New York Scraps Cross Bronx Highway Expansion

The New York Department of Transportation announced it will no longer move forward with a planned “traffic diversion” on the Cross Bronx Expressway that Streetsblog NYC exposed as amounting to a highway expansion.

As Dave Colon explains, “The state DOT first suggested that it would build a four-lane road to carry traffic while the elevated pieces of the highway were knocked down and repaired, and then keep the road as a ‘community connector’ with one lane of auto traffic, a bus lane and, possibly, infrastructure for bikes and pedestrians.”

Environmental and community advocates have been fighting the proposal since it was announced last year as a “community connector,” noting that it would add two lanes of elevated traffic next to the existing roadway. “Reporting by Streetsblog also revealed that the "community connector" idea was developed by the state twenty years ago and involved building a four-mile long four lane road with a 45 mile per hour speed limit.”

The state initially proposed making the new roadway bike- and pedestrian-only, or adding a bike/ped path on the Cross Bronx itself. “The other option on the table, which will now be considered in an upcoming environmental assessment, is not building the diversion structure at all and a staged repair process for the bridges. That option also includes the possibility for a shared use path on the side of the expressway.”