The East Side Parkways Coalition Wins Lawsuit Filed Against NYSDOT

By Betty Jean Grant

Betty Jean Grant

When I attended a meeting in the gym at Delavan/Grider Community Center about a year and a half ago, I had no idea that the meeting, dealing with putting a tunnel on the Kensington 33 Expressway, would still be an unresolved issue almost two years later.

The meeting was conducted by a group of individuals from varied backgrounds, racial ethnicities and social economic statuses. This group of rural, suburban and city residents who called themselves the East Side Parkways Coalition, was co-founded by Candace Moppins, Executive Director of the Delavan/Grider Community Center and SUNYAB professor, Dr. Brad Wales.

The community meeting was held to provide a vehicle or a forum to voice their objections to the proposed tunnel project to Governor Kathy Hochul, Assemblywoman Crystal Peoplestokes and the NYS Department Of Transportation. The meeting was necessary because many of the residents of Humboldt Parkways opposed the proposal tunnel project because it would only cover a portion of the expressway on Humbolt Parkway, thereby leaving the southern and northern portals open to spew a more concentrated mixture of carbon monoxide and other toxins into their houses and other nearby neighborhoods.

We met at that 1st meeting at the community center and over a period of a year and a half, residents who lived or used to live on the parkway, started attending the meetings and over 60 of them filed a lawsuit to ask the NYSDOT to Cease and Desist in going forth in putting a tunnel on the expressway in front of their residences until a comprehensive, Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was conducted.

The lawsuit was filed in December, 2024, in N8YS Supreme Court. The document asked the Judge to f ile an Injunction to stop the NYDOT from going forward on any work on the affected area of the 33 expressway until the EIS was conducted. On February, 2025, the Honorable Judge ruled in favor of the 60 plantiffs in the lawsuits and the East Side Parkways Coalition.