The Kensington expressway, also known as MLK Jr. expressway within the limits of The City of Buffalo. It is a continuation of NY Route 33.
Planning and Construction
In 1946 the State of New York first made public their “Report on the New York State Thruway and Arterial Routes in the Buffalo Urban Area. (1)” This report outlined a system of expressways, including the Kensington expressway. This document was "rooted in the belief that the city's survival required that it take dramatic and immediate steps to accommodate the projected enormous increase in private vehicles (by 1960). (2)"
The expressway connects the downtown area to the Buffalo airport to the northeast.
Another justification given for the project was cold-war era civil defense. H. Dale Bossert, director of the Buffalo planning commission said "In addition to these advantages for normal traffic, the Kensington Expressway offers an unparalleled opportunity for Civil Defense evacuation and assistance. Planning for dispersal from the northern part of Buffalo reveals the extreme urgency of this project. (3)”
Major General Edwin Zeigler, Erie County’s director of civil defense agreed that the need was there, and testified in a public hearing in June of 1954 that a mock test showed that 230,00 Buffalonians would have died in an attack, but with new high speed evacuation routes the number of dead could be as low as 49,000 (3).
Construction began during the early 1960s.
Map of the arterial highway system planned for Buffalo by the State Department of Transportation in 1946
Controversy
The construction of the Kensington Expressway required the demolition of many homes and businesses in the historic Humboldt park area, a middle class historically black community.
Although the below-grade construction of a large section of the expressway is designed to reduce noise pollution, the six lane 55 mile per hour high volume expressway can be noisy at street level where it passes nearby traditional two story homes.
Property values in the Hamilin Park neighborhood, situated near the intersection of the Kensington and Scajaquada expressways “plummeted” as a result of their construction (4).
The project was met with some protest at the time of its construction, and remains controversial to this day.
There have been proposals to cover the below-grade section of the expressway with a deck to reconnect the historic neighborhood. This is outlined in a report funded by the New York State Department of Transportation, and prepared by the Regional Institute Urban Design Project at the School of Architecture and Planning of the University at Buffalo, State University of New York (5). This plan has support from NY governor Kathy Hochul, as well as Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, and other local and state officials (6).
Sources
1 Mark Goldman - "High Hopes: The Rise and Decline of Buffalo New York." SUNY Press, Albany, 1983. Page 227.
2 Mark Goldman - "High Hopes: The Rise and Decline of Buffalo New York." SUNY Press, Albany, 1983. Page 228.
3 Stece Cichon - “The Slow Death of Humboldt Parkway for the 33 and the 198. The Buffalo News, 2016. https://buffalonews.com/news/local/history/the-slow-death-of-humboldt-parkway-for-the-33-and-the-198/article_a33f13e6-363d-5e55-84f3-cc6f0628f62e.html
4 “Buffalo | Kensington Expressway” Congress for the New Urbanism. https://www.cnu.org/highways-boulevards/campaign-cities/buffalo-kensington
5 Robert Shibley et al, - “Humboldt Parkway Deck Economic Impact Study.” Regional Institute Urban Design Project at the School of Architecture and Planning, SUNY University at Buffalo. March 25th, 2014.
6 “Governor Hochul Announces Unprecedented Investments to Reconnect Communities Across New York State as Part of Proposed State Capital Plan.” January 22, 2022.
