Reps. Torres, AOC Join to Oppose Hochul Effort to Widen Cross Bronx Expressway

Talk about a Bronx cheer.

Bronx Reps. Ritchie Torres and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have joined forces to oppose Gov. Hochul’s plan to widen the Cross Bronx Expressway with a pair of “connector roads” that would, in the words of the Democratic stars, “undermines the very goals” of reconnecting communities severed by Robert Moses.

In a letter to the governor, the reps wholeheartedly opposed the New York State Department of Transportation plan to build hulking, highway-sized roads on either side of the Cross Bronx, because the roads would expand the highway and work against the current effort to scale back the impacts the highway had on the south Bronx.

The pair called the proposed connector roads “a doubling down of Robert Moses’s policies.”

“As you know, the ‘Reimagining the Cross Bronx’ project seeks to undo the generational economic and health impacts the Cross Bronx Expressway has had on the South Bronx,” Torres and Ocasio-Cortez wrote to Hochul in a letter they shared exclusively with Streetsblog. This new connector road – in its current proposed form – undermines the very goals of the ‘Reimagining the Cross Bronx’ study.”

One proposed connector road would be built from Boston Road to Rosedale Avenue to function as a highway bypass while the state demolishes and rebuilds five elevated sections of the Cross Bronx.

State DOT initially said that the plan for the bypass road was to keep it in place and convert it to a four-lane road with an eastbound and westbound lane for cars and trucks and a dedicated bus lane (although it’s unclear what bus service would materialize) with a shared bike and pedestrian path. Neighborhood activists cried foul at the plan since it would represent a de facto expansion of the Cross Bronx, and add another gigantic overpass above Starlight Park and the Bronx River.

The state is currently designing a second connector road to the west of the first one, between Webster and Third avenues, as part of a different effort to repair elevated sections of the Cross Bronx. The larger idea for the connector road comes from a 2004 state DOT study that proposed building what amounts to a five-mile service road next to the Cross Bronx between University and Havemeyer avenues.

“Our offices firmly believe that continuing to scar the South Bronx with more highways runs counter to the environmental and public health needs of our constituents,” they wrote.

The Congressional reps ended their letter with a demand that state DOT give a thorough accounting of what it is planning to do with the connector roads after the highway repair projects are done, if DOT is taking a serious look at ways to repair the elevated highway sections without building a bypass road and if the connector roads have to go in, whether they can be turned into bike and pedestrian-only paths in the future.

State DOT did recently tell state elected officials that it is looking at the possibility of turning the connector road between Boston Road and Rosedale Avenue into a bike and pedestrian path. But that idea is only one of three possibilities, with two of the other alternatives the agency is looking at still focused on adding space for private vehicles on a highway-sized piece of concrete and steel.

A spokesperson for the governor said that Hochul is reviewing the letter.