ZOOM: AM Torres, Sen Sepúlveda, and Community Rally For Bill to Ban NYSDOT's Cross Bronx Expansion

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BRONX, NY (04/28/2026) (readMedia)-- On Wednesday, impacted residents from Bronx River Houses will join Assemblymember Emérita Torres and Senator Luis Sepúlveda for a virtual press conference urging state officials to halt the Cross Bronx expansion and invest in the future the South Bronx actually deserves: clean air and water, improved neighborhood infrastructure, and vibrant, accessible public spaces that are well programmed and maintained. Assemblymember Torres and Senator Sepúlveda are currently sponsoring the Stop Highway Community Harm Act to ban New York from widening highways within 200 feet of public housing or in ZIP codes with high asthma rates. If passed this session, the new legislation would effectively outlaw the state's planned Cross Bronx expansion.

Join the Zoom conference here and view the attached rendering of the proposed expansion.

Despite the air quality crisis facing local communities, Governor Hochul and the State Department of Transportation are advancing plans to expand the Cross Bronx by up to 50 feet, right next to 3,000 public housing residents at Bronx River Houses who are battling skyhigh asthma rates. With a final design plan and environmental determination just days away, more than 64,000 local residents living along the sited project area are facing severe health impacts that could last for the next 80 years minimum. As the city's only remaining major freshwater river, the Bronx River and its surrounding 50-acre old-growth forest that buffers pollution are also directly in the path of an expanded expressway the State acknowledges will increase pollution and stormwater runoff.