WASHINGTON – Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, an early backer of the nearly $1 billion plan to rebuild part of the Kensington Expressway, offered a vehement defense of the project on Thursday, telling The Buffalo News that removing the highway entirely would be grossly more time-consuming and expensive, with no guarantee of success.
Gillibrand reiterated her support for the State Department of Transportation’s current plan to cap about 3/4 of a mile of the Kensington and to re-create part of the long-lost Humboldt Parkway on top of the cap. Opponents on the East Side have criticized the plan, saying it would allow the pollution and disruption caused by the Kensington to remain. Some critics of the plan also say that only removing the highway would fully restore a largely African-American community that was sheared in two when the Kensington was built.
“This was one of the best-planned and laid-out cities in the world, and we destroyed it with this terrible divide,” protester Bill Shanahan said.
Noting those concerns and acknowledging that the Kensington’s construction occurred in an era of “racist decisions” that gravely harmed communities of color, Gillibrand stressed that the DOT plan would offer vast improvements to Buffalo’s East Side.
“My…
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