The city and state could "cap" the Cross-Bronx Expressway in parts of the borough torn apart by master builder Robert Moses decades ago — if officials can find "large amounts" of money to make it happen, according to a new report.
Thirteen locations along the 4.5-mile highway "could be potentially feasible" to deck over with parks and other public space — but not without further study and funding from the state and federal government, according to the two-year study released on Monday.
"Seeing beyond what’s there today — in this case, a highway trench that divides neighborhoods across the Bronx, increasing asthma rates and decreasing safety and walkability — towards what can be isn’t always easy," outgoing Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi said in a statement.
Advocates, politicians, and experts have for years pushed to cover the hated scar that cuts through the Bronx, which displaced some 60,000 when Moses built it between 1948-1972. The call got the ear of then-President Biden, whose U.S. Department of Transportation awarded a $2-million grant in late 2022 to study the feasibility of covering over the highway.
More than 200,000 vehicles use and cross the expressway each day, and it has the highest share of freight traffic compared to other major city highways at 18 percent, and the residents around the roadway have higher rates of diseases like asthma, hypertension and diabetes.
The new report [PDF] from the state Department of Transportation and its city counterpart along with the departments of Health and City Planning provides a blueprint for capping the Cross-Bronx. Gov. Hochul has eyed using federal funds to spend $900 million on repairing and potentially widening the Cross-Bronx, but that money would be better spent on building over the highway, according to one local advocate.
"The long term, that’s the takeaway, that these things can feasibly be done," said Nilka Martell, the founder of the advocacy group Loving the Bronx, which has pushed for capping the Cross Bronx since 2016.
"Nine years ago people were like, 'You’re crazy, the highway can never be capped,'" Martell said.
The report did not put a price tag on the projects, but an optimistic 2018 study by Columbia Prof. Peter Muenning estimated putting a lid on the 2.4-mile below-grade stretch of the highway would come in at $757 million.
With the Trump Administration unlikely put federal money behind the concept, the city and state could instead do some sections on their own, Martell said.
"At least cap some of these sections, and really use it as a catalyst and show, look what can be done," said Nilka Martell, the founder of the advocacy group Loving the Bronx, which has pushed for capping the Cross Bronx since 2016. "This isn’t all going to be done in one shot."
The study covered the span from the Harlem River to the Westchester Creek as part of the Biden administration's "Reconnecting Communities" program, which aimed to start the process of undoing decades of noise, segregation and pollution wrought by highway infrastructure on communities across the country.
Officials zeroed in on three potentially "transformative" Cross-Bronx covers, but the study noted that they will need more study and government funding to become a reality.
"Long-term transformative project concepts, including potential highway caps, would require close collaboration and large amounts of city, state and federal funding to implement," the report said.
For starters, the city and state could reconnect the stretch between Macombs Road and Walton Avenue in the West Bronx to boost the commercial hub around Jerome Avenue for pedestrians and cyclists while cutting noise and adding open space, according to the report. Officials could also cover the highway between Crotona Park and Walter Gladwin Park — stitching green space back together that the highway bifurcated starting in the late 1940s.
The areas on either side of the Hugh J. Grant Circle in Parkchester could also be capped to improve open spaces and traffic safety, the study said.
The report cited potential short- and mid-term upgrades in the study area, which covers a half-mile north and south of the highway — many of them already announced. For example, city DOT is already preparing a busway for a half-mile stretch of Tremont Avenue, a key east-west transit corridor that runs parallel to the Cross-Bronx.
Bus ridership on east-west bus routes in the borough is three times the citywide average — even though buses run 25 percent slower, according to the report.
Another $5.6-million chunk of Reconnecting Communities funding is slated to help design streetscape improvements along two sections of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
The Biden initiative received mixed reviews after only a handful of its more than 250 projects actually sought to reduce highway capacity. Some actually proposed widening the destructive roads.
Two key lawmakers on the Hill who backed the study, Rep. Ritchie Torres and Sen. Chuck Schumer, vowed to keep lobbying for federal dollars.
"This is just the beginning. The Bronx has waited long enough, and we won’t stop fighting until this vision becomes reality. We will push for every federal dollar needed to right this historic wrong and ensure the Bronx gets the investment, beneficial infrastructure and respect it deserves," the pols said in a joint statement.
