Group asks court to halt work on Kensington Expressway project (2024)

A group opposed to the $1 billion Kensington Expressway project sought an injunction in State Supreme Court on Monday, seeking to stop the State Department of Transportation from signing contracts and starting construction until three lawsuits filed in Erie County are heard.

The lawsuits, part of five filed overall, including one in federal court, are known as Article 78 proceedings. They are used to challenge actions or inactions by New York State agencies, and are claiming the project would violate state environmental laws.

“We are asking with our filing today for the court to enjoin the State Department of Construction from proceeding with 4½ years of heavy construction, blasting and noise while the court considers our arguments,” attorney Alan Bozer said.

DOT spokesman Joseph Morrissey defended the agency’s work in considering environmental outcomes in developing its two-year-long environmental assessment.

“The Kensington Expressway project’s environmental process adhered to all applicable state and federal laws, and the Department of Transportation looks forward to reconnecting a community that was wrongfully divided generations ago,” Morrissey said.

The injunction request was filed by the East Side Parkways Coalition, which formed in August 2023 to advocate for the restoration of the once-grand Humboldt Parkway designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. The parkway was destroyed to make way for the highway, decimating neighborhoods in an area with many Black residents.

“The coalition is from all backgrounds, all different cultures, all different ethnicities,” said Candace Moppins. “This is not just an East Side thing, it’s a City of Buffalo thing.

“The only parkway that has been grossly taken away is this one, and we want it back,” Moppins said. “We want it back.”

The state plan calls for a tunnel that stretches three-fourths of a mile from Dodge Street near Martin Luther King Jr. Park to Sidney Street, as well as a cover that includes trees, other landscape features and crossings to connect neighborhoods divided by the Kensington. The project was initially advanced by Restore Our Community Coalition, which worked with the DOT to develop the plan after being dissuaded by the agency and politicians from seeking the parkway’s full restoration.

Bozer said the DOT violated the law by failing to conduct a full environmental impact statement to address the impacts of construction. He warned of increased air pollution and noise during construction, including the release of 36,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases.

“That violates the state constitution that guarantees clean air and a healthful environment to all residents of the State of New York,” Bozer said.

He questioned keeping the highway when health conditions in that section of the East Side are among the worst in the state and the nation.

“The rates of respiratory disease and cardiovascular disease and low life expectancy are in the 98 and 99 percentiles, according to EPA data,” Bozer said.

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced in February the project had received the go-ahead from the federal government. She expressed hope construction could begin as early as the end of this year.

East Side Parkways Coalition member Sherry Sherrill said DOT failed to listen to residents’ preference for the parkway’s restoration.

“That is a goal we are certain even its architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, would adamantly insist upon were he himself alive today,” she said.

The East Side Parkways Coalition evaluated all 1,312 public comments after the completion of the environmental review process, and announced last January there was no consensus for the project.

Overall, 48% of the comments were opposed, 47% in favor and 5% neutral, according to the study’s authors.

But comments generated by private citizens overwhelmingly opposed the project, while those with financial or economic short-term interests in the plan, including trade union workers, supported it, the study found.

The DOT did not release information on the comments.

Sherrill said the public wants the parkway restored instead of the shorter covered greenspace proposed over the tunnel.

“The expressway is a concrete Band-Aid on a massive wound, and our East Side Buffalo community is about to be hurt all over again,” she said, “just like in the first Kensington Expressway project.”