Environmental advocates with the Stop the Cross Bronx Expansion Coalition and Bronx elected officials on Tuesday called on Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Department of Transportation to look beyond their plans to repair the Cross Bronx Expressway and commit, not just to reconstruction, but to traffic reduction and solutions to stop polluting.
Gathering at the Fulton Fish Market in Hunts Point, groups including the Bronx River Alliance, the Point CDC and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign said the state’s $900 million “5 Bridges Project” focuses on repairing aging infrastructure but does not meaningfully address the highway’s long-standing environmental toll. They urged officials to support a series of alternatives, most prominently the Hunts Point Blue Highways program, that would shift freight to waterways and remove trucks from local streets.
“Hunts Point’s new marine terminal shows exactly what the Bronx needs: smart freight solutions that get dirty trucks off our streets,” said Siddhartha Sánchez, executive director of Bronx River Alliance. “After suffering decades of pollution and sickness from the Cross Bronx and other major highways, moving goods onto blue highways will clean our air without breaking the bank.”
The Blue Highways project will bring two new marine terminals to Hunts Point to move more goods by water instead of by truck. These projects are expected to cut about 1,000 truck trips per month and ease traffic around the South Bronx, according to city plans.
Community leaders like Sánchez and Nilka Martell, founder and director of Loving the Bronx, say they want to align the city, state and the community’s goals in transforming the Cross Bronx Expressway by focusing on strategies that take trucks off local streets, not just rebuild the highway.
“What’s happening here at Hunts Point is exactly what Governor Hochul and the State Department of Transportation should get behind,” Martell said.
She said that people in the South Bronx have been “asking for cleaner air and safer streets for decades.”
“Shifting freight off of highways and onto blue highways will unlock cleaner air, less traffic and new job opportunities for our local communities beset by decades of pollution,” Martell said.” If you’re from the South Bronx, you know how long we’ve been waiting for smart transit and freight solutions for our neighborhoods.”
Assembly Member Emérita Torres, who represents District 85 —a part of the South Bronx, including neighborhoods like Hunts Point, Longwood and Soundview— said that it was time for New York City to join other successful water-freight programs like ones in Brussels and Amsterdam. She said that the city’s blue highways are an underused resource.
“New York City has over 520 miles of waterways, yet we use only a fraction of them while our streets grow more congested and our neighborhoods pay the price,” Torres said.
After years of advocacy, community groups are making headway. State transportation officials have withdrawn several earlier plans for the Cross Bronx overhaul, including a proposal for a mile-long elevated roadway.
Yet, advocates say the remaining options still do not address highway traffic or pollution and could include expanding the highway’s footprint to include a new path for pedestrians and cyclists on each side.
The coalition of environmental groups are urging the state to abandon the remaining expansion proposal for a shared-use path along the expressway, complete required bridge repairs without widening the roadway and work with residents on measures that would cut traffic and reduce pollution like the Blue Highways initiative.
Environmental groups say those steps are necessary to ensure the state’s plans do more than repair aging structures. They want the Cross Bronx project to confront the highway’s broader legacy— decades of pollution, congestion and health disparities in some of the city’s most overburdened neighborhoods.
Reach Sadie Brown at sbrown@schnepsmedia.com or (214) 994-6723. For more coverage, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!
