Buffalo Residents Protest Against Kensington Expressway Project

On Saturday, April 20, 2024, We Are Women Warriors, Stop The Violence Coalition, East Side Parkways Coalition, Jes' Breath Cancer Awareness Group, WNY Peace Center, and Covington Associates Consulting gathered with a cadre of residents who live near the Kensington Expressway in protest to the expressway project that would create a tunnel out of 3/4 of a mile of the highway.

As the start of the project nears, a larger section of people are expressing their dissatisfaction with it. What was originally touted as a way to reconnect a community that was nearly destroyed a generation ago is looking more like it's not the case.

READ MORE: More Buffalonians Disapprove of Kensington Expressway Project

With New York State just a few months away from spending more than $1 billion, residents in the surrounding community are looking for more environmental testing before shovels go in the ground.

READ MORE: Watch The Kensington Project Rendering Video

With this in mind, dozens of people took to the streets on a cold April morning to march down East Ferry Avenue toward Humboldt Parkway in protest. Their ultimate goal remains to raise awareness about what state officials are not doing.

What Is The Kensington Expressway Project?

The New York State Department of Transportation, with the support of the Federal Highway Administration, plans to reconstruct a section of New York State Route 33, which runs through the city of Buffalo; the stretch in question is colloquially known as the Kensington Expressway.

The original Kensington Expressway was built in 1958, and the Kensington Expressway project would cost taxpayers around $1 billion to build. It reconstructs a 3/4-mile section of the highway into a six-lane tunnel between Dodge Street and Sidney Street. It also creates a 90-foot-wide, tree-lined median atop the tunnel, providing around 11 acres of new publicly accessible green space.