Kris
December 22nd, 2003, 04:06 PM
Dreaming of a park on Sheridan Expressway
By Heather McRea
When South Bronx residents look at the Sheridan Expressway, some see a concrete roadway. Others see an opportunity for a little bit of green.
"It is a stretch of highway that doesn’t really go anywhere," said Deltas Vernon Cole, assistant director of Nos Quedamos, a community development organization. Nos Quedamos has joined a handful of South Bronx groups, politicians and regional transportation advocates pushing to have the 1.25-mile-long expressway paved over — not with asphalt, but with grass and flowers to make it a 28-acre park.
"This would give people an opportunity to have a large recreational park in the South Bronx," Cole said, quoting national and state standards that recommend five to six acres of open land for every 1,000 people. He said the South Bronx had about one acre per 1,000.
But not all of the surrounding community is sold on the idea.
When Frank Gonzalez looks at the Sheridan Expressway (Interstate-895), which splits the Crotona Park East and Bronx River neighborhoods, he sees an escape route for the days when the traffic on the Cross Bronx Expressway has slowed to an agonizing crawl.
"Even though it is small, it is an important highway to the borough," said Gonzalez, district manager of Community Board 9. He said the community has enough parks — some already underutilized, such as Soundview Park, "the best kept secret in the South Bronx. The Community Board has taken the position that the Sheridan Expressway is imperative. People do use it."
Built in the mid-1950s, the expressway was part of Robert Moses’ plan to combat traffic on the region’s main arteries by building more roadways to parallel them. The Sheridan, along with the Major Deegan and Bruckner expressways, was built at the same time to steer motorists through the Bronx.
The Sheridan was originally planned to connect north all the way to the New England Thruway, but that idea was scrapped in the 1960s when troubles with building through the Bronx Park and existing communities were recognized.
The debate over the expressway’s future began when the department started looking at possible improvements to the interchanges that connect it to 177th Street and the Cross Bronx Expressway in the north and the Bruckner Expressway in the south.
When the project proposals for these two interchanges were released, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a watchdog organization, read them. It saw the opportunity to turn a little-used highway into a 1.25-mile park.
"It is a redundant highway," said Lisa Schreibman, spokeswoman for the transportation campaign. "Not many people use it."
According to the State Department of Transportation, the Sheridan carries about 34,000 cars daily.
"If we shut down the expressway, then the question is where would the cars go," said Peter King, project manager with the department. He is now measuring the impact that closing the expressway would have on surrounding roadways.
The department is looking at several alternatives for the expressway but not the original idea of expanding it north, King said. In several years, once all the required studies are completed and hearings are held, the state transportation commissioner will make the final decision on the expressway’s fate, said Alex Dudley, spokesman for the agency.
"There is going to have to be some very frank discussion about the repercussions of this," he said. "While it is not the Cross Bronx Expressway, that is still an awful lot of cars to put into a neighborhood or several neighborhoods."
http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/bronxbeat/1999/april/april5/images/dreaming.gif
http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/bronxbeat/1999/april/april5/dreaming.html
The Sheridan Expressway (http://www.nycroads.com/roads/sheridan)
South Bronx neighborhoods short on open spaces
By Dina Cappiello
When spoken in the Bronx, the words "environmental justice" conjure up images of neighborhoods with too many waste transfer stations, an unfair share of truck traffic and the sludge generated by millions of flushing toilets, not the leafy trees and rocky outcrops of Pelham Bay and Van Cortlandt Parks.
"We are always on the receiving end of all the negatives," said Delmas Vernon Cole, assistant director of Nos Quedamos/We Stay, an environmental advocacy organization in the South Bronx. "Other communities get the positive aspects."
Communities of color have less open space than more affluent, white sections of the borough, according to a preliminary report obtained by The Bronx Beat from the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance (NYJA). The organization, a group of 16 nonprofit groups committed to providing low-income communities with a cleaner environment, expects to complete its study in June. So far, it shows that Mott Haven, Longwood/Hunts Point, High Bridge/Mount Eden and Morris Heights/Fordham, with populations more than 65 percent minority, have less than one acre of parkland per 1,000 people. The mostly white communities of Riverdale, Pelham Bay and Morris Park have 2.5 acres of parkland per 1,000 people because they contain the borough’s two biggest parks.
Community-based organizations in the southern part of the borough have been aware of their lack of open space, but until now have been crippled because of a lack of numbers. "When we begin investigations that quantify and document this trend, our case is stronger," Cole said. Nos Quedamos wants to build tree nurseries in communities where there are few parks; Neighborhood Open Space Coalition suggests expanding into the Bronx the city’s 350-mile Greenway system, a series of trails that would connect all five boroughs; NYJA recommends that the Parks Department protect the 31 Bronx community gardens to be auctioned off by the city in May.
"It’s racism," said Omar Freilla, the transportation coordinator for NYJA, who used records of land the Parks Department owns in each community district to compose the report. "There’s plenty of space in these communities to make green space. There’s 14,000 vacant lots in the city."
In poor neighborhoods, parks tend to be small plots given to the Parks Department by other city agencies that are converted to playgrounds and garden lots, according to Ed Skyler, press secretary for the city’s Parks and Recreation Department. Forty-seven were acquired in "underserved communities" last year, where the amount of space per 1,000 people is less than one-and-a-half acres, he said. In 1995, the Parks Department also started GreenStreets, a program that has landscaped 300 Department of Transportation traffic triangles in the city, 51 in the Bronx.
The small contributions, roughly .1 acre per 1,000 people, are not enough to make up the difference between white and minority areas in the Bronx or any other borough of New York City, according to NYJA.
"I think we have been very aggressive in acquiring land not suitable for development," said Skyler, who added that it’s easier to acquire parks in areas that are pre-existing wetlands. These wetland areas are concentrated in the northern half of the borough.
"This city has less open space than any other city in America," said Dave Lutz, program director for the Neighborhood Open Space Coalition, an organization dedicated to keeping what little green space the city has, and fighting for more. In New York City, open space averages 2.6 acres per 1,000 people, while the national average is 6 acres.
Compare that to the Longwood section of the South Bronx, where Al Quinones, 42, has logged thousands of hours of volunteer time for the Parks Department taking care of a portion of the community’s .494 acres of open space per 1,000 people. He has worked at the playground, on 152nd and Leggett Avenue, for 19 years.
"Open space is not the problem," he said. "It’s the utilization of open space that is the problem. If I wasn’t here to open this place up, lend out jump ropes or protect the trees, no one else would do it."
The Parks Department says maintenance is a consequence of park size. Large parks have a 24-hour staff, while smaller gardens and playgrounds are visited once or twice a day, said Ed Skyler, a department spokesman.
Quinones says that it is not enough. "They’ll sweep for an hour then they’re gone," he said. "The Parks Department do what? The Parks Department does nothing."
http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/bronxbeat/1999/april/april12/spaces.html
By Heather McRea
When South Bronx residents look at the Sheridan Expressway, some see a concrete roadway. Others see an opportunity for a little bit of green.
"It is a stretch of highway that doesn’t really go anywhere," said Deltas Vernon Cole, assistant director of Nos Quedamos, a community development organization. Nos Quedamos has joined a handful of South Bronx groups, politicians and regional transportation advocates pushing to have the 1.25-mile-long expressway paved over — not with asphalt, but with grass and flowers to make it a 28-acre park.
"This would give people an opportunity to have a large recreational park in the South Bronx," Cole said, quoting national and state standards that recommend five to six acres of open land for every 1,000 people. He said the South Bronx had about one acre per 1,000.
But not all of the surrounding community is sold on the idea.
When Frank Gonzalez looks at the Sheridan Expressway (Interstate-895), which splits the Crotona Park East and Bronx River neighborhoods, he sees an escape route for the days when the traffic on the Cross Bronx Expressway has slowed to an agonizing crawl.
"Even though it is small, it is an important highway to the borough," said Gonzalez, district manager of Community Board 9. He said the community has enough parks — some already underutilized, such as Soundview Park, "the best kept secret in the South Bronx. The Community Board has taken the position that the Sheridan Expressway is imperative. People do use it."
Built in the mid-1950s, the expressway was part of Robert Moses’ plan to combat traffic on the region’s main arteries by building more roadways to parallel them. The Sheridan, along with the Major Deegan and Bruckner expressways, was built at the same time to steer motorists through the Bronx.
The Sheridan was originally planned to connect north all the way to the New England Thruway, but that idea was scrapped in the 1960s when troubles with building through the Bronx Park and existing communities were recognized.
The debate over the expressway’s future began when the department started looking at possible improvements to the interchanges that connect it to 177th Street and the Cross Bronx Expressway in the north and the Bruckner Expressway in the south.
When the project proposals for these two interchanges were released, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a watchdog organization, read them. It saw the opportunity to turn a little-used highway into a 1.25-mile park.
"It is a redundant highway," said Lisa Schreibman, spokeswoman for the transportation campaign. "Not many people use it."
According to the State Department of Transportation, the Sheridan carries about 34,000 cars daily.
"If we shut down the expressway, then the question is where would the cars go," said Peter King, project manager with the department. He is now measuring the impact that closing the expressway would have on surrounding roadways.
The department is looking at several alternatives for the expressway but not the original idea of expanding it north, King said. In several years, once all the required studies are completed and hearings are held, the state transportation commissioner will make the final decision on the expressway’s fate, said Alex Dudley, spokesman for the agency.
"There is going to have to be some very frank discussion about the repercussions of this," he said. "While it is not the Cross Bronx Expressway, that is still an awful lot of cars to put into a neighborhood or several neighborhoods."
http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/bronxbeat/1999/april/april5/images/dreaming.gif
http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/bronxbeat/1999/april/april5/dreaming.html
The Sheridan Expressway (http://www.nycroads.com/roads/sheridan)
South Bronx neighborhoods short on open spaces
By Dina Cappiello
When spoken in the Bronx, the words "environmental justice" conjure up images of neighborhoods with too many waste transfer stations, an unfair share of truck traffic and the sludge generated by millions of flushing toilets, not the leafy trees and rocky outcrops of Pelham Bay and Van Cortlandt Parks.
"We are always on the receiving end of all the negatives," said Delmas Vernon Cole, assistant director of Nos Quedamos/We Stay, an environmental advocacy organization in the South Bronx. "Other communities get the positive aspects."
Communities of color have less open space than more affluent, white sections of the borough, according to a preliminary report obtained by The Bronx Beat from the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance (NYJA). The organization, a group of 16 nonprofit groups committed to providing low-income communities with a cleaner environment, expects to complete its study in June. So far, it shows that Mott Haven, Longwood/Hunts Point, High Bridge/Mount Eden and Morris Heights/Fordham, with populations more than 65 percent minority, have less than one acre of parkland per 1,000 people. The mostly white communities of Riverdale, Pelham Bay and Morris Park have 2.5 acres of parkland per 1,000 people because they contain the borough’s two biggest parks.
Community-based organizations in the southern part of the borough have been aware of their lack of open space, but until now have been crippled because of a lack of numbers. "When we begin investigations that quantify and document this trend, our case is stronger," Cole said. Nos Quedamos wants to build tree nurseries in communities where there are few parks; Neighborhood Open Space Coalition suggests expanding into the Bronx the city’s 350-mile Greenway system, a series of trails that would connect all five boroughs; NYJA recommends that the Parks Department protect the 31 Bronx community gardens to be auctioned off by the city in May.
"It’s racism," said Omar Freilla, the transportation coordinator for NYJA, who used records of land the Parks Department owns in each community district to compose the report. "There’s plenty of space in these communities to make green space. There’s 14,000 vacant lots in the city."
In poor neighborhoods, parks tend to be small plots given to the Parks Department by other city agencies that are converted to playgrounds and garden lots, according to Ed Skyler, press secretary for the city’s Parks and Recreation Department. Forty-seven were acquired in "underserved communities" last year, where the amount of space per 1,000 people is less than one-and-a-half acres, he said. In 1995, the Parks Department also started GreenStreets, a program that has landscaped 300 Department of Transportation traffic triangles in the city, 51 in the Bronx.
The small contributions, roughly .1 acre per 1,000 people, are not enough to make up the difference between white and minority areas in the Bronx or any other borough of New York City, according to NYJA.
"I think we have been very aggressive in acquiring land not suitable for development," said Skyler, who added that it’s easier to acquire parks in areas that are pre-existing wetlands. These wetland areas are concentrated in the northern half of the borough.
"This city has less open space than any other city in America," said Dave Lutz, program director for the Neighborhood Open Space Coalition, an organization dedicated to keeping what little green space the city has, and fighting for more. In New York City, open space averages 2.6 acres per 1,000 people, while the national average is 6 acres.
Compare that to the Longwood section of the South Bronx, where Al Quinones, 42, has logged thousands of hours of volunteer time for the Parks Department taking care of a portion of the community’s .494 acres of open space per 1,000 people. He has worked at the playground, on 152nd and Leggett Avenue, for 19 years.
"Open space is not the problem," he said. "It’s the utilization of open space that is the problem. If I wasn’t here to open this place up, lend out jump ropes or protect the trees, no one else would do it."
The Parks Department says maintenance is a consequence of park size. Large parks have a 24-hour staff, while smaller gardens and playgrounds are visited once or twice a day, said Ed Skyler, a department spokesman.
Quinones says that it is not enough. "They’ll sweep for an hour then they’re gone," he said. "The Parks Department do what? The Parks Department does nothing."
http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/bronxbeat/1999/april/april12/spaces.html