This highway expansion is on the ropes.
The state Department of Transportation is contemplating nixing its plan to build a highway-sized traffic diversion road alongside the Cross-Bronx Expressway, officials said on Wednesday — a remarkable turnaround after Streetsblog exposed the plan to dump more cars onto the Boogie Down last year.
NYSDOT had planned to build a "traffic diversion" structure to keep traffic moving while it fixed an elevated slice of the expressway between Boston Road and Bronx River Parkway. Officials then planned to keep the structure, which would run partly over a park, as a "community connector" with lanes for general traffic and buses and a path for pedestrians and cyclists.
Now community outrage — and media coverage — over what would essentially expand the highway has forced NYSDOT to change its plans. The agency now has several options for the project, including the highway widening, make the diversion structure bus-, bike- and pedestrian-only or not building it at all and putting a bike and pedestrian path directly next to the rebuilt elevated highway.
NYSDOT is currently gathering public feedback on the project before it releases an environmental assessment this summer, which will include a look at the impacts of each option on the table. Officials will announce their final determination in September.
Public input could have a big impact on what the EA assesses, Catherine Leslie, an official who heads the agency's EIS and Special Projects Bureau, said at an open house on Wednesday.
According to Leslie, "some of the project possibilities won't be in the EA itself." That determination will be made in part based on the public reaction to the construction options, she said.
South Bronx advocates who have been pushing back against the diversion plan celebrated the news that the state is willing to change the project.
"We're glad to hear that the DOT is willing to listen to the community, which means they'll hear that this isn't the right plan," said Bronx River Alliance Executive Director Siddartha Sanchez. "Expanding the Cross Bronx Expressway will only bring more pollution and harm to our neighborhoods. Our position is clear: We want to fix the bridge without adding a new highway structure. We urge DOT to abandon this expansion and work with the community on equitable alternatives that actually serve our needs."
The state has argued that by knocking down the viaduct and rebuilding it, the highway repair project could be done in four years instead of six, and the diversion road could remain to create a new east-west connection in a borough where only 12 roads actually cross the entire landmass. Right now, the most direct local street route in the area over the Bronx River is going across 174th Street or 177th Street and East Tremont Avenue.
Even as the DOT has suggested that it could reconfigure or shrink the diversion structure for a bus-only or even a car-free option, environmental advocates have objected to creating a new east-west connection in the area with something they see as overbuilt and looming over a park.
One member of the public brought that issue up on at Wednesday's open house after seeing what the state was considering building.
"Everything's gonna be at the highway level for the most part, and seeing how it gets circuitous, it just really seems counterintuitive," said Bronx resident Aazam Otero.
"When I'm looking at this as somebody who bikes around, I think do I want to go around all this stuff, or do I want just get on the 174th Street Bridge and go across? With some of the options it doesn't necessarily seem like I would be drawn to them."
Members of the public can weigh in on the project at open house at the Bronx River Art Center (1087 E Tremont Ave) on Saturday, June 7 from 12 pm. to 2 p.m. or at the Five Bridges repair project website
