""I stand shoulder‑to‑shoulder with community groups demanding: fix the bridges - but don't build a park‑spanning bypass. Instead, invest in highway capping, green buffers, clean transit service, and safe walking and biking paths." The Bronx has once again been offered a hollow promise: Gov. Kathy Hochul and the State Department of Transportation's so‑called " Five Bridges Project" comes dressed as infrastructure repair, but it really doubles down on the Cross Bronx Expressway's legacy of environmental injustice."
"Yes: these bridges need repair. And yes: safety upgrades and better pedestrian, bicycle, and transit access are overdue. But widening the corridor and cementing more highway lanes won't heal the Bronx-it will deepen the scar. We've lived this pattern before: zoning, dust, disruptions, air pollution. Countless families already can't open windows due to lingering fumes; adding permanent traffic capacity only accelerates respiratory illness, noise, water runoff, and climate harm."
The Five Bridges Project is framed as a $900 million rehabilitation of five aging bridges along a one‑mile corridor, but includes a new elevated four‑lane roadway over the Bronx River that would increase highway capacity rather than community access. Local coalitions, nonprofits, schools, and residents mobilized to demand a full environmental impact statement and community‑led alternatives. Elected representatives co‑signed letters urging rejection of elevated bypasses reminiscent of Robert Moses‑era destruction. Community priorities include highway capping, green buffers, clean transit service, and safe pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure to reduce pollution, health harms, and climate impacts.
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