The Tunnel Violates State Law, It Will Not Be Built!
Recently, Governor Hochul visited Buffalo to announce that the Federal Highway Administration had concluded the Kensington Expressway project would have “No Significant Impact” on the surrounding communities, our environment, and the long term economic vitality of our neighborhoods. She stood side by side with nearly every elected official in declaring this “win” for Buffalo’s East Side and for a vision of “reconnecting neighborhoods”.
Though Mayor Brown, County Executive Mark Poloncarz, Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, Senate Transportation and Congressional Candidate Tim Kennedy, and Governor Hochul were quick to accept the accolades as the project finally reached the “finish line”, they have been largely absent from the Kensington debate over the last few months, despite nearly unanimous opposition to the project and a growing chorus from the community demanding a full environmental impact statement (EIS). An EIS would further investigate the tunnel’s impact on human health, in the context of already horrific health outcomes for the community, including the lowest life expectancies in the country and abnormally high incidence of asthma and cardiac disease. The EIS would also more fully examine all the options for how to deal with a decades old, racist highway, including full removal of the 33 Expressway and full restoration of our Humboldt Parkway. In the few appearances our elected officials have made over the last few months, they rarely addressed the real issues or community concerns, but rather focused their energy on fear mongering (the money will go elsewhere) or labeling the critics as “nay-sayers” or “obstructionists” that had shown up “late to the party”.
Ironically, the NYSDOT did not release their Draft Environmental Assessment for their chosen Build Alternative for the Tunnel until September 2023. Just prior to that, during the Summer months, we learned that there would be no filtering of exhaust from the tunnel, meaning concentrated plumes of exhaust would be forced out of each portal end of the tunnel. The residents had scores of questions and this was the exact time when our elected officials should have been at the table to engage and respond to these concerns. Isn’t the process of responding to the final Build Alternative just as important as the advocacy and visioning that took place years in the past?
Instead of participation and representation, our elected officials were both inaccessible and confrontational. The people do not accept disengagement as a leadership strategy.
The opposition to the tunnel is widespread throughout Buffalo’s East Side, but even more prominent along the Humboldt Parkway, where scores of residents have spoken out and given testimonials about how the expressway has affected the lives of family members throughout the decades. Two residents, Terrence Robinson and Marcia Ladiana, have filed a lawsuit, an Article 78 of the Civil Practice Laws and Rules, and are seeking an order of the Court to compel the NYSDOT to adhere to the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA).
Mr. Robinson, coplaintiff in the suit, recently commented, “The Tunnel will be another generational mistake. In the absence of political leadership that could transform East Side neighborhoods, restore the Humboldt Parkway, and create a Regional Asset that would truly reconnect communities, we will stand with our neighbors and the residents of Buffalo in fully opposing the Tunnel, the NYSDOT, and our entrenched elected officials. Construction of this tunnel will not proceed!”
The determination and focus of both Mr. Robinson and Ms. Ladiana should inspire our collective action. Decades ago, the opposing voices of the community were steamrolled, in favor of “progress”, the efficient movement of automobiles from the suburbs to downtown Buffalo. This decision destroyed entire communities. It destroyed businesses along Fillmore and Jefferson Ave and along our East Side commercial corridors, and it created a racial divide on the East Side of Buffalo. That divide will remain if the tunnel continues as planned. There will be no reconnection of the parks or reconnection of communities, and we will be left with a fortified barrier preventing the expansion of prosperity and vitality our East Side neighborhoods so desperately need.
Let’s stand together! The battle for an Environmental Impact Study continues. As residents and neighbors, we must fight for a vision bigger than each of us. We must embrace a transformative vision for our community, to inspire hope and improved quality of life for all of Buffalo’s neighborhoods. The outcome of this project will be our legacy. This is the issue of our generation and we will be judged by our actions in this moment. Join us in State Supreme Court on Friday, March 7th, at 10 am, 50 Delaware Ave, Part 28, 8th floor, in supporting Mr. Robinson and Ms. Ladiana, as they confront the NYSDOT and this devastating project. The people united, will never be defeated!
Michael Gainer
Northampton Street Resident
Member, East Side Parkways Coaliton
Founder of Buffalo ReUse and ReUse Action