Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The fight against the expansive $1 billion Kensington Expressway project from local residents in-and-around Humboldt Parkway in East Buffalo continues, with a new legal push hoping to halt the project from getting started.
Several members of the East Side Parkways (ESP) Coalition, and other local community activists gathered Monday just outside the Buffalo Science Museum to announce the filing of a court application to stop New York State from awarding contracts or commencing construction on the project that would cap the Kensington Expressway with a tunnel and reconnect communities separated by the 33.
ESP is opposed to the New York State Department of Transportation’s (NYSDOT’s) plan to dig further into the ground surrounding the expressway and provide a tunnel for traffic to still travel through the city. Rather members of ESP prefer to see the expressway filled in, allowing for the restoration of Humboldt Parkway that connected Delaware and MLK Parks several years before the 33 was put in place.
"It was NYSDOT's goal that became superimposed over our community's will, and the certification of which became the focus and aim of the planning process that our community was actually subjected to, despite all our complaints otherwise," said Sherry Sherrill, a 50-year resident of Buffalo's East Side community. "Our community was victimized by a grossly unfair, bait and switch tactic. And arriving at this generation's Kensington Expressway project, the powers that be shamelessly disregarded much that is near and dear to our East Side Buffalo community's heart. Our neighborhoods, our desire to be counted as participants in decisions that affect us, and most of all our health, NYSDOT has utterly disregarded the overwhelming preference of the majority of East Side residents that the Kensington Expressway be completely removed altogether. And that the natural linear park that formerly comprised Humboldt Parkway be fully restored to its former glory and its former canopy."
The proposed project from the NYSDOT would create a 4,150-foot-long tunnel between Sidney Street and Dodge Street.
ESP has retained legal counsel to challenge the project, and to ensure NYSDOT complies with all applicable State laws. Rather than just focusing on a 12-block-long stretch, members of the coalition feel the $1 billion investment should "Reconnect the Community" to the greatest extent possible.
"There are currently five lawsuits that have been filed: One in federal court challenging federal involvement in this project. A second, a declaratory judgment action in New York State Supreme Court. And then there are three Article 78 proceedings now in New York State Supreme Court, County of Erie, that have been assigned to the honorable Emilio Colaiacovo. The Article 78 proceedings challenged the State Department of Transportation's decision to proceed with contracts and construction," said Attorney Alan Bozer, representing the coalition from Phillips Lytle LLP. "We are filing papers today for an injunction to stop the letting of contracts, and the commencement of construction."
With the legal action taken by ESP, the coalition is challenging NYSDOT’s determination under the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) that the proposed tunnel will have no significant adverse environmental impacts. The coalition claims that instead of preparing an in-depth Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that would fully explore the effects of the project and expose the harm to be done by four-and-a-half years of heavy construction and blasting, NYSDOT elected to use a fast-tracked Environmental Assessment (EA) review.
Three Article 78 proceedings have been filed that contend the SEQRA and requires the preparation of an EIS before this project may proceed, given the size, scope, and extensive mitigations required.
"The State Department of Transportation violated the law by not conducting a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) addressing all of the effects of the proposed four-and-one-half years of heavy construction, blasting noise, noxious fumes, four-and-one-half years of construction that will start possibly before our arguments are heard, if we don't get that injunction," Bozer stated. "Petitioners believe that the EIS will show that perpetuating the error is a hardship being imposed on a disadvantaged community, and that an alternative plan, like restoration of Humboldt Parkway, must be employed for the good of the community."
ESP is joined by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) and the Western New York Youth Climate Council (WNYYCC) in filing the Article 78 proceedings calling for an EIS.
In addition, the East Side Parkways Coalition urges Gov. Kathy Hochul, the NYS Chair of the Transportation Committee Senator Jeremy Cooney, and NYS Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes to take action, and require NYSDOT to prepare an EIS to guarantee a full analysis of the environmental impacts of the project.
Furthermore, ESP is asking the respective parties to provide more alternatives to the project, including the complete removal of the Kensington Expressway and the full restoration of Frederick Law Olmsted’s original Humboldt Parkway design.
"The error in all of this was that they didn't have a truly authentic engagement process for the community early on. They thought because this 'idea' came from the neighborhood, as they present it, that this is an idea that was born from the neighborhood," said Michael Gainer with the East Side Parkways Coalition. "But if you talk to the founders of Restore Our Community Coalition, you know that their original intention was to remove the expressway. In Stephanie Geter's words, the late Stephanie Geter, one of the founding members of ROCC, I called her right before I presented at the hearings that were at the science museum here, she said, 'The expressway is killing us.' Now, if you're a state leader or you're a federal leader, or you're a city leader or a county leader, and you have a community activist coming to you and saying this expressway is killing us, and then your option to fix that problem is to put a cap, but to maintain the thing that is doing the harm, then what have you done for that community? We need true solutions that reinvigorate the neighborhood."