Hochul gives impetus to Kensington Expressway project

Now, it is a New York State priority.

In her State of the State address, Gov. Kathy Hochul endorsed the proposal for decking the portion of Route 33 that runs through the East Side between Best and East Ferry streets, creating a tunnel for traffic. Proponents see it as the first phase of a long-term plan to reconnect a tree-lined Humboldt Parkway to Delaware Park.

"Infrastructure is all about connections, and we need to reconnect neighborhoods that were severed by asphalt highways, disproportionately impacting communities of color," Hochul said in her address. "We are going to reverse the damage that was done more than half a century ago with projects like the Kensington Expressway in Buffalo, I-81 in Syracuse, the Inner Loop in Rochester and the Cross Bronx Expressway."

Hochul has directed the state Department of Transportation to immediately begin a federally required environmental review process, with a first phase expected to be completed by the summer after a public meeting in the spring.

Hochul's announcement was welcomed by Richard Cummings, president of the Black Chamber of Commerce and a board member of Restore Our Community, a grassroots group that has advocated for the proposal.     

"It's an excellent way to start the new year," Cummings said. 

Reestablishing the tree-lined parkway designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, he said, would make the area more desirable and boost nearby business corridors that fell into decline after the highway project began in the late 1950s and lasted into the next decade.

"The need is greater today than it was some years ago when we started this movement, because the community continues to decline from a business perspective, as well as real estate values," Cummings said.

Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, who has also championed the proposal, said the time has come to bring back the parkway and stitch back neighborhoods.

Multiple streets would be reconnected, the health of those who live near the highway would improve and a beautiful parkway would be an impetus for people to live there and for commercial districts to grow, she predicted.

Still to be determined are the project's cost and where the money will come from.

Unified political support

The pot of federal funding local leaders hope to tap is smaller than originally planned. President Biden proposed $20 billion to replace highways that destroyed mostly Black neighborhoods, but funding dropped to $1 billion in the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that Congress passed in the fall.

Other federal transportation dollars will be available, but with a typical price tag of $500 million and up and a long list of projects hoping to move forward, competition is expected to be steep.

The plan to remove a section of Interstate 81 in Syracuse and rebuild a portion of Interstate 690, also mentioned by Hochul as a priority, has an estimated cost of over $2 billion.

There are other projects in the country that will seek funds, including the removal of the Claiborne Expressway in New Orleans that Biden singled out earlier this year.

Peoples-Stokes said a united front among New York State and federal lawmakers should give the Kensington project a boost. Political supporters include Sen. Charles Schumer, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Rep. Brian Higgins and State Sen. Tim Kennedy, who heads the State Senate Transportation Committee.

"We've been in line for a long time," Peoples-Stokes said. "I don't see why we can't keep our foot on the gas long enough to get this done."

The State Department of Transportation did studies on the Kensington Expressway in 2012 and 2019.

“It was originally the Humboldt Parkway. It was beautiful, and it was part of the Olmsted design,” then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in 2016 in announcing $6 million for the second study.

“In the mid-’50s, we had a better idea and it turned out not to be a better idea, which was to move vehicles in and out of Buffalo faster by building a highway," Cuomo said. "This was not just in Buffalo; this was all over the United States."

But Hochul is going further than Cuomo by putting the project in the state budget and getting a key federal study underway.

"At Gov. Hochul's direction, the Department of Transportation will commence a federally required environmental review process that will assess alternatives for reconnecting the community and reimagining the Kensington Expressway," agency spokesman Joe Morrissey said.

The assessment will consider environmental, community, economic and other impacts of such a project and lead to a final plan, Morrissey said.

The scoping report, expected to include a public meeting in the spring, will evaluate different decking scenarios, along with costs.

The department is also exploring the possibility of the Federal Highway Administration expediting the project in the same way Cuomo sought to do with the Skyway project, when he reduced what normally would have been a three- to four-year timetable to two years.

Hal Morse, executive director of the Greater Buffalo-Niagara Regional Transportation Council, said the Kensington project and another underway reimagining the Scajaquada Expressway could be looked at together. The eastern portion of the Scajaquada project considers restoring a portion of Humboldt Parkway east from Delaware Park, making it a natural link to the Kensington project.  

"They are really great projects, and in moving forward, we have to find the right way to get it done in the right order," Morse said.

The federal environmental review for the Scajaquada project is completed.

Peoples-Stokes said beginning one for the Kensington project is a major step forward.

"Everyone is waiting for that so we can get to the next step," she said.