Highway Deconstruction Alliance Grows
Last month, the Bronx River Working Group of Partnerships for
Parks - an alliance of fifty community groups and governmental agencies,
including the city and state parks departments - urged the NY State DOT
to include the decommissioning of the Sheridan Expressway in its
upcoming environmental impact statement on reconstruction of the Bruckner-Sheridan
interchange. In doing so, the Partnership joins to growing body of organizations
and officials calling on DOT to study replacing the little-used highway
with parkland.
Partnership for Parks said DOT plans to place a new highway link at
the northern end of the Sheridan will increase noise pollution and worsen
air pollution. It also pointed out that turning the highway into a park
would well-serve an area badly in need of more parkland.
Although DOT will produce a Bronx traffic flow model that assumes the
Sheridan's removal, this falls short of making the option an official alternative
in the environmental impact statement.
