BUFFALO, N.Y. — In September the NYSDOT released a 300+ report outlining their plan for to spend, at minimum, $1B to cap and tunnel a 4,150ft stretch of the Kensington Expressway.
The DOT spent the better part of a year narrowing down 10 alternative build ideas to eventually land on the tunnel and cap plan.
But after a public hearing on September 27, residents along with community groups are organizing opposition to the plan.
One of the big sticking points for members of the public is the very mission the NYSDOT selected for the project.
"The train has left the station," said Terrance Robinson, a 6-decade resident of Humboldt Parkway. "The boat has set sail, the fix is in."
According to the NYSDOT, the mission of the Kensington project is to:
• Reconnect the surrounding community by creating continuous greenspace to enhance the visual and aesthetic environment of the transportation corridor;
• Maintain the vehicular capacity of the existing transportation corridor;
• Improve vehicular, pedestrian, and bicycle mobility and access in the surrounding community by implementing Complete Street2 roadway design features;
• Address identified geometric and infrastructure deficiencies within the transportation corridor.
"This has been a project that has been clearly steered to continue to move 75,000 cars a day," said Candace Moppins, a lifelong resident of neighborhoods near the Kensington. "It only takes 15 minutes to get anywhere, I think we've gotten a little spoiled by that."
Moppins and Robinson would prefer to see the Kensington filled in, and they're not alone. A growing number of vocal residents and advocacy groups are holding a public meeting about the project on Thursday, October 19. The meeting will be held at 4 P.M. at the Buffalo Science Museum and is hosted by Calvary Baptist Church.
For Candace Moppins, currently the executive director of the Delevan Grider Community Center, the health impacts of the project are a huge concern.
"There's no conversation for the impact of the blasting, that's going to happen for four to five years," Moppins said.
In the draft design report/environmental assessment, the DOT mentions "blasting" 59 times. The bulk of the information about blasting occurs in a few paragraphs on pages 126 and 205, out of 328 pages. Aside from that, the DOT claims that blasting won't occur at night and a blasting schedule will be posted.
But there are other concerns outside of the planned blasting.
"They're essentially going to create with this cap to tunnel a tunnel with two plumes of toxic air that will be pushed out on either end," Moppins said. "We've got schools, we've got community centers for children on Humboldt and Northland."
According to the DDREA, there are 40 daycare centers and 28 places of worship in the project area. There are also two community centers.
"The residents have endured for many years, there have been adults now seniors who are deceased, from cancer, and other things," Moppins said. "Mesothelioma asthma, low birth weight babies, you know, COPD, all of these things that are probably attributed to the original project 60 years ago."
For Robinson, the blasting, drilling, and pile driving will be happening 50 feet from his doorstep.
"You've got the [existing] noise, you've got this chasm, you've got this heat-seeking construction in the middle of the thing, it's just very anti-human," Robinson said.
2 On Your Side reached out to a spokesperson for the NYSDOT on Monday morning. By 11 p.m. Monday night the agency still hadn't responded to the request for an interview.