction and air quality over the decades. CCP, tell us a little bit about your story. I see you live right next to the highway. So what does that actually feel like day to day and then tell us a little bit about the group you're in, mothers on the move? Good morning and thank you so much for having me as well. Yeah, I live right down the hill from Starlight Park. I live adjacent to the Cross Bronx Expressway in a residential area in the Bronx. I have lived, worked, raised my children, now my grandchildren in the South Bronx in this area. And the Cross Bronx Expressway has always been a part of my life because we always lived

5:19adjacent to the Cross Bronx from east to west and then back again from west to east. And on a daily, daily basis, I see traffic backed up and you know you calling it the Cross Bronx Expressway, the Cross Bronx Highway, but we live in this corridor call it the parking lot because it is always backed up, it is always traffic and that traffic always has an overflow right into the residential areas. And you mentioned about the expansion of a ramp that goes directly to the Cross Bronx from the Sheridan, now it's called the Boulevard, but it used to be Expressway. And as a member of mothers on the move, we worked very, very hard for years to have that

6:20highway completely shut down. They didn't do it. Then we worked very, very hard to try to do a redesign of the Sheridan Expressway, which they now call the Boulevard. And the only thing that has happened is that there is more traffic on residential streets now, track the trailers, buses, everything because the only access now to get to from, let's say, Westchester Avenue and Whitlock is you have to come, you have to traverse Longfellow Avenue, which is a one way to go to the Cross Bronx and to go over the Blue Bridge. Both of my daughters, my mother, my grandfather, so many people in my family have had asthma. And in the beginning we thought, oh, it might be something genetic. And then we realized, no, it's not genetic.

7:20What it is is that we live in the corridor, a car asthma alley, and it's horrible when you think about the fact that in the South Bronx, we have always been a sacrificed zone. We have always been, let's do whatever we can to the people in the South Bronx. Has it anyone that maybe those Bronx residents are people of color, Latin, Latin and black and Caribbean and Asian and Indian, that we are sacrificed for what, for more commerce? And I personally, go ahead, you can finish the thought. No, and I personally have worked very, very, very hard and diligently through so many other organizations do talking to my neighbors and trying to do something about it. And the fact that the state and Governor Hoko, who calls herself, she's just a Buffalo

8:24Mar and Grandma, I find it very interesting that none of these types of things are happening upstate New York, none of these types of things are happening in other residential areas in the Bronx. It's interesting that you mentioned Longfellow Avenue, which is the first time anybody's ever mentioned Longfellow Avenue on the show, because that happens to be the street on which my mother grew up and to which I used to go as a kid, very frequently, to visit her parents who were, her parents who were of course my grandparents. And there's anybody with proximity to the Cross Bronx Expressway as a resident, want to call in or anybody who's a frequent driver on the Cross Bronx Expressway, want to call in on this plan to repair old bridges there and widen it, 212433, WNYC, 212433, 9692,

9:27call or text for our guests, CP, who is just speaking, local resident and member of the group, mothers on the move, and Sardartha Sanchez, executive director of the Bronx River Alliance. So I'm going to throw some of the state's arguments at you too and see how you respond. So Sardartha, the state says, for example, the widening isn't adding travel lanes, no more cars. It's adding shoulders to meet federal interstate design standards and shoulders save lives. So you can obviously pull over if there's something wrong with your car. Is your argument that those standards shouldn't apply here or that there's a way to meet them without expanding the footprint? Why, why object to a widening that doesn't add more lanes, therefore doesn't add more vehicles? Yeah, I think that's a great point to highlight. The truth is that what we understand after reviewing over 5,000 pages of technical documents over the holidays, the comment period for the

10:32environmental assessment was between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We understand that this is actually not required. It is a policy choice. It's shoulders are discretionary, and in this case arbitrary, other highways in New York City, even haven't included shoulders, and it is based on the place and the context that that decision is made. I would say expanding by 50 feet is significant because of the impact to community. Most directly, Bronx River houses, as you mentioned, would be 50 feet away, really a stone snow away from the highway, and already community in that development hasn't been able to open their windows for decades and suffers from air quality impacts. It also pushes out into Starlight Park in a way that is unnecessary. It expands the highway through mature canopy. The tree buffers the very few mature canopy that we

11:41have, buffering the air quality and noise from the highway would be cut down and the impact to the park would be bigger. Right, but the state says it already listened because it scrapped the connector road over Starlight Park, correct? They did, and we felt like we were at the table and in dialogue with the state back in October when they made that decision, but when they came out with the technical documents in November, the three proposals still proposed to expand the highway by up to 50 feet and did not listen to our most basic requests, which is build the standard bridge repair project here. Let's keep it to the footprint of the existing expressway. Let's really look at how do we mitigate the impact of the highway and reduce traffic on the highway, investing in other measures. What about the standard bridge repair project, as Sardartha just called, that these bridges were built before 1960 and are structurally deficient. The state says they say they pose a safety risk. We could think of some awful incidents that have happened elsewhere,

12:47where bridges along the highway have collapsed and therefore repairs can't wait. Do you object to that too, at mothers on the move? Oh, yeah, we do, because first of all, we know that the state and all of the officials and people that are involved, they say one thing and they do the complete opposite of that. If they really cared about safety and wellness and the well-being, it would seem to me that the first priority would be the resident who are directly impacted by this new expansion. I have no idea what entails girding up a bridge, but it just seems like to me, it shouldn't have to include all of this fancy, fancy stuff. The most ironic thing is that Starlight Park just went through a beautiful, beautiful renovation. They spent millions of

13:48dollars to make it a pristine and beautiful park and I cannot believe that anything that they're trying to do or that they will do will not impact that beautiful park and there's going to be just by default a certain amount of deforestation. You just have to just have some common sense and that they cared honestly about the wellness and the well-being and the health of people. They wouldn't be talking about what they're doing. It seemed like to me just throw a couple more, one of those things, you know, that holds up the bridge, just more bolts, more, you know, a stronger like it. Yeah, the post, I don't know what they're called. Yeah. Serita, you know, just whatever that is. I wanted to chime in and say, you know, to be clear, the coalition is not against the rebuilding of the cross Bronx despite the harm that it's caused, despite the hospitalization of children that you referenced, right? We understand that it serves

14:49the region, it's an artery, it's critical, but we should and as Serita said, it should be built for the first time it should be built with community in mind, right? Not just with commerce in mind and so how do we do both? How do we rebuild the cross Bronx? These five bridges, the whole corridor needs to be rebuilt from what we understand, but this section will set precedent. How do we rebuild it in a way that also accounts for the fact that, you know, this has a huge impact on the surrounding community and this, you know, this jewel of a park that was just recently expanded two years ago, the park was, you know, the ribbon cutting for the park expansion happened and, you know, 40 plus million dollars in the last few years was invested into this park. So any further impact than is absolutely necessary is just, you know, untenable. So how do you, what's your solution version as opposed to just your opposition? Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to share that. I think we've been trying to share, you know, solutions and alternatives that are grounded in, you know, center and community from the beginning.

15:55You know, I could, I could go on and on. I think there's a lot of ideas in terms of that, but I'll highlight two examples, you know, one, one example is the state is still proposing to, to room to take part of a site that is currently a concrete plant right next to Bronx River houses. So the state is planning to expand the highway over this site and, you know, instead of expanding the highway over this site, it would be, you know, really important to look at that site as a way to expand parks or expand a connection to the Starlight Park that is right next to that concrete plant or even housing, right? Like the reality of how do we take sites that are contaminating and causing further, compounding problems further and make them part of the solution. The other idea that I'll say is, you know, investing in the work that we've been doing, right? Connecting young people and community to caring for parks, increasing access to nature.

16:55I think those are the types of investments and the types of initiatives that need to be part of this new cross Bronx and this new leadership at the state, right? We're not in the Robert Moses era. We need to see bold, innovative solutions that mitigate the impact of the cross Bronx. Anthony, do we have Anthony? Anthony, ready? I'm not sure Anthony's ready. So I'm going to go to add in the Bronx. First, add your own WNYC. Hello. Hello, good morning and I really appreciate you having this conversation. I'm a community member who spent most of my life living in the footprint of the cross Bronx to share it in. The Brockner, the branch of a parkway and I worked on this campaign with Sid and many others and two things that haven't really been discussed about is one is the noise pollution. That zip code that's happening is one of the loudest zip codes in the state of New York. That's from construction on the highways. That's from the trucks zipping by. That's from all the cars that are sitting there often honking their horns and parking. But we need to look at how much noise pollution factors in as well as air pollution and the other types of

17:58pollution. And this is also what Sid just mentioned now. This is very much a Robert Moses like project. Community hasn't had the opportunity to really get involved since the very beginning. There's been multiple times that there's been opportunities that have been missed or just not taken up by the state. And instead of just focusing on how do we make things better, the state seems to be generally interested in creating Robert Moses like projects. The van Wick expanded, the Brockner expanded, the Brockner and Parkway expanded. We cannot continue to expand across Bronx, especially if they're going to look to do this at other parts of the highway. There's no doubt that other parts of the cross Bronx need to get repaired. If we let them expand it here, they will expand it in other parts as well. Ed, thank you very much for your call. Sid Arthur and CP, whatever happened to the plan that we've done a previous segment about on this to cap the cross Bronx Expressway, to try to basically trap a lot of those

18:58vehicle emissions within a structure and maybe put a park on top of it. That was a plan that was getting CP if you want to take that first if you're if you're familiar with it. That was the conversation that we were having just a few years ago about renovating the cross Bronx Expressway. And that doesn't even seem to be getting mentioned here in this thing. The state is trying to win approval of today. Is that an act of conversation? Is that something that community members even would like to see or think would make a difference? And whatever happened to that? That's a really good question and I do remember being on being a part of a coalition to have a vision about how to redesign the cross Bronx Expressway and having these walkways and parks so that neighborhoods could be connected. And that was something that most people who were in on those talks were agreeable to. And you're right, I completely forgot all about that because

20:03you we never heard anything more about it. I know that I haven't. And to touch on what the last caller just said, I can set my watch by every traffic rush hour. The noise there's no doubt about it. I live right there and I hear horns honking, buses honking, tractor trailer trucks, all of that from seven a.m. to at least six thirty seven p.m. That's just those are the rush hour times. And again, living in the living right at the foot of all of this stuff that's happening, living on Longfellow Avenue, which is a one-way street going north. Now that is a corridor for buses, NTA buses, that's a corridor for trucks, tractor trailer trucks, especially when

21:04there's any little problem on the cross Bronx Expressway. So does that anything about that capping idea? Sure. I'm glad you raised it and I'm glad you covered it in the past. You know, the state and the city spent years working with community and in what was called the reimagining the cross Bronx vision plan, but originally was capping the cross Bronx to your point Brian, I'm glad you know that history. The reality is that what we understand is that the reimagining vision is something that is, you know, we've been told by the State Department of Transportation, something long term that needs to be implemented, studied further and then implemented, you know, in 10 plus years, you know, from now and I think the reality is that in the meantime we're talking about a state of good, you know, repair projects, something that is urgent because the infrastructure is falling apart and what the community would like to see, what this coalition that we're a part of would

22:09like to see is something that, you know, acknowledges that this reimagining vision was work that we all did together and, you know, yes, we are rebuilding the cross Bronx this year, next year, and the next couple years and we're doing it in a way that is causing the least possible harm while also, you know, doing things that are complementing the future vision of a reimagined cross Bronx, right? And I don't think that's happening. I think all that's happening is, you know, it's not even standard bridge repair, it's an expansion of the cross Bronx, you know, cloaked under the, you know, the need to build this as fast as possible. Community has said over and over again, even if it takes more years of construction impacts, they'd rather see two more years of construction impact than decades of harm. Even the technical study that was shared the environmental assessment that came out from the state says that the VMTs, the vehicle miles traveled will increase by a percentage once

23:10the expressways rebuilt. So, you know, the projections show an increase in usage, but there is an investment in mitigation or, you know, traffic reduction, including, you know, busways nearby avenues, right, to get local traffic off the cross Bronx. Let me take a call from somebody who apparently does drive the cross Bronx Expressway, a truck driver, Ismail in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Ismail, thanks so much for calling in. Hi, how are you? Good. What's it got for us? So, no, you know, just wanted to put my input as a truck driver. Well, me personally, I avoid the cross Bronx, you know, cost of the truck driver. That noise pollution, it's awful. You mask this winter with all the snow that we've had. I've been working with sanitation as well with the snow removal, and this is sanitation officers right next to the cross Bronx. I forgot

24:11exactly where it is, but right next to the cross Bronx, and just standing in that office, you can hear all that traffic from that highway. And I just think how awful it is every time I have to drive myself with my truck, and I have a pretty old truck, so it's a lot louder. It's awful. I really feel bad for the resident who really lives throughout that whole highway, right next to that highway, it's like that amount of noise. And in terms of infrastructure, listen, I get it. A lot of trucks that coming in from New Jersey or gotta go off-state, they really don't have much of an option. Cross Bronx really is their best bet. And believe me, we cannot stand that traffic, as truck drivers, we cannot stand it. We try to avoid it. We personally, I do dump, dump work, so I do stone, sandwork, etc. When I gotta come from upstate, loaded with stone, we have overweight

25:13permits. That's 117,000 pounds that we do as the dump trailer guys. And that plays a huge role. I'm sure with the whole crumbling infrastructure of that highway, I take- Because there aren't many alternative routes, if any, that are highways that allow trucks on, as opposed to just cars, right, this way? No, yeah, we use every limited year in New York. I give an example with me being an overweight truck driver. If I'm somewhere in the west side of the Bronx, and I gotta get into Queens or if I gotta go to Rowland, I can't take the RFK bridge, I just can't do it by law, because there's a weight restriction on that bridge. So I would have to take the cross Bronx Expressway to go to the drugs next bridge, thus my only option, whether I like it or not. So as somebody with kind of both interests, you get it about the

26:14impact on people who live near there, but you also need it for your work as a driver in the way you described. Is there a solution that you could think of that satisfies both needs as well as possible? I've thought about it. Honestly, I understand the hate for the expansion, and I think a lot of history showing that adding more lanes typically doesn't help, but cross Bronx, it really, really is a narrow highway. Even at night, when there really isn't that much traffic, it's still a tight squeeze. I really, maybe the expansion really isn't the worst idea, it might be the best idea. I can't think of another one. Obviously, I'm not gonna carve a hole, yeah, okay. Thank you. Thank you for your two cents. Do call us again. I really appreciate your call. CP, last question. We've been talking about this in terms of a decision being made by the

27:21state and Governor Hokel, and they're looking for approval in that proceeding today, but we haven't talked about the city. The city has authority on the streets around it. You brought this up a few minutes ago. May a Mamdani controls the Tremont Avenue busway, which advocates say is a critical alternative for more than 36,000 daily riders. That's on the BX-36. Mamdani just restarted the Fordham Road busway, or at least a proposal for that, which is controversial along there, but Tremont is still really stalled. What does fast tracking actually require, and with the new mayor's interest in the health of neighborhoods, does Mamdani have a say here? Well, that's a really interesting question in the fact that when I know that when I was

28:22trying to get a petition to stop all of the bus, the MTA buses from coming through Longfellow Avenue from 172nd Street, I was then told, that's a DLT issue, and then I was like, okay, so who do I ride and try to get a conversation with that? Then I found out through this exploration that it's state DLT, NYC DLT, and everybody, every federal DLT, and then, you know, oh, this one controls that. So I personally have no clue, but what I do know is that for once people have to take, the officials have to take the people who are most impacted and stop treating us who are most impacted, like low-hanging food. They have to stop treating us. They have to stop treating the people

29:26who live here, like we don't matter because we do matter, and the South Bronx is a wonderful place to live, but every, the challenges just make it so much more difficult. The cross-bronced expressway, the Sheridan now Boulevard, you know, all of these things are wonderful, and they do help with commerce, commerce that comes through our neighborhoods. They don't help our neighborhoods. So honestly, I don't know what, how it can be mitigated through the mayor. I have no idea, but I do know that we need more buses, we need more public transportation, we do need those things, and the ones that are already in place need to be better effective, more effective. So today is, let me just jump in because we're at a time and say the state faces a federal

30:29deadline of today to submit its chosen plan for environmental review, and that's why these advocates have been on arguing for the plan to at least be revised before they do submit it. Sir Arthur, do you want to just chime in like really briefly on what I just asked C.P. about? Has Mayor Mamdoni weighed in at all on your side or the state side, and if not, are you disappointed? I think the city's been responsive and at the table with this project, I think they're part of the long-term solution in terms of reimagining the cross-bronks and implementing that vision. And I will say there's already infrastructure to Ismail's point, there's already infrastructure in place that the city is backing and the industry business community is backing to resolve the issue or minimize the issue of trucks on the cross-bronks. That is putting trucks and freight on the water and using what's called blue highways, some of that infrastructure is going into Hunts Point,

31:33and we want to see more of that, we want to see the state investing into that type of infrastructure, as well as rerouting trucks that are going from Maine to Florida, like how do we incentivize folks that don't have to go through the cross-bronks to take other northern routes? Sir Arthur Sanchez, Executive Director of the Bronx River Alliance, and CP, a local resident of the area and member of the group, mothers on the move. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Brian. Thank you. Since WNYC's first broadcast in 1924, we've been dedicated to creating the kind of content we know the world needs. Since then, New York Public Radio's rigorous journalism has gone on to win a Peabody Award and a Dupont Columbia Award, among others. In addition to this award-winning reporting, your sponsorship also supports inspiring storytelling and extraordinary music that is free and accessible to all. To get in touch and find out more, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.