ICYMI: Bronx River Alliance ED Siddhartha Sánchez Invites Mayor-Elect Mamdani to Help Reimagine Cross Bronx

BRONX, NY (12/22/2025) (readMedia)-- As New Yorkers prepare to welcome Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani to City Hall in January, Bronx River Alliance Executive Director Siddhartha Sánchez authored an op-ed for the New York Daily News, inviting the new administration to join Bronx communities in reimagining the Cross Bronx Expressway. A member of Mamdani's Transportation, Climate, & Infrastructure Transition Committee himself, Sánchez pulled back the curtain on the state's highway expansion plans with Inside City Hall's Errol Louis just last week. Despite eliminating some of its most harmful proposals for the $900-million Cross Bronx 5 Bridges project - including a new, mile-long polluting roadway - Governor Hochul and the State Department of Transportation are still considering expanding the Cross Bronx footprint, and rushing community members to review a nearly 6,000-page environmental assessment in the middle of the holiday season.

"Decades after Moses' racist urban planning policies, Bronx families continue to suffer from chronic illness, including some of the highest asthma rates in the country, due to toxic Cross Bronx emissions... Come January, we look forward to partnering with the Mamdani administration on the state's once-in-a-generation Cross Bronx repair project to transform the surrounding corridor, and reunite disconnected Bronx neighborhoods, for good."

With more than 64,000 Bronxites living directly along the Cross Bronx corridor, the state's remaining design plans still threaten significant community health and environmental impacts for the next 80 years.

Full Text:

Mamdani must create a reimagined Cross Bronx

By Siddhartha Sánchez

Last month, Zohran Mamdani swept the election with an ambitious, people-centered vision: safe streets, world-class public transit, and governance that centers everyday New Yorkers. For Bronx families who have spent their lives fighting to reimagine the Cross Bronx Expressway, this vision resonates deeply.

Already, 62% of Bronxites live car-free - the highest rate in the city - but we're still battling state plans to expand that polluting strip of highway Robert Moses first rammed through more than 70 years ago. Come January, the Mamdani administration can partner on the state's once-in-a-generation Cross Bronx repair project to transform the surrounding corridor, and reunite disconnected Bronx neighborhoods, for good.

Here's how.

Right before Mamdani's historic election, the Bronx made history of its own and stopped the state Department of Transportation's plan to build a new mile-long polluting roadway along the Cross Bronx. Decades after Moses' racist urban planning policies, Bronx families continue to suffer from chronic illness, including some of the highest asthma rates in the country, due to toxic Cross Bronx emissions.

Against this backdrop, Gov. Hochul and state DOT Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez made significant strides by scrapping their original proposal. But with Cross Bronx repairs on the horizon in spring 2026, our communities are still pushing for solutions to reduce traffic and pollution - and none of the state's remaining plans accomplish this goal.

Within his first month in office, Mamdani's administration should come tour the Cross Bronx corridor, and learn about our community's grassroots campaign - directly from Bronx residents, community organizations, and elected officials. From transit leaders and health advocates, to community gardens and public housing residents, our communities have shared fresh ideas for the future of the Cross Bronx.

Our proposals run the gamut: investing in blue highways to move goods, enhancing existing public transit options, and building safer walking and biking routes. We welcome the new administration to come see firsthand why we're so passionate about transforming the Cross Bronx.

After touring the corridor, Mamdani should audit the city's existing local infrastructure projects and set them in motion. Long-stalled across various mayoral administrations, the 177th St. intersection redesign is just one of the projects Bronx families have been waiting on for decades.

Day in and day out, children, wheelchair users, and families pushing strollers are forced to cross 177th St. - one of the city's most dangerous intersections - without signalized crossing. That's all due to past administrative inaction. And this past August, the East Tremont busway joined the line-up of Bronx infrastructure projects oft-forgotten and perpetually cast aside. The Mamdani administration has a chance to fast-track these projects and finally deliver on street safety and better transit for Bronx communities.

Mamdani proved himself a keen listener during his campaign, understanding that New Yorkers care most about results and how their lives are improved, not which agency controls what. As he takes office, he has the opportunity to translate that insight into action: appointing a deputy mayor of operations who shares this results-driven orientation, alongside a full suite of city agency leaders with the vision and finesse to hold their state counterparts accountable in reimagining the Cross Bronx.

Mamdani should be willing to use every lever of city power to ensure that state plans truly serve Bronx residents, and achieve the meaningful changes our communities so urgently need.

Mamdani ran on a platform of transit equity, climate justice, and community power. As a Bronx Science alum, Mamdani himself is a product of Bronx education and first broadened his views about our city while studying in the Boogie Down. Today's Bronx students have joined their teachers, parents, and neighbors in pushing a new vision for our borough - something that's not possible with toxic pollution from a bigger Cross Bronx. Instead, the Cross Bronx corridor is where Mamdani's rhetoric can meet reality.

For Bronxites, the question is no longer whether change is possible. We've already proven it is. Within the first 90 days of welcoming the new administration, Bronxites will be watching to see Mamdani govern the way he campaigned - by showing up, listening deeply, and investing in the communities that have been overlooked for far too long. We stand ready to reimagine our neighborhoods and our future with the backing of City Hall.

Sánchez is a member of Mayor-elect Mamdani's Transportation, Infrastructure, and Climate Transition Committee, and the Executive Director of the Bronx River Alliance, which works to leverage the Bronx River corridor for the communities through which it flows.

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 Stop the Cross Bronx Expansion Coalition: The Stop the Cross Bronx Expansion coalition is composed of Bronx grassroots groups, environmental justice organizations, and advocates for safe and healthy transportation. Together, we are fighting to implement a positive community-led vision that reverses the harms done to the public health, environment, and social and economic life of the Bronx by the Expressway. To realize this vision requires stopping new highway expansions along the Cross Bronx – beginning with New York State DOT's current plan to widen the CBE.

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