Cross-Bronx Expressway

Cross-Bronx Expressway

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The Cross Bronx Expressway dates back to at least 1929, when New York City officials began to see the need for an automobile route across the South Bronx. By the early 1940s, the New York City Planning Commission developed a strategy for building it. The planners recognized that "topographical conditions, high land values and heavily built-up areas make the construction of such a highway very difficult."[1] While only 8.3 miles long, the road needed to cross 113 streets and a handful of public-transit rail routes. Builders would need to painstakingly blast and chisel through rock ridges, being careful not to damage the hundreds of utility lines that lay in the way. Worse, thousands of people would have to be relocated. The remaining neighborhoods would be decimated by six sunken lanes of traffic, a no-man's-land for playing children, storefronts, and passers-by.

Still, the planners insisted, "its great importance would justify the expense involved."[1] Providing traffic a direct route from the George Washington Bridge to Long Island and New England, it would weave New York City into the emerging network of postwar interstates and superhighways.

Robert Moses , who by the mid-40s had become a prime mover in City Hall, took the project under his wing. Though never holding elected office or even knowing how to drive a car, Moses shepherded---or attempted to shepherd---New York's most ambitious plans for automobile-oriented development during that period. Armed with eminent domain laws and political savvy, he was a visionary (of sorts) whose many projects transformed the face of the city, often to the chagrin of its residents.

Construction on the expressway began in 1948 and lasted until 1963. Today, it carries around 145,000 cars each day and is notorious for horrendous traffic and noxious fumes. [1] As one highway enthusiast puts it, if "you know without the shadow of a doubt that you are in hell, then you must be on the Cross Bronx Expressway!"[2]