New York state\u2019s Department of Transportation says it will no longer consider plans to run new highway lanes through the Bronx River – which is a relief for the Bronx River Alliance.<\/p>\n
The DOT confirmed it is scrapping proposals that would have created traffic diversion lanes along the Cross Bronx Expressway, cutting through the river\u2019s ecosystem.<\/p>\n
The decision to no longer consider plans that would create temporary road ways comes at a cost \u2014 it will increase the project\u2019s timeline by two years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think today was very beneficial in having everybody at the table,” said Nilka Martell, Bronx River Alliance board chair. ” The community can work with the city and state officials to really come up with [more effective] plans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martell says the original plans for the project would have undone nearly fifty years of restoration work along the river. \u201cWe have wildlife that has come back. Creating this temporary diversion track would have negative impacts on the ecological restoration of the river,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson assured residents that local concerns are being heard. \u201cWe hear you\u2014we understand that you have endured a lot over these past decades and it\u2019s not right,\u201d said Gibson.<\/p>\n
To celebrate, members of the Bronx River Alliance took to the water\u2014kayaking to mark the milestone.<\/p>\n
Still, the fight isn\u2019t over. Andrew Villalobos, of the Bronx River Alliance, says pollution remains a major challenge. \u201cIt only has to rain a tenth of an inch for raw sewage to be released into the river,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The alliance says it’s actively looking into ways to improve the quality of the river water, to make swimming possible in the distant future. <\/p>\n
\u201cCommunity matters, we can come together and get stuff done,\u201d Villalobos added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York state\u2019s Department of Transportation says it will no longer consider plans to run new highway lanes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,1309,1311,9,24,1310,63,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-1042","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-bronx-river","10":"tag-celebration","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-city-department-of-transportation","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-the-bronx","16":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","17":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}