Capping The Cross-Bronx: Infrastructure Bill To Be Used To Undo Robert Moses-Era Environmental Racism (Greenwich: real estate, rentals)
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Money from the recently passed $1 trillion federal infrastructure bill is going to be used to launch a project in the East Bronx to put a cap over a two-mile section of the Cross Bronx Expressway.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Rep. Ritchie Torrres, and other elected officials gathered at a park overlooking a sunken portion of the Expressway Tuesday to announce the first step—funding for a study on how to best mitigate vehicle pollution responsible for some of the highest asthma rates in the country.
“This expressway, built by Robert Moses, is one of the greatest examples of environmental injustice,” Schumer said, echoing recent remarks made by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “The sins of past development can and must be undone.”
The 6.5-mile Cross-Bronx Expressway, a project started in 1948, divides the borough in half. Moses "tore out the hearts of a score of neighborhoods," author Robert Caro wrote of the construction in The Power Broker, and the aftermath has meant "decades of neglect and disinvestment" in the communities.
Schumer expects the $7.5 billion dollars from the bill, along with an additional $5.5 billion from the Build Back Better bill he hopes to pass, will be enough to fund the entire project, which could cut asthma rates in half for more than 250,000 residents living within a two-mile radius of the expressway.
He also hopes once the cap is in place a park will be built on top of that portion of the expressway, something activists have been asking for for years.
Wasn't da Bronx mostly European white in the 1940s?
hah, absolutely!!
The area of the Cross Bx expressway was a functional Jewish neighborhood. The highway gutted the community and they all moved out, prices cratered. Puerto Ricans and blacks moved in to take advantage of the cheap real estate.
The expressway wasn't racist, it was just a giant turd
This is a pretty good idea, though going into just review now doesn't mean a whole lot because who knows how long this will take to get to completion and how far that funding will end up going. Hope for the best, but definitely not expecting anything great within this decade. I think better would be some kind of federal guidelines and continuous funding to cap below-grade highway projects and to have that deployed across the US with projects being done one after another and so there's a shared knowledge base and continuity of work.
As for the racism bit, I think in terms of intentions of the time period, the CBE was probably a lot more about class than it was about race and that's a lot more because the lower middle class, working class and under at the time generally didn't have much power to put up much of a fight. Whatever the original intentions of the time were, I do think in terms of urban design and to some degree public health that capping this is a fairly good idea and it's certainly not novel within even the US to do so. I think where the results on the particulate pollution level will be a bit hard to interpret is that emissions for the most part are going downwards for the fleet and the likely rapid, or at least rapid compared to how quickly this project will likely be completed, adoption of electric vehicles will further that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pope of Greenwich Village
Meanwhile, back in Williamsburg, people from all over the world are clamoring to pay $3k for a 400 square foot studio adjacent to the BQE.
The BQE's a lot more expensive to deal with in much of Williamsburg because much of it is elevated in comparison to the Cross-Bronx is a bit easier because it's below grade in a ditch for most of its run. It's also a lot cheaper with Williamsburg to be away at least a couple blocks away from the BQE. You're also unlikely to find all that many $3K for 400 square foot rentals within a block let alone adjacent to the BQE as it's pretty much as far away from the BQE in Williamsburg and near the waterfront or near McCarren Park where you see very high rent especially when you adjust for quality and age of the unit, so you've gotten things a bit mixed up there. And of course, I'm not even sure why you mention it, because it's not like immediate proximity to the freeway is the only or primary factor for real estate costs. You should also note that Williamsburg, even near the BQE, is generally a lot closer to major job centers within Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn than most of the neighborhoods along the CBE.
It would be nice to also do something about the BQE though. There are below-grade parts of it, of course, and going back to what I mentioned earlier, it'd be nice if there was a sort of continuous drive to cap these.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 11-11-2021 at 06:16 AM..
Over/ under on 10 years d this project ever gets off the ground?
Under if off the ground means groundbreaking; over if it means full completion and opening of project. This isn't with any certainty though since there are a lot of ways for many different polities, agencies, and people of influence to cancel, halt or radically shift the project. That's the US with just about any major capital construction project and it's difficult to tell whether we do so little of them in the past few decade because we're overall terrible with them or that we're terrible with them because we do so little of them. That's why I think it makes sense to have an essentially sustained federal-level or regional agency at least over the next few decades that tackle freeway caps one after another and builds up institutional knowledge and resources to deal with such.
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