Remaining Awake: Why I Support Removal of NY 33 Kensington Expressway
By Sherry Sherrill, President & CEO, Covington Associates Consulting | CAC
The question of whether or not New York State Department of Transportation’s Route 33 Kensington Expressway Project, in its current version, is actually a “win” for Black Buffalo, will be determined by the majority opinion of we East Side Buffalo Community Residents. Some of we are actual Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood Residents, or are residents of Nearby and Adjacent Neighborhoods. The facts surrounding the expressway’s (original) construction, and its underexplored (historic) negative impacts, as well as its selection for a megaproject budget in this generation, are needed. Here, are a few:
Route 33 Kensington Expressway was not constructed for East Side Community Residents’ sake.
It was forced on a generation of we, and many Black homebuyers didn’t know it was going to be built.
Humboldt Parkway, before then, looked like a central city park reaching all the way to Delaware Park.
The Parkway used to extend all the way from Delaware Park, to Cazenovia Park, in South Buffalo.
The Kensington Expressway’s construction destroyed Humboldt Parkway’s trees, and its greenspace.
The Federal Government built similarly invasive expressways, all across urban America: deliberately.
Over 30 urban cities have already removed, or are studying removal of, their 1950s era highways.
Studies have proven that living near a high-speed highway, like The 33, can make people sick.
Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood Households report that their persons did contract such Illnesses.
A 27-May-2021 New York Times article listed Route 33, as: “under official Removal Study”.
NYSDOT has not presented our East Side Buffalo Community, any Removal Study.
NYSDOT is also refusing to produce an Environmental Impact Statement, variety of Study.
North Buffalo residents were aided by Greater Buffalo Regional Transportation Council [GBNRTC].
North Buffalo Residents were also aided by New York State Assemblyman Sean Ryan.
Due to such interventions, North Buffalo Residents’ demands concerning Scajaquada Corridor were met.
Similar aid and intervention is needed, in the Kensington Corridor.
At least $55 Million of the NYSDOT’s Route 33 Kensington Expressway Project Budget, is derived from the U.S. Federal Government’s “Reconnecting Communities” Programme. That is just one programme location available, for such Highway Removal-concerned funding. According to that programme’s summary, and its descriptions, our East Side Buffalo Community was supposed to be presented with a choice in what type of Transportation Project/Plan is going to be conducted, here. Instead, our community was presented with a dictated non-alternative. The result? Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood’s Residents’ health, their Property Values, their (Home Equity-related) Generational Wealth Opportunity, Reduction of Greenhouse Gases [GHGs] in Humboldt Parkway Neighborhoods, and the East Side Community’s inheritance of a central city Park that (formerly) connected all the way from Humboldt/MLK Park, to North Buffalo’s Delaware Park...are all ‘at-risk’. There’s more, but that’s a start. If NYSDOT’s version Project occurs, yet another generation of we will be even further distanced from obtaining either of those (potential) gains. The $Billion Government Investment surfacing in this generation, is a (potentially) revolutionary development. We can either seize the moment for our (collective) benefit, or we can ‘drop the ball’ and let it pass us by.
In this Matter, thus far, our East Side Buffalo Community, and the Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood, are being dictated to, yet again, rather than being recipient of (authentic) Community Engagement. In response to the charge that right now is ‘too late’ to express an opposing opinion, I would add: The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. warned us, concerning the importance of “Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution”. One has been unfolding while we’ve worked, lived, rested, played, perished, and braved our existence here, in Western New York State. Highways arebeing removed all over the country, and in locations like Rochester (NY), and New Orleans (LA), residents have insisted upon that development, in their locations. In Rochester, even our State’s Senators, The Honorable Charles Schumer, and The Honorable Kirsten Gillibrand, are furthering the REMOVAL of the city’s Inner Loop, an inner-city highway nicknamed ‘the moat’, that Rochester’s residents are (finally) becoming rid of. We, here in City of Buffalo, are less than 100 miles away. What about us?
I confess that this writer’s Kensington Expressway Removal Vision, extends to every single severed Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood becoming reconnected, again, and within the foreseeable future. I mean from North Buffalo’s Delaware Park, at Agassiz Circle, to moving southward, past Humboldt/MLK Park’s 5-acre Pond Basin, all the way to downtown Buffalo’s Cherry Street, and too, Goodell (Street).
Mind you, I have that dream, because I know that, despite what the public is being spoon-fed by NYSDOT’s short-sighted ‘tunnel vision’ proposal, the Agency should not be be enabled to ‘steamroll’ our East Side Buffalo Community through a $Billion budget Proposal, that will sentence we fellow East Side Buffalo Community Neighbors to being further harmed by the Kensington Expressway’s continued existence and domination within Humboldt Parkway’s landscape. Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood Residents, and we, deserve a genuine study of the Highway Removal Alternate Option that The New York Times’ articles hint at, and we deserve a price tag quoting precisely “how much” filling-in NY Route 33 Kensington Expressway, would cost. The East Side Buffalo Community ought not ’just shutup and accept’ NYSDOT’s Project, simply because it has a high price tag attached to it. We are not the Prime Contractors, Engineering Firms, nor majority of Union Employees, that stand to benefit. Not that such outcomes would be an excuse to do the wrong Project. The correct Project will come attached to a commitment to do what is morally right, and that which is ethically responsible. Environmental Justice is a mandate that even U.S. President Joseph Biden, and U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, have publicly committed to. The objective of the Biden Administration is to achieve Equity In Transportation, as well as in other Federal-Aid Projects. It is a mandate taken so seriously, it has been issued its own name: Justice 40. Kensington Expressway solution seekers here, in Buffalo, are committed to the point of filming an “In Our Own Words” documentary series, to shed light on “why” there is so much Community Opposition to NYSDOT’s (proposed) investment, in the Route 33 Kensington Expressway Project. The opposition exists, because the (proposed) investment does not include the highway’s REMOVAL. Another reason for the opposition, is because REMOVAL Supporters do not believe that any East Side Buffalo Community Group ever proactively petitioned NYSDOT for a Concrete Tunnel to become placed on the Kensington Expressway, or hoped for a ‘Cap and Stitch’ Project to be conducted, concerning our East Side Buffalo Community’s antiquated highway problem. Would any have done so, given a choice for a REMOVAL? What we know, is that East Side Buffalo Residents, and Groups, have been wishing and/or advocating for over 20 years, for a “reconnection” of Humboldt Parkway’s severed, decimated, neighborhoods. What we were dismissively handed, instead of a truly egalitarian solution, is NYSDOT’s current ‘Cap and Stitch’ proposal.
View the “In Our Own Words” documentary series containing biographies and testimonies of (impacted) Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood, and East Side Buffalo Community, residents. You will find it on the (respective) Facebook Pages, of: Covington Associates Consulting, We Are Women Warriors, and/or the East Side Parkways Coalition. It may also be viewed, at: https://www .youtube.com/watch?v=GOlPtNwyrYo. In addition, please sign the (corresponding) Petition to “Reconnect Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood And Its MLK Park”, at: Chng.It/Dm4k9kSqNF. Here is a 1954 photograph of Humboldt Parkway, before the Kensington Expressway’s construction, along with an (original) 1901 Pan American Exposition Map, displaying (then) Humboldt Park’s physical “connectivity” and ‘lifeline’ to North Buffalo’s Delaware Park. Notice that Humboldt Parkway used to extend (all the way) to South Buffalo’s Cazenovia Park. To view an additional image of Humboldt Parkway’s (formerly) majestic tree-lined boulevard, see “Project Area Background Information”, at: