Multi-million Dollar Federal Grant to Help With Route 33 Tunnel
The project to bury the Kensington Expressway and turn a section of the multi-lane expressway into a tunnel is well underway and the announcement of a new grant from Federal officials is helping the transformation of the 33 get underway.
The damage done to the original Humboldt Parkway has long been heralded as one of the worst mistakes that government officials have done in Buffalo's more than 200-year history.
The construction of the Kensington Expressway in the late 1950s destroyed what Frederick Law Olmsted called the widest and grandest street in all of Buffalo and forever changed the face of the city as it also decimated several neighborhoods throughout the central city and also displaced an untold number of families and businesses.
Federal officials recently announced that the project to bury the Kensington is getting a boost of funds to help the project.
The US Department of Transportation has awarded Buffalo a $55 million grant from the Restoring Communities program. These funds are intended to be used to help reconnect the neighborhoods that were separated when the Kensington Expressway separated them.
Humboldt Parkway was obliterated to build the expressway...this will go a long way to right that historic wrong.
-Brian Higgins, US Representative to Congress for NY27
The new proposed tunnel would be built between Sydney Street in the north, and run southward to Dodge Street, with the above-ground part accommodating a new Humboldt Parkway where trees and other green spaces would be available, along with reconnecting MLK park to the rest of the Olmstead Parks network.
The funds for this project come from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that was passed by Congress in 2021. That project is also funding millions in road repairs in Western New York.
I for one truly look forward to this project. I spent many years hearing about how great the original Humboldt Parkway was and I cannot way to play with my kids inside the new one.