BUFFALO, N.Y. — Full steam ahead was the message from Governor Hochul and a room full of community leaders and elected and appointed officials Friday, who were called to celebrate the Federal Highway Administration signing off on the Kensington Expressway project.
The so-called "cap and tunnel" plan involves covering a little over 4,000 feet of the depressed roadway in Buffalo, putting 9 acres of park space on top, and pumping millions of dollars into the surrounding streetscape.
Governor Hochul touted during the event held at the Edward Saunders Community Center on Bailey Avenue, that work could start on the expressway as soon as this year. So what's next?
The NYSDOT says they will continue finalizing the final design for the 4,100ft tunnel project, which is slated to cost more than $1B. The DOT expects to finish that work by spring or early summer.
Governor Hochul on Friday called for construction to begin this year, and the NYSDOT says it's possible construction will begin in the fall.
The timeline shared on Friday is the most concrete schedule yet, for a project that's been discussed for decades.
Governor Hochul and Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes both addressed the years of work that have gone into the "cap and tunnel" decision. They concluded now is the time to move forward.
"It's been paralysis by analysis, right? You can study anything to death but we're going to do the right thing," exclaimed Governor Hochul.
Some, including the vocal East Side Parkways Coalition, aren't convinced, however, and say this is not the right time or the right plan. Rather than "full steam ahead" they want "full stop."
"I don't want 6 years from now for us to look back and say how could they be so stupid to put a tunnel and an expressway when cities all across the nation are getting rid of expressways," said Buffalo resident and former common councilmember Betty Jean-Grant.
About two dozen members of the Parkways Coalition greeted people exiting Friday's event with signs that read "Restore Humboldt Parkway" and chants of "No Toxic Tunnel." The group wants to reimagine the Kensington Expressway but does not believe the plan christened by the state and now federal government is the right one.
"We think if the state allocated the resources that they're spending on a bad plan on a good plan that we could do it for less money do it better and do it in a shorter timeframe than five years," said Terrence Robinson, who lives along Humboldt Parkway.
Robinson and others believe a more flexible, inclusive, and updated plan for the Kensington is what the East Side really needs.
They want to see public transit added to the plan, a guarantee that Humboldt Parkway, MLK, and Delaware Parks will ultimately be connected as Frederick Law Olmstead designed, and for the state to give more consideration to pollution, given that thousands of cars will still use the tunnel every day.
"The fact that they know and are aware of the environmental damage, the personal damage... and [keep saying] that a five-year construction project through a residential neighborhood can have no short-term or long-term environmental impacts, it's absolutely illogical and it's immoral," Robison added.
In a gaggle with journalists after Friday's event, Governor Hochul and DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos took questions about the state's environmental assessment of the project. Both stood by the results and rejected suggestions that the study was done done incorrectly.
"We disagree with that assessment," Hochul told reporters.
Seggos provided a little more context.
"Both DEC and EPA reviewed the methodology, the analysis, the findings, we concur, in fact that this is a net benefit for the area," Seggos said. "From an air emissions perspective. It will be within states, the states and the federal government's regulations."
Sydney Brown from ROCC, the Restore Our Communities Coalition, a group that has been advocating for the Kensington Project for years doubled down on Hochul and Seggo's remarks calling the "Toxic Tunnel" trope, disingenuous.
"They haven't been in the meetings, they haven't listened to the reports and all of the studies that have been done," Brown said. "There are professional people working on this project, how in the world could the New York State DOT and the federal government approve a project if it had not been vetted?"