Posted on 04/27/2021 11:27:06 AM PDT by Impala64ssa
n 1948, a scar running west to east began to appear across the center of The Bronx.
It was the construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway, one of the many ill-conceived works of Robert Moses, and it would leave an indelible mark on our borough. The highway, which would eventually become one of America’s most congested, tore communities in half. White neighborhoods and communities of color were affected, but the Black and Latino community bears the brunt of its legacy years later — with devastating health consequences.
It’s past time to rectify the mistake of Moses’s monstrosity.
Ed García Conde Ed García Conde How? By capping portions of the highway with parks, as has been done in other cities with similarly destructive roads, like Dallas, which capped part of the Woodall Rodgers Freeway.
For the past few years, momentum has been building from Bronx residents across the borough fighting for environmental justice, such as Nilka Martell of Loving The Bronx from Parkchester, one of many neighborhoods greatly harmed by the expressway.
Martell has been working with local elected officials on capping a small portion of the expressway in her neighborhood. Now, with President Biden’s infrastructure plan, many of us are daring to dream big.
By beginning to cap the Cross Bronx, we can begin to help clean up the air in vulnerable communities — with the added benefit of creating land that can be used for open green spaces and critically needed affordable housing.
Not only would we help restitch Bronx communities that Moses destroyed, we would also help alleviate our housing crisis and abysmal health rankings, because fewer toxic fumes from an expressway would yield cleaner air and trigger less asthma.
It’s literally a matter of life and death, as the COVID-19 pandemic showed.
With the Cross Bronx carrying more than 200,000 vehicles spewing toxic fumes and particles such as nitric oxide into the air each day, asthma rates in The Bronx are among the worst in the nation. When the pandemic hit, The Bronx, with its largely Black and Latino population, registered the highest death rate in the city and one of the highest in the nation: A respiratory-tract infection, the coronavirus makes people with pre-existing conditions such as asthma all that more vulnerable.
So when Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that racism is built into our country’s highways, it wasn’t hyperbole, because it is these very communities that have been suffering from the negative effects of environmental racism for more than half a century.
Covering up the expressway would allow the road operate while letting our borough carry on with a greener, cleaner future for all.
Imagine a day in the future when you can walk across a park instead of a highway spewing deadly pollutants.
It’s possible. We just need the political will and muscle to make it happen.
According to a study led by Dr. Peter Muennig of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, in 2018, 2.4 miles of the expressway could be capped over by such “deck parks,” thus creating more green space.
“Deck parks can produce multiple health benefits. Most notably, they remove contact between pedestrians and automobiles. In doing so, they not only reduce [crashes], but they also encourage active, pollution-free transportation such as biking or jogging.” reports the 2018 study.
It goes on to indicate that “deck parks also place vehicles in a tunnel, thereby reducing noise and air pollution in surrounding neighborhoods. Finally, deck parks provide green space in which people can exercise and relax. In doing so, deck parks have the potential to reduce diabetes, heart disease, mental illness, cancer, low birth weight, and death associated with accidents.”
The study put a price tag of about $757 million, but the potential health benefits outweighing any upfront cost in the long term. Healthier people are less of a financial burden on our precarious health-care system.
In a borough where we have the highest rates of diabetes, asthma, obesity, and cardiovascular disease, we have a mandate to do right by our communities and those who not only live in them today but the generations that will call The Bronx home long after we’re all gone.
We deserve to live and breathe.
The moment to fix the Cross Bronx is now, while there is political will to spend our hard-earned tax dollars on one of the largest infrastructure proposals in our nation’s recent history.
Wouldn’t closing the freeways create gridlock on the surface streets?
I do believe that the Cross Bronx was a major reason why the adjoining neighborhoods became the worst in the city. Those who got a payout (including and especially property owners) took it and were not going to reinvest with the threat of further widening. Also consider the fact that the Bronx was “the suburbs” until after World War II - those fireproofed buildings with high ceilings were paradise for those leaving Manhattan from the 1910s to 1930s.
bookmark for later reading, gotta run
“When the pandemic hit, The Bronx, with its largely Black and Latino population, registered the highest death rate in the city and one of the highest in the nation”
Lolololol, I’m sure it’s the ‘rona that is fueling the death rates in the Bronx, and nothing else.
Of course. And more pollution as cars idle longer in the city streets where people walk and exercise. These people are morons. Or they are looking for more reasons to make EVs mandatory.
“deck parks also place vehicles in a tunnel, thereby reducing noise and air pollution in surrounding neighborhoods”
Do people actually believe that the pollution is staying inside the tunnel and not being immediately vented outside?!?
If I'm reading this article properly (and other web searches), "capping" a freeway means building over it or enclosing parts of it.
Essentially, capping a freeway means building park space over it, or retail space, or other improvements.
Artist rendition of capping I-405 in Portland, Oregon
Capping I-5 in Seattle, Washington
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-PJ
Manu Pt Authority cops and maintenance workers who spent most of their shifts in the tunnels ended up with serious respiratory problems.
I worked in Boston during the 1980s and my territory wen from the North End into South Boston. I cursed that elevated central expressway that ran through it. It cast a huge shadow over the area and all you heard all day was clattering trucks and noisy airbrakes above you as well as a nonstop rattling noise.
When they finally tore that thing down, it became very nice to walk around that area. Yes, it was the Big Dig and billions of dollars got wasted on graft and other corruption to put it all underground. But that's a separate issue. It needed to be done and Boston is much better for it.
Seems like there would be an economic inventive because the “caps” would create a marketable place for building in an area that land costs are high.
Seems a five or ten story “cap” would be very profitable. But would need roadway access... and, of course, wouldn’t reward Dem eco donors with what they want- money.
>> So when Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that racism is built into our country’s highways, it wasn’t hyperbole,
Yeah, it’s hyperbole. The guy’s an a-hole.
NYC is presently being destroyed in order to save it. Facts never get in the way of the grievance mongers. Who cares what race the people were whose buildings got bought out? It’s the Bronx for chrissakes. I’m surprised they haven’t torn down Yankee stadium yet, because we all know Babe Ruth was a racist/misogynist!
Here is an aerial picture of Margaret T Hanse Park over I-10 in Phoenix.
Yes, much of the Bronx especially the eastern part was pretty much rural until the post WW2 building boom. The Parkchester Apt Complex, that”Bronx tenement” AOC bragged about being born in was built over what was mainly farmland. Across the Hutchinson River Pkwy from where we lived was one of the first auto racing tracks built in the US, next to the old New Haven RR tracks(Metro North), now part of he Einstein Med Center
“more than 200,000 vehicles spewing toxic fumes and particles such as nitric oxide into the air each day”
Under our President’s plan by 2050 there will be no such vehicles on that road.
“Imagine a day in the future when you can walk across a park instead of a highway spewing deadly pollutants.”
So until 2050, when our President’s climate plan is perfected, the motorists will be choking on their own fumes?
“The Cross Bronx Expressway” is part of I-95.
Utter nonsense. The displaced got screwed. Read The Power Broker for some real life stories.
I’ve driven that tunnel many times, as it’s between Tucson and concert venues. I did not know there was something nice on top.
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