Five Bridges Project<\/a>, aims to rehabilitate several of the highway\u2019s overpasses between Rosedale Avenue and Boston Road. However, the proposal will also expand the road by widening each shoulder by 25 feet, increasing its footprint by a combined 50 feet, in order to meet current safety standards.<\/p>\nAdvocates argue that any widening of the existing Cross Bronx\u2019s footprint would make the already heavily used road even more congested. They say it will only exacerbate the rampant pollution that the highway has saddled adjacent communities with for decades.<\/p>\n
Reynolds also challenged the NYSDOT\u2019s contention that widening the road\u2019s shoulders will make it safer.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWidening a highway doesn\u2019t inherently enhance safety by any means,\u201d she said. \u201cIn fact, it actually induces more vehicular congestion.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The advocates charged that NYSDOT is pushing through a plan that does not adequately account for its potential impacts on communities surrounding the highway.\n<\/p>\n
Furthermore,\u00a0 Siddhartha S\u00e1nchez, executive director of the Bronx River Alliance, said the agency has ignored alternative plans they have presented for rehabbing the road without expanding it, while refusing to further extend the public engagement period on its draft plan \u2014 known as an environmental assessment. The agency released the 6,000-page environmental assessment during the holiday season, which advocates say did not give the public enough time to dig into it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is that we didn\u2019t hear back from the state in any meaningful way around those concerns,\u201d he said. \u201cHearing how the community feels about this project\u2026is not a priority for the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
NYSDOT did not respond to amNewYork\u2019s request for comment.\n<\/p>\n
But NYSDOT spokesperson Rolando Infante insisted to the Bronx Times last week that \u201cwe have engaged with the community at every step of the way, making significant changes to the proposed alternatives in direct response to public feedback.\u201d<\/p>\n
The state backed off on its initial plan to add a mile-long expansion to the highway.\n<\/p>\n
Damon Gilbert, an attorney with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, said they are weighing whether to take legal action against the state once it releases its final plan. Advocates have four months once NYSDOT releases its decision to appeal it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still have some time to think about it, because the final EA [Environmental Assessment] has not come out,\u201d Gilbert said. \u201cSo based on the comments, the community pushback, a lot of the draft EA\u2019s elements, we have to then go through the final EA and see what the final agency action is, see how our advocacy has affected things. And then the community will be able to make.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A view of traffic on the Cross Bronx Expressway. Photo by Jonathan Portee Advocates against a state plan…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":644216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,167889,47264,273945,405,403,273946,5226,5225,5228,5227,264222,264223,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-644215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-bronx-river-alliance","10":"tag-cross-bronx-expressway","11":"tag-damon-gilbert","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-new-york-lawyers-for-the-public-interest","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-siddhartha-su00e1nchez","20":"tag-state-department-of-transportation","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116201718242049746","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"view](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/BAV3454.jpg\" "\\"Advocates")
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