NYDOT Planning Further Cross Bronx Highway Expansion

The New York State Department of Transportation is planning another expansion to the Cross Bronx Expressway, according to an article by Dave Colon in Streetsblog NYC. The information came from a Freedom of Information law request filed by Streetsblog.

“As part of a project to replace an elevated section of the Cross Bronx Expressway between Webster and Third avenues beginning in 2027, the state DOT is also moving ahead with a second piece of its so-called ‘community connector’ beyond what it is already planning between Boston Road and Rosedale Avenue.” While the agency claims the project will “tentatively include” a bus priority lane and shared use path, Colon calls this ‘greenwashing.’

Colon adds, “The project is being pitched as stitching the Bronx back together after it was torn apart by highways, but it is, as a practical matter, a five-mile long service road for the Cross Bronx itself.” 

The vast majority of the proposed road would be new construction, and Colon points out that “The project itself also works directly against the goals of the project to cap below grade sections of the Cross Bronx Expressway, which the federal, state and city DOT are currently working on. If the connector road project was completed as envisioned, the parks created on the capped sections of the highway would be bound in by the 45-mile-per-hour connector road.”