DOT Cancels Meetings About Kensington Expressway

A local judge recently extended a temporary stop-work order on the Kensington Expressway. The state Department of Transportation, after that decision, canceled for the second month in a row a stakeholders meeting to discuss the project with interested parties. 

However, the same DOT officials kept a pre-scheduled meeting with the Buffalo Niagara Partnership on Monday, as first reported by WGRZ. 

People who attended the meeting Monday said DOT officials talked about concerns, including how traffic coming into downtown Buffalo would be impacted by the construction of the $1 billion tunnel project if it is allowed to move forward eventually, during the four-and-a-half years it would take to complete the project, slated to stretch from Best to Sidney Street. 

In a statement provided to WGRZ, the DOT said the monthly Kensington project meeting was canceled “as we await a change in the temporary restraining order issued by the Erie County Supreme Court, which suspends all construction activities. In the meantime, NYSDOT will continue to give informational presentations about the overall project at community events, as we have done dozens of times and as we recently did, by invitation, at the Buffalo Niagara Partnership.” 

One of the concerns raised by Judge Emilio Coliacovo during last week’s hearing was NYSDOT’s claim that traffic wouldn’t be impacted all that much by the massive construction project. At the time, he said it didn’t seem possible that commuters’ drives to and from work would be the same as they are currently. 

In sending a cancellation notice to stakeholders, including community groups like the East Side Parkways Coalition, the DOT said meetings will resume “once we have the court’s decision.” 

That is not reassuring to many of those stakeholders who remain concerned about the project, including the possible negative health effects of putting a tunnel over the Kensington Expressway and the decision by the state not to conduct a full environmental impact study of the project. A recent state Department of Environmental Conservation study found higher levels of pollutants along the expressway already; people who live nearby are worried those levels would increase as fumes from vehicles are concentrated at either end of the tunnel if the project is completed. 

Additionally, failure to keep the conversation going with community stakeholders might mean a lack of locally available and trained workers who could end up missing out on jobs if they don’t have enough time to properly train for the construction jobs associated with the project. 

“It hurts the community when we don’t know and how the Department of Transportation is being locked in on the decision,” said Murray Holman of Back to Basics Ministries, a key community organization. “We need to know how far we’re going to go, whether the funds are going to come here or not, whether the funds are going to go somewhere else; that might play a major part here in Buffalo.” 

The next court date for the case is November 18.