The Major Deegan Expressway, the Third Avenue Bridge, and the RFK Bridge bring truck traffic and the fumes from those trucks into the South Bronx, and residents told NY1 that they are sick and tired of it.

Community advocates and a Ph.D. student from Columbia University said data from air quality monitoring shows those fumes are even worse since congestion pricing started. Out of 19 monitoring sites in the area, 12 saw increases in particulate matter, according to South Bronx Unite.

What You Need To Know

  • A study by a Columbia Ph.D. student using community air quality sensors showed particulate matter increases at 12 of 19 locations

  • Community groups in the South Bronx said the MTA’s mitigations are just Band-Aids that don’t address the conditions that already caused residents here to have some of the highest rates of asthma in the city

  • The MTA and city health department dispute the study, which has yet to be published and peer-reviewed, and said there is no way to directly connect the slight increase to congestion pricing despite the researcher saying changes in weather, seasonality wind and traffic patterns were factored in

A study showed it rose, on average, by 0.22 micrograms per cubic foot. Alexander De Jesus, who led the study, said they accounted for weather, hourly and seasonal changes in air conditions and traffic patterns.

“While 0.22 may sound small, this is a significant figure,” said de Jesus. “This community in particular, Mott Haven and Port Morris, has had the highest emergency department visit rate for childhood asthma; adult asthma for the last 10 years plus.”

The MTA’s environmental assessment predicted a slight increase in traffic and agreed to mitigation measures. They include $70 million for renovating parks and green space, installing roadside vegetation, placing air filters in schools, replacing the refrigeration units at Hunts Point Market with cleaner ones and building an asthma center.

But the community said it doesn’t address the causes of the high levels of pollution that already existed.

“They went on with their project, saying that increase is manageable if we mitigate it,” said Mychael Johnson, of South Bronx Unite. “We don’t feel it’s mitigatable when our children are going to hospitals today because they’re sick. People are dying in our community because they can’t breathe.”

One issue is sanitation trucks making runs to a waterfront transfer station — the group said replacing those trucks with electric ones would help.

“How do we stop that cycle of historic injustice that’s existing today?” said Johnson. “So, it can’t be up to us alone to solve that problem when we didn’t create it.”

The MTA and the city health department disputed the findings, saying there is no way to tie the “slight increase” to congestion pricing. The MTA said traffic increases at the RFK Bridge are in line with seasonal patterns and other crossings saw similar increases, but that traffic went down on the Cross Bronx and Major Deegan last spring.

The health department said citywide air quality improved, but noted the results are preliminary and there will be a full evaluation this summer.