NYSDOT Suspends $900 Million ‘Cross Bronx Expressway Five Bridges Project
NEW YORK— A major traffic improvement project planned for the next six years on the Cross Bronx Expressway has been shelved by the New York State Department of Transportation.
New York State Department of Transportation New York City Regional Director Erik Koester announced on May 18 that NYSDOT will be suspending further study on the $900-million Cross Bronx Expressway Five Bridges Project.
In a statement released on Monday, Regional Director Koester stated that the DOT has been listening to community feedback for the last two years and last year significantly scaled back some components of the project. “Despite our best good faith efforts to bring this safety project forward, we have been unable to come to an agreement on how to successfully advance this project. As a result, the State Department of Transportation will not be releasing the final Environmental Assessment on the Cross Bronx Expressway Five Bridges Project and will suspend the project,” Koester stated.
He added that NYSDOT will continue to monitor the bridges contained in the project and will make repairs if required to preserve safety in that corridor of the Bronx.
The five bridges, which are located between Boston Road and Rosedale Avenue, were constructed between 1947 and 1958, and do not meet modern design standards for safety. They have suffered significant deterioration and have reached the end of their service lives, NYSDOT officials stated during the environmental review.
As part of the ongoing environmental review process, several design options were initially considered to accommodate traffic during construction and provide multi-modal connectivity. Four of the options included the use of a traffic diversion structure to detour expressway traffic away from the construction area, easing congestion and allowing construction to proceed at an expedited pace. Those options were dismissed based on public feedback, NYSDOT stated.
According to the now defunct project timeline on the NYSDOT website, the final Environmental Assessment was to be released early this year and construction to commence later this year with project completion slated for 2032. Critics of the Cross Bronx Expressway Five Bridges Project had argued that it would worsen the Bronx’s already poor air quality.
Streetsblog NYC reported that one of the groups who lobbied heavily against the Five Bridge plan hailed the NYSDOT decision to suspend the project.
“Last fall, state DOT scrapped some of the worst proposals on the table, thanks to the tireless advocacy of our Bronx communities [but] DOT’s remaining plans included a 50-foot expansion that would’ve brought the Cross Bronx Expressway even closer to the 3,000 families at Bronx River Houses, and threatened more than 64,000 local residents with toxic pollution and sickness in the decades to come,” Siddhartha Sánchez, executive director of the Bronx River Alliance, said in a statement. “We are still willing to work with officials toward an equitable repair plan that protects the health and safety of all Bronxites.”
