Gov. Hochul announces the near-completion of new ramps and widening on the Bruckner Expressway on Aug. 21, 2023.
Don Pollard / Office of Governor Kathy Hochul
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Monday that a project that aims to reduce truck traffic on local streets in the South Bronx is nearing completion.
The project, which involves widening the Bruckner Expressway and adding new exit ramps, aims to more efficiently manage the massive number of trucks traveling to and from the Hunts Point Terminal Market, the world’s largest food distribution center.
The announcement celebrated the completion of phase 2 in the $1.7 billion “Hunts Point Access Improvement Project,” which aims to more efficiently manage the massive number of trucks traveling to and from the Hunts Point Terminal Market, the world’s largest food distribution center.
Phase 2 — which Hochul said is being finalized ahead of its scheduled autumn completion date and below its $518 million budget — encompasses the widening of 1.25 miles of the Bruckner Expressway between East 141st Street and Barretto Street and new on-and-off ramps at Leggett Avenue, providing another route for trucks to take from the highway to the produce market.
A third phase, which is under construction, will see the reconstruction of the “bottleneck” Bruckner-Sheridan interchange and complete the addition of a third lane on the Bruckner.
The governor, standing against a green backdrop at the La Central YMCA in the South Bronx, painted the project as a win for the environment, taking trucks off residential streets where they wear down roads and spew toxic fumes, contributing to the Bronx having the city’s highest asthma rates.
“[South Bronxites] live in a community that’s under siege from toxic fumes from heavy truck traffic,” the governor said, referencing the history of environmental racism in the borough’s planning decisions. “Today, we’re gonna take back our community, take back our air and our…
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