It looks like increased truck traffic will soon be a reality for residents of the South Bronx. A Bronx Supreme Court judge dismissed the lawsuit brought by South Bronx Unite against the City after it approved the relocation of Fresh Direct’s headquarters from Queens to Harlem River Yards.
South Bronx Unite’s main concern with the plan remains the influx of roughly 1,000 trucks the project will bring to the area. As MTR noted at the time of the plan’s approval, the Bronx is “already home to busy roadways, truck routes and waste transfer facilities that will now see more traffic and pollution.”
But if the City and State are going to continue to encourage economic development in the Bronx, will they also commit to improving the roadway network and revitalizing the non-industrial areas in the community as well? One way for this to occur is to advance New York City Department of City Planning’s (DCP) TIGER II funded Sheridan-Hunts Point Land Use and Transportation Study (SEHP). The DCP recently released a list of draft recommendations, which comprise a series of changes to the Sheridan Expressway and surrounding neighborhoods.
It is expected that the final recommendations will mirror the draft recommendations, but the big lingering question is whether the new mayoral administration and the State will move the project forward. For starters, the State could begin a new environmental impact statement (EIS) for the project this year, a step made necessary when it terminated the EIS last June. Any new EIS must incorporate the final recommendations from the SEHP Study and perform the full analysis of the Bronx highway network, a call that the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance has repeated and a promise the City made in the SEHP Study.
If the City and State will allow the South Bronx to be burdened by ever-increasing truck traffic, they must also make the SEHP Study’s recommendations a reality while also further enhancing both the quality of life and the economic vitality of the area.
[…] Tri-State Links Fresh Direct Mitigation to Implementation of Sheridan Recommendations (MTR) […]
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It is not a question of mitigation, the fight to stop $130 million in subsidies in cash and tax breaks to a near bankrupt company is ongoing!
[…] As MTR noted last month, the South Bronx suffers from a disproportionate amount of truck traffic evidenced by the area’s high asthma rate and high pedestrian crash and fatality rates in the Hunts Point section in particular. Little relief has come to the area, and elected officials supported the Fresh Direct relocation without finding solutions to the influx of more truck traffic. Fresh Direct is to be sited on one of the city’s best intermodal rail facilities, but there was hardly any push from electeds to increase the company’s rail use, which would help mitigate pollution and congestion in the area. The City’s recently-released recommendations in the Sheridan -Hunts Point Land Use and Transportation Study are a step in the right direction, but without City leaders pushing New York State to start the environmental impact study for the project, South Bronx residents will be stuck with more of the same. […]
[…] of trucks make the two-mile connection using local residential streets. This contributes to air pollution and safety issues for South Bronx residents. The construction of ramps are one of two key recommendations released […]