![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/bill-watch-logo-copy.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Could we send the highways to Hell?<\/p>\n
New York State will halt the expansion of highways near public housing developments and asthma hot spots, under a new bill that seeks to protect some of the poorest and most vulnerable New Yorkers from excess pollution and emissions.<\/p>\n
Assembly Member Emerita Torres (D-Bronx) recently introduced the Stop Highway Community Harm Act<\/a> to ban the state from widening highways within 200 feet of public housing or in ZIP codes where the three-year average of asthma-related emergency department visits exceed 70 visits per 10,000 people, slightly above the New York City average of 64.6 visits per 10,000 people<\/a>.<\/p>\n Torres arrived in Albany two years ago and immediately joined the fight against the Five Bridges Project, which would have enlarged the Cross Bronx Expressway with a \u201cdiverter road\u201d<\/a> during highway repairs. She said that fight, and her personal desire to safeguard New Yorkers with little say over transportation planning, inspired her to write the bill.<\/p>\n \u201cOur public housing communities, they\u2019re vulnerable,\u201d said Torres. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about young children, elders and families who are on fixed incomes, who are generally so close to highways and the related air pollution and noise pollution that it causes.\u201d<\/p>\n Torres\u2019s experience with the Cross Bronx repair project influenced the bill\u2019s text, which prohibits adding new lanes, converting shoulders and medians into travel lanes and widening shoulders in a manner that increases vehicle throughput or operating speeds.<\/p>\n The state DOT ditched its plan<\/a> for a hulking four-lane road to carry traffic during repairs to some elevated segments of the highway, but the agency is still planning to expand the Cross Bronx by 50 feet to install wider shoulders that comply with federal highway safety standards.<\/p>\n Torres said she took additional inspiration from New York\u2019s SIGH Act<\/a>, which bars the construction of schools near highways in order to protect children from pollution. She was dismayed to learn that state and federal law lacks any comparable provisions for public housing or areas with high asthma rates.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have [a] standard for the community when it comes to how close they should be in terms of public housing near a highway,\u201d Torres said. \u201cThere\u2019s no federal standard for that. There\u2019s no state standard for that. And I think that\u2019s a problem, because you can build a highway wherever you want, with [no regard] for whatever vulnerable community is residing there.\u201d<\/p>\n The state insists that it needs to bring up the Cross Bronx to federal standards in order to receive federal money for its rehabilitation, and argues that it doesn\u2019t plan to add any new lanes \u2014 but Torres and other activists don\u2019t buy that explanation. She said that a wider shoulder brings car pollution that much closer to people\u2019s homes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Department of Transportation is [arguing] that it\u2019s not an expansion, it\u2019s for safety reasons,\u201d she said. \u201cBut in essence, you\u2019re still expanding the highway, where a truck can park [or] idle on the highway.\u201d<\/p>\n New York has made halting progress toward ending its highway expansion era. The state plans to tear down the I-81 viaduct<\/a> in Syracuse, convert the Sheridan Expressway into a boulevard<\/a>, and cap the Cross Bronx Expressway<\/a>. But its inclination to expand continues to rear<\/a> its big, ugly and noisy head.<\/p>\n Torres\u2019s bill would also create a more thoughtful process for planning future highway expansions. Those projects already require environmental assessments to determine the impacts of construction, but current law doesn\u2019t explicitly require those assessments to consider whether expanding public transit would achieve the same outcome as a proposed expansion.<\/p>\n During the fight against the Five Bridges proposal, activists repeatedly pushed to improve transit for people living near the Cross Bronx Expressway. Torres wants to enshrine that demand in state law.<\/p>\n \u201cThis goes a step beyond [an environmental assessment], with respect to particular alternatives,\u201d she said. \u201cOne thing that the community has really demanded that I agree with, is we have to decrease the number of cars and trucks on the road in this area. Having the alternative discussion and having the additional data analysis and information is really important.\u201d<\/p>\n