Federal agency greenlights Kensington project as opposition digs in

The agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation reached a “finding of no significant impact” after reviewing the environmental assessment conducted over the past two years by the New York State Department of Transportation.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, who announced a commitment of up to $1 billion in January 2022 for the project, is expected to make the announcement today in Buffalo.

“Gov. Hochul has been supportive of this transformational, community-driven project to reconnect East Buffalo’s neighborhoods for more than two years, and we’ll have more to share tomorrow,” spokesman Matt Janiszewski said Thursday afternoon.

The decision allows the project to go to final design and then on to construction, which the governor has said she wanted to see begin as early as late 2024.

It comes amid mounting opposition to the project – and few signs of community support at state and community meetings, as well as among public comments received for the project – a state Department of Transportation-led effort that calls for a tunnel between Dodge and Sidney streets.

Trees and grass would be planted atop the tunnel as a way to reconstruct a portion of the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed two-lane street, bridle path and rows of trees that existed before the highway was bulldozed to make way for Route 33 during the highway boom of the 1950s and ‘60s.

The decision marks the culmination of efforts dating to the early 2000s by residents on the East Side who formed Restore Our Community Coalition, also known as ROCC, to address the harm done by the expressway. The group has sought to reconnect neighborhoods long divided by the sunken six-lane highway.

Stephanie Barber Geter, who was ROCC’s chairman and face of the organization in recent years, died from an illness in January, weeks before the…