Tale of More Than Two Cities’ High-Speed Freeway Blues:

Have We Found An Underreported Link to Health Disparities?

By Sherry Sherrill, Founder and CEO Covington Associates Consulting | CAC

I have been volunteering alongside some very courageous and outspoken men and women whom, like me, are adamant in opposing New York State Department of Transportation’s (highly) controversial Kensington Expressway Project, here in Buffalo (NY). The persons I labor alongside are Black, White, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, you name it. What we share in common, is a great love for humanity, and a tremendous appreciation for the Natural ‘Great’ Outdoors. We also share the belief that a fake park planted over a 3/4 mile long concrete tunnel, drilled into a high-speed freeway, plowed through the heart of a highly densely populated human community, is not a life-preserver, it is a sickness and death sentence.

What makes my story and vantage unique, is that unlike most City of Buffalo Residents, I have personally walked door-to-door within the Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood, on several occasions, and for the purpose of learning what ails them, within (inside) and without (outside), their homes. What I have learned has frightened me, and yet I will continue my Learning Experience campaign, because I am also researching ways to aid these East Side Buffalo Community Neighbors.

However, just recently, I have begun (also) experiencing a semblance of they have complaints, of: Respiratory Issues. Walking door-to-door is very exhausting work, and it is also light-to-moderate-to-heavy exercise, depending on the rate at which one walks, and the rate at which one travels up and down flights of stairs.

A significant percentage of Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood homes, have lots of stairs. I want readers to know that when you hear stories of Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood Residents are confronted by Environmental Illnesses like cancer, leukemia, emphysema, asthma, heart disease, and bronchitis, low birth weight, premature deliveries, high lead, and childhood developmental disorders and delays, please do not take a ‘better them than me’ stance.

While the New York State Department of Transportation is trying to blindside (we) the public into accepting that agency’s narrow and ‘tunnel vision’ interpretation of their dreaded $Billion NY (Route) 33 Kensington Expressway Project, several truths should be crystal clear. Amongst these, is the reality that the once touted Air Filtration System dangled in front of our community at the outset of last Summer, is no longer an option.

Just like the complete removal of the Kensington Expressway was (supposedly) an option, at one point, but (suddenly) was whisked away as a choice we (the community) had any opportunity to make, for ourselves. Now. overhead fans positioned inside the blasted tunnel are (supposedly) to be relied upon to address the (increased) fumes and Greenhouse Gas Emissions that the tunneled Route 33 is going to produce. The same problem we have now, in other words, will still exist, but will be part of a $Billion Project Outcome, if NYSDOT’s Highway Expansion Project is allowed to proceed.

One wonders, at such a time as this, what U.S. President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. is busy doing at the White House, these days, as his administration’s “Reconnecting Communities” Programme is under attack, all across these United States, due to worse than wayward State Departments of Transportation’s errant penchant to expand urban intracity expressways, rather than remove these, continues to meet with blunt refusal from Black and Brown communities fed up with viewing generations of their persons being sickened, and dying, from the variety of environmental illnesses that living in close distance to a high-speed freeway is proven and known to cause.

The problem is so pronounced, these days, that exposes’ are being written that disclose that some $65 Billion, more than half, of the Federal Grants utilized to conduct “Reconnecting Communities” Projects, including the nearly $60 Million allocated to the ‘Cap and Stitch’ portion of the Kensington Expressway Project, here in Buffalo, has (wrongly) been used for such Expansion Projects, rather than for community-led and -driven Projects that (typically) lead to highway removals, and not expansions.

Sniff the bamboozle that was done here in Buffalo, and understand why this generation contains a Significant Community Opposition, to the Kensington Project attempted forced onto this generation of East Side Buffalo Community Residents. The crossroads reached here, in Buffalo, has also been reached in Detroit (MI), and in New Orleans (LA).

If we, the Community Opposition Movement, get our wish here in Buffalo, Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood Residents will not only not suffer in silence, their suffering's progress will begin its end, and we will know (all) of it: first-hand. For example, Community, know this, as well: While NYSDOT is loudly touting an (illusive) 'buffer zone' of some (paltry) 500 feet, as though that will end the worries we all should have for the health and wellness posit of our Humboldt Parkway.

Neighborhood brothers and sisters, environmental experts have expressed that freeway pollution can and does reach homes about 10 times as far away. With a city block constituting (roughly) 311 feet long, ten city blocks, or 3110 feet, therefore, would fit within this (proposed) larger zone area. Does anyone believe it to be a coincidence that NYSDOT is proposing to repair sidewalks, streetlights, potholes, and curbs for (approximately) 9 city blocks, from the Kensington Expressway Project Area? God forbid.

See the bamboozle? Why didn't New York State forward the funding it clearly had lounging around in a General Fund,before now, to make such necessary Infrastructure Repairs? Was it so these could be utilized (as leverage) to influence and urge our agreement, and to gain what could be construed as our community's support factor? Is a similar debacle unfolded elsewhere, where these repairs also went ignored...for generations?