From Brooklyn to the Bronx, New Yorkers are Reclaiming their Highways on National Highway Day

On the 40th anniversary of National Highway Day, local advocates and residents along the Cross Bronx and Brooklyn-Queens Expressways are pushing for safe highway alternatives that put community first

NEW YORK, NY (06/26/2025) (readMedia)-- Today, for National Highway Day, dozens of residents and advocates are demanding sustainable, community-led solutions to revamp the Cross Bronx and Brooklyn-Queens Expressways, and remediate decades of environmental harm. The Department of Transportation (DOT) is currently weighing options to fix the Cross Bronx Expressway and BQE corridor, which collectively carry nearly 300,000 polluting vehicles daily - including 18,000 trucks on the Cross Bronx and 13,000 trucks on the BQE - directly through the neighborhoods that low-income residents, immigrants, and people of color predominantly call home.

Advocates from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway Environmental Justice Coalition are calling on DOT to suspend its plans to rebuild and expand the cantilever section of the expressway. Likewise, the Stop the Cross Bronx Expansion Coalition is urging DOT to halt its plans to expand the Cross Bronx by building a second parallel highway to divert traffic during construction, instead favoring standard bridge repairs and reducing traffic by rerouting and improving local east-west connectivity.

"Expanding the Cross Bronx and Brooklyn-Queens Expressways will only bring more pollution and harm. Making these highways bigger increases traffic in the worst places – right through the heart of neighborhoods that for decades have experienced some of the worst air pollution in the country. We don't need more asphalt, we need less traffic, cleaner air, and safe streets. The State needs to work with our communities to actually serve our needs," said Siddhartha Sánchez, Executive Director of the Bronx River Alliance.

"For decades our communities across Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx have been experiencing the harmful health and environmental impacts of living, working, and studying next to these highways. Here in the Williamsburg Southside, where El Puente is based, our children are playing in playgrounds and parks that are right next to the BQE. It is long-overdue for our state and city agencies to support transformative change in our communities that prioritize the health and access to public transportation for all New Yorkers, instead of continuous investment in highways like these that continue polluting and dividing our neighborhoods," said María Fernanda Pulido-Velosa, BQE Environmental Justice Coalition organizer at El Puente.

"Highways like the Cross Bronx and BQE divide communities, destroying public health, the environment, and a future of disinvestment. The fight to stop their expansions is not a whisper, it's a battle cry for justice. These highways are the legacy of racist planning that has left behind New Yorkers with respiratory disease limited transportation access. These two powerful coalitions coming together across boroughs is a powerful sign of the solidarity and movement growing to demand a better transportation future, one that prioritizes public transit over outdated infrastructure, one that allows us all to breathe clean air, move freely, and access the civil liberties that should never have been out of reach in the first place," said Laura Waxman, Tri-State Transportation Campaign.

Spearheaded by Robert Moses in the '50s and '60s, the Cross Bronx and BQE form some of the most congested roads in the nation and emit toxic pollution in communities already facing disproportionate health and environmental harms. Despite this history, NYSDOT has proposed a $900 million plan to add a new highway structure to the Cross Bronx. Meanwhile, NYCDOT plans to double down on and potentially expand the polluting BQE, rather than taking the opportunity to improve the highway and reconnect neighborhoods. Both proposals threaten residents' quality of life and carry on a legacy of racist urban planning.

As the City and State prepare for various construction projects on the CBE and BQE, they're ignoring the community input codified in their own processes. Community members have been active participants shaping vision documents for the roadways that the agencies have published. Last fall, NYCDOT released the Safe, Sustainable, Connected report detailing the City's vision to reimagine the BQE North and South corridors, while contextualizing the health burdens plaguing nearby communities bisected by the expressway. Months later, NYCDOT, in partnership with NYSDOT, published the Reimagine the Cross Bronx Expressway report, a community-led blueprint for alternatives to reconnect local neighborhoods along the Cross Bronx - sourced directly from Bronx and Harlem residents themselves.

Each summer for the last five years, extreme heat has claimed the lives of approximately 500 New Yorkers. In the midst of a historic heat wave that embodies the ongoing climate crisis, members of both coalitions are urging the City and State DOTs to prioritize community-backed solutions that reduce traffic, improve air quality, and increase green space and transit access.

About Bronx River Alliance: The Bronx River Alliance serves as a coordinated voice for the river and works in harmonious partnership to protect, improve and restore the Bronx River corridor so that it can be a healthy ecological, recreational, educational and economic resource for the communities through which the river flows.

About the BQE Environmental Justice Coalition: The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway Environmental Justice Coalition remains committed to advocating for the rights of affected communities and promoting sustainable and equitable solutions to the challenges posed by the BQE.

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