On Wednesday, April 8, WRVO Public Media welcomed the community to the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology (The MOST) for a special live event: "The Big Dig & I-81: Lessons for Syracuse." We want to extend a sincere thank you to our gracious hosts at The MOST and to the engaged group of WRVO listeners who came out that evening to be part of this crucial conversation.
The evening was moderated by WGBH News' Ian Coss, host of the Peabody Award-winning podcast "The Big Dig," and the event was recorded to be featured in the show's upcoming season. Coss was joined on stage by a panel of experts and policymakers deeply involved in Syracuse's monumental infrastructure project: NYCLU Racial Justice Center Director Lanessa Owens-Chaplin, New York State Department of Transportation Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez, and Interstate 81 Project Director Joe Driscoll.
Together, the panel explored the ongoing efforts to remove the I-81 viaduct. The discussion delved into the logistical and engineering challenges of the project, as well as the profound community impacts. The conversation focused on how to undo past harms, ensure safety, and build an equitable future with vital neighborhood amenities for the residents most affected by the highway.
Listen to the full audio recording of the panel or read the complete event transcript on this page.
Program transcript:
Bill Drake: Good evening, everyone. It's good to see all of you tonight, thanks for joining us here at the MOST. I'm Bill Drake, I'm the station manager with WRVO Public Media, and we're glad you’re out here with us tonight for what we are sure is going to be a really engaging and important discussion over the next hour or so. Following tonight's panel, with Ian Coss and a couple of our invited guests, we're going to try to do some Q&A. So, if you have questions, you can be thinking about those. I'll tell you more about that when we get to that point. Unlike most of you, I am not a central New York native. I came here about 12 years ago or so, but when I got to WRVO in 2014, one of the first things I noticed was this really entrenched discussion about what's going to happen with I-81. And, you know, that had already been going on for a while, 12 years ago. 12 years later, we're still talking about it, of course. There's been some decisions made and work is being done now, but there's still a lot of questions ahead. And when I got to WRVO, one of the things that I tried to do to get up to speed, if you will, on this issue, besides listening to the reporting that our own newsroom was doing, was to listen to archived editions of our weekly public affairs show called "The Campbell Conversations". And that was 12 years ago, and way back then, the host was a guy named Grant Reeher. Fast forward today, we're still airing "The Campbell Conversations," and it's still hosted by a guy named Grant Reeher. So, we thought it was very appropriate to ask Grant to come out and introduce Ian and our panelists this evening. So please join me tonight, again, one more time, thank you for coming out. But join me in welcoming, let me get this right, a professor of political science at Syracuse University, a senior research associate at the Campbell Public Affairs Institute and still the host of "The Campbell Conversations", Grant Reeher.
Grant Reeher: Thank you, Bill, thank you very much. So as Bill just intimated, the I-81 project is, to paraphrase but not directly quote, Syracuse alum and former President Joe Biden, a really, really big deal. Your eyes got big for a minute there. And even before Micron landed here, it was characterized, the I-81 project was characterized as a once-in-a-generation opportunity, something that would be transformational, something that would change the entire region, create jobs, reorient housing patterns in the areas around it, and just have all sorts of knock-on impacts. It also generated intense disagreement here in the region and will likely, it's going to do so again. And it has tapped longstanding concerns and raw rubbed nerves regarding social justice and racial justice. Perhaps no other construction project in the rest of the country has been invoked more often in discussing I-81 than the Big Dig in Boston. And I think the best single-told story of the Big Dig, its problems, its impact, the public frames that surround the issue has been that that's been done by Ian Coss and his colleagues at GBH News and their Peabody Award-winning podcast, "The Big Dig." In discussions of I-81, I can say personally that I have heard the Big Dig invoked in positive ways, I've heard it invoked in negative ways, I have heard it invoked in ways that leave the people listening, completely confused as to why it's being invoked. And that's why I'm particularly glad and grateful, personally, that Ian is here with us tonight to take a look at our own big dig or, more appropriately, our big tear down and rebuild, to help provide some greater insight and clarity of the issues that are involved at least, if not the solutions. I'll just say a couple quick words about Ian himself as a producer, scorer and sound designer of podcasts, Ian has really covered the waterfront over the years. From "Forever is a Long Time," about marriage and divorce, to "Over the Road," about America's long-haul truckers and then many others in between. And along the way, he has gathered accolades from places like "The New York Times," "The New Yorker," "The Atlantic," and the "Financial Times." So, Ian, on behalf of WRVO Public Media, it's a pleasure to welcome you and your colleagues to Syracuse.
(audience applause)
Ian Coss: Thank you so much, Grant. Thank you to ‘RVO. It is so good to be here. Since I make a podcast and not a radio broadcast, I'll say what you all are doing in Syracuse is a big f***ing deal.
(audience laughter)
IC: Before we jump into the conversation, I want to take the temperature of the room because this is a generational, historic project, something that you all will never see again in your lifetimes. As of this moment, if you're feeling more anxious than excited, let's hear some applause. (light audience applause) And if you're feeling more excited than anxious, give us a round of applause. (strong audience applause) Okay, good to know where everyone stands, and maybe we'll check back in at the very end. So, joining us tonight for that conversation, we have Joe Driscoll, the Interstate 81 city project director for the city of Syracuse, come on out, Joe. We've got Marie Therese Dominguez, who is the commissioner for the New York State Department of Transportation. And we've got Lanessa Owens-Chaplin, who is the director of the Racial Justice Center at the New York Civil Liberties Union. Give it up. (audience applause) All right, everyone comfortable? So, Lanessa, I was hoping we could start with you. Before you were a lawyer, you lived as a young person in Pioneer Homes, which is right next to I-81 in Syracuse. What did that highway sound like?
Lanessa Owens-Chaplin: Well, I mean, that's an interesting question, right? Because it sounded loud, right? There was a constant sense of noise throughout the community. I lived at 121 Weiser Court, Apartment 4, and, yeah, it was just really loud and really noisy. And I don't think at the time I recognized how loud it was.
IC: Yeah. I want to give just a little bit of a physical grounding. I think even for folks who live in Syracuse, it's easy to forget just where this road goes and how close it is to the things around it. So, you know, it runs North-South pretty much a straight line through the city. On the one side, you have downtown Syracuse, you have Pioneer Homes, the residential area, the first public housing project in the state of New York. On the other side, you have the hospitals, you have, Syracuse University, where the Orange play and all that. Just how close was your apartment to that highway?
LOC: I want to put a few things in perspective, right?
IC: Please.
LOC: So, one, I grew up in a segregated neighborhood. My neighborhood was predominantly Black.
IC: Yeah.
LOC: And so, although even when I lived in the Pioneer Homes, I didn't realize or recognize that I was so close to University hospitals, I didn't recognize I was so close to Syracuse University. I didn't know those resources were on the other side of the viaduct. That viaduct really stood as like a barrier, like a physical barrier to what was on the other side. I had no concept of how close I was to Syracuse University when I lived there. And so, I think it's just important to note that really when you live in that area, you really feel like you're secluded in that area, you really feel like you're landlocked in the Pioneer Homes. There's one way in and there's one way out. And so it just wasn't apparent to me at the time how close I was to so many rich resources. I didn't have access to those things. But in terms of how close it was, when I first moved into the Pioneer Homes, I went in as an 18-year-old, healthy young adult, and it was my second apartment at the time. And it was, I moved in because it was affordable and something that I could afford. I was working two jobs and going to community college. And so, me and a bunch of my friends actually moved into Pioneer Homes after being on the waitlist for about a year. And, I would say about a year in, I started to develop some, what the doctor called, exercise-induced asthma. And I didn't know that was a thing. I never had asthma growing up as a kid, but I developed asthma as an 18-year-old child. And, you know, my doctor never asked me, like, what neighborhood do you live in? How close are you to a highway? Those kind of conversations just weren't being had. And when I moved away from the Pioneer Homes two years later, my exercise-induced asthma was gone. And so that was kind of the first indicator that it was something that had something to do with my environment and less about what my health was.
IC: Yeah. Commissioner Dominguez, you're looking across the whole state, right? You're looking at New York City, Albany, Syracuse, Utica, Rome, Rochester, Buffalo. Of all the cities, of all the highways that fall under that job, what is it about I-81 in Syracuse that made you think that highway does not need to be there?
Marie Therese Dominguez: Well, I have to say, there's challenges across the state in every single one of these cities. And it's historical because when you look across the state of New York in particular, I-81, like many of these large infrastructure, pieces of infrastructure, highways in particular, across the state of New York are a vestige of a philosophy that was espoused by Robert Moses. And, as the city planner, but it really extended while he was New York City's planner in chief, his influence was felt across the entirety of the state. And so, when you married, historically, his vision of building interstate highways and you match that with the Eisenhower infrastructure dollars that went with all of that, you know, back then, there was not consideration given to where these roadways were placed, and oftentimes they went, also, the consideration was not there in terms of who was being displaced, who was being left behind, who was being moved. And so, when you look at, when I came to New York State and we had the opportunity because of where the project with 81 actually was, in other words, we had done some planning studies, we were in the middle of an environmental review process, it became more and more ripe that this project actually could be executed. And that's how, it's a matter of timing, right? This project has been talked about since, I've heard people talk about it since 2000, right? Van Robinson talked about it starting in 2001. So over 20, over two decades, perhaps longer, people have been talking about undoing the viaduct in one form or fashion. And so, it's a matter of timing. Everything came together. I'll say it wasn't easy by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a matter of, literally all the critical elements coming together. Between the environmental review process being done here, a lot of community engagement and the ability to actually have funds to execute something that was along the visionary lines of what the community was looking for, to fundamentally reconnect the community. Take it out, the viaduct literally creates a shadow over the neighborhood that Lanessa grew up in. And when you take down the viaduct, you hope that it's going to not just reconnect the community, but literally shine a light on a community that's been left behind.
IC: So, talk nuts and bolts with me for a second. From a transportation standpoint, why is it that you feel that this road can be decommissioned, Interstate 81 through Rochester?
MTD: Well, first and foremost, it's completely outlived its serviceable life.
IC: Yeah.
MTD: It is in desperate need of repair. We've been doing a lot of work on it to make sure that it's safe. Obviously, people are using it right now. But what became very clear back in, you know, 2010, all of our highway designers and planners were looking at it saying, we have got to figure out a way forward. Either we're going to have to, you know, fix it as it is right now, I-81 that cuts through the city of Syracuse, or we have to come up with some other options on how we're going to actually move people, goods through and around the city of Syracuse. And the question was is, what would those other options look like, right? And that's why we started to study some alternatives.
IC: Joe, as I understand it, you kind of stumbled into this. (laughter) Feel free to correct me if that characterization is unfair.
Joe Driscoll: No, that's a correct characterization, yeah.
IC: So, how did you come to this work around the I-81 project, working for the city of Syracuse?
JD: Yeah. So, I grew up on the east side of Syracuse, right next to Nottingham High School, and, was very proud of, my growing up experience was very, I grew up with, you know, I had jokingly said it was like a Benetton ad, you know, I had, people of all different races and different economic backgrounds and ethnic backgrounds, and it was very much a melting pot for me, Syracuse. And then I moved away for a decade, and when I came back, I started reading as an adult about Syracuse and hearing that we had some of the highest concentration of racially, economically segregated poverty. And I started, you know, kind of exploring the history of that and how much the highway was intertwined with that. It wasn't the only thing, but it was a big thing that inspired me to run for office. And I started a group called Community for the Grid, educating people. I see a lot of the familiar faces here tonight of folks who are advocating with us. And it was really kind of seeing the historical connection to how, you know, to the commissioner's points about the Robert Moses era and how this really accelerated a lot of poverty. And really it felt to me like we, you know, I think this they were saying in the intro, this is a once-in-a-century project. And so, Syracuse was left with the option to kind of double down on that Robert Moses era decision or to, you know, go in a different direction of taking it to grade and trying to reconnect communities and bring something together and kind of realize some of that potential. And so, to me, it just became, you know, a totally unexpected at the age of 35, new life mission to try to fight for that highway and it through that ran for office. And now here I am, you know, managing the city's interests in it.
IC: Yeah. So, I want to spend a little time on how we got here. In this looking at the, like the 2010s period, when a lot of the, you know, the discussion, debate around this happens. Is debate putting it too soft?
JD: Yeah, probably, yeah.
IC: So, when this idea started, you know, to really get serious of tearing down the viaduct, of looking for other options, what was the opposition to that? What did that look like coming from outside the city and within the city? Can you kind of take us back in time?
JD: Oh man, I remember, I'll just maybe start with I remember one of the, there was a group called Save 81 that was really well organized, well funded. They had great organizational capacity and they were really getting their message out there. One of the ads, I forget it, I'll paraphrase, but it was something to the effect of, I guess Christmas is canceled this year because we can't get on 81, so like, we're not going to make it to grandma's house, you know? There was that level of kind of conversation going on there was a lot of misinformation, a lot of disinformation.
IC: And it was running on television, on the radio?
JD: No, more like social media, you know, a lot of Facebook posts. It was, you know, this was in Facebook's kind of heyday, right then, like, you know, 2016-17, maybe even 15, 14, I forget. But it in that period 2013 to the DEIS there was just a ton of, you know, just leave it alone was a lot of the marketing and, you know, community gridlock instead of the community grid was, you know, it was just to me, and maybe I'm being short, but it seemed like a lot of misinformation, a lot of disinformation. I was on the city council at the time, and we had a public forum on, you know, there was basically a few different options, a tunnel option, which was never really that viable because it would be less than like, a mile long, so, there's no tunnels that are less than a mile in length, to widen and make the viaduct larger and wider and taller to meet federal standards, or to bring it to grade. And so, although I had my personal opinion, I wanted to be an objective lawmaker and give everybody equal time. And the Save 81 people declined to speak. They didn't want, because once you got into the facts of what does it look like to make it bigger and wider and taller, versus to take it to grade, you begin to lose the argument on the pluses and minuses and the facts of it. And so that was kind of the dynamic of the time, was there were a lot of suburban interests just really fear-mongering, saying this is going to destroy the economics of the city, it's going to be impossible to get around. It was really just everything you could imagine to throw at it. And, you know, Lanessa was super active. I give NYCLU a ton of credit at that time for really changing the narrative around that and really, you know, bringing the truth and the facts of the debate to the surface.
LOC: I want to chime in because I want to take it back even a little bit further than that. So, our organization, the New York Civil Liberties Union, we have a really long history with this highway. Our first office in the 1960s was opened because of the first construction. The regional office for central New York of the New York Civil Liberties Union was opened because of the original build. And our executive director, Donna Lieberman, has been within our organization for a, long enough to have experienced that. And, I think people often forget the original build, it was very apparent that this neighborhood was targeted, right? This neighborhood was not blindsided, they didn't know what was going on, they knew exactly what was going on, and they knew that the intention was to displace their neighborhood. Their local councilor, common councilor at the time wrote a letter to the Post-Standard saying that they're trying to displace our neighborhood, right, and they were fighting for that. And they did a 24-hour protest in front of City Hall, where they slept overnight and said, please don't put this highway in our neighborhood, and they still did, right? And so, as a result of all those protests, and those 1300 families that were displaced, our office was opened. And so, when we heard that there was a real opportunity as an organization, we heard there was a real opportunity to kind of finally think through how this highway’s impacted community members, we jumped in as an organization. My first job with NYCLU was I-81 project manager. I was a full-time I-81 project manager, staff person, so I had the privilege to work 40 hours a week on a project that felt very passionate to me because not only am I a resident of Syracuse, born and raised on the South side, lived in the Pioneer Homes, I had a close connection to these folks. And one of the first questions that I asked residents before I did anything was like, well, what do you want to see? And the amount of pushback of, the state is going to do whatever they want to do anyway, it doesn't really matter, my opinion doesn't matter, my grandmother has told me the stories of how they just rummaged through my neighborhood. That was a real barrier to kind of get the community to come forward. And then secondly, we did have a ton of opposition. The conversation when we entered the room was about commute times, and it was about how are we going to get from point A to point B? And I think our organization NYCLU, was like, wait a minute, there's a racial justice / civil rights issue here that we're completely ignoring. And we tried our best to kind of bring that to the forefront. We did that through like Community Voices, where we had community residents do letters to the editor once a week to talk about their experience, those who we are fortunate enough to find, those who were still alive, who lived through the first construction.
IC: Wow.
LOC: So, we had residents writing letters to the editor to talk about this. We worked with the Onondaga County Historical Association, and we scanned 500 documents and clippings from that period to say, here are all the things that we know that happened during that time. It was very clearly racially motivated. It’s like, Robert Moses said, like, kill two birds with one stone, like, we can connect interstate commerce, and we can get rid of the slums. That very much is on the record here in Syracuse from our city planners. And so, we really tried to highlight that work and take power away from the town supervisors and some of their allies, who were really just concerned with how much time is it going to increase for them to go to work? But also, there was a ton of dog whistles. Like, we don't want to stop at a stop sign and have to drive with this neighborhood and get robbed, right? We heard that kind of rhetoric coming from town supervisors, suburban communities, predominantly whiter, wealthier neighborhoods who were really afraid that, to grade, meant they had to ride through a Black neighborhood. And the dangers of riding through Black neighborhoods.
IC: The viaduct represented a kind of safe margin, like, elevated above those neighborhoods?
LOC: Right. Because now if you ride on the highway, and I know it's hard to visualize for people who have never seen the highway, but the highway is actually above the public housing.
IC: Right, you look down at the…
LOC: You would have to know what was there to look for it, right? And so, if you're just a driver, you don't know to look down the viaduct, you don't know you're driving through public housing. But now what you're asking folks to do is drive through these Black neighborhoods that have been disinvested and ignored for decade.
IC: And actually see it.
LOC: And actually see it, kind of face-to-face.
IC: And have to stop at a stoplight and idle, and be there, still, for thirty seconds.
LOC: Right. When all statistics show that there's not a higher crime rate in this area than any other neighborhood in Syracuse. But this kind of, it's just that dog whistle of like, we don't really want to be integrated in the city of Syracuse. And it goes back to what Joe was saying. We are one of the most segregated cities in the nation. And so, this idea that we need to stay separate was really, really prevalent during the very beginnings of that conversation.
IC: Yeah.
MTD: You asked an initial question of me, and just to maybe put a little bit of context into my own, you asked, like, why Syracuse, right?
IC: Yeah.
MTD: Why the 81 project? So, just kind of globally from New York State, since I have responsibility for the state as state transportation commissioner, we have projects like these, transformational projects that we are literally advancing everywhere in most every city across the state of New York, because the need is so great and because it's so obvious what the transformational opportunities are. We just completed a huge project in New York City, Hunts Point, in the South Bronx. We're looking to identify what the opportunities are in Albany for 787, which is a very overbuilt piece of infrastructure connecting downtown Albany to the waterfront. Here in Syracuse, Rochester was a proven, right? We already did one portion of the inner loop. Now we've got an opportunity to do the second in Buffalo, the same. These are just examples of it. But for me personally, coming into it, you asked the question, why now? One, I said the timing. But the other thing is, is that from my personal background, where I'm coming from, I've worked at the federal level for a really long time, working on, especially, authorization of the federal transportation surface law. And when you had opportunity that was coming in to actually fund larger-scale projects that were very much nontraditional, and this is a nontraditional highway project, you have to take advantage of that. We'd been talking about what had happened under Robert Moses for a really long time, because his philosophy transferred across the nation. And here in New York, if we weren't taking advantage of the infrastructure bill that came along under the bipartisan infrastructure law, you mentioned President Biden, he led that effort, right? Syracuse grad. The reason he's so committed to the 81 project was because he knew it, he knew what the possibilities were. And some of the rules, we were able to use that to our advantage as we looked at the environmental process and what the possibilities were to actually transform and look at a community grid option here in Syracuse. And you match that opportunity under the Surface bill, the bipartisan infrastructure law, with the opportunity of a governor coming in and committing more resources to transportation than had ever been committed at a state level, it's an opportunity that you don't want to ever pass up. And so, Syracuse, when I say it was ripe, it was literally ripe because so much groundwork had been laid by the community members themselves. So much conversation had gone on, the planning efforts had come together, and timing was good.
IC: Yeah. So, I want to get into, in a moment, what exactly we mean by community grid. Because I think there's a lot that can mean. But just to kind of close up the history portion, we have these three options on the table. Either we rebuild the viaduct bigger and better than ever, we do some kind of tunnel option, which Joe, as you said, was probably never going to happen, or this third thing that we're calling the community grid. That decision ultimately comes to your office, Commissioner. Was that a tough call?
MTD: Well, we did a lot of community outreach to get there. And just for the record, there were like 17 options that were originally studied.
IC: Okay, yeah. (panel and audience laughter)
MTD: So it got narrowed down.
IC: Sure.
MTD: And then there was a lot of discussion as Joe was discussing about the tunnel option for a variety of reasons. And so, we went back and we studied the tunnel option. But I think when you put the totality of everything together, it became very clear that the community grid option would meet so many of the environmental requirements under NEPA, the National Environmental Protection Act. And we were getting so many comments from the community for support for the community grid, that it became very apparent that that was the preferred alternative.
IC: Can you give me a sense of the volume of comments?
LOC: Over five thousand.
MTD: Thousands.
IC: Okay, thank you.
LOC: NYCLU submitted over 5000 comments.
IC: Personally.
LOC: Yeah, our organization submitted over 5000 comments.
JD: Yeah, and the Community for the Grid had another 2000, I think.
IC: Wow.
MTD: We had thousands upon thousands because we kept taking comments, you know, for every segment of the environmental process. We, I think we did over 575 public engagements.
IC: It's interesting to me how, you know, I've been doing these tapings in different cities around the country, and so often the thing that sparks ideas and a change in conversation is the fact that in order to rebuild the viaduct, you have to build it bigger because, you know, the original viaduct, you know, didn't have to break down lanes, you know, didn't have whatever, you know, the merging distance or whatever the federal standards we have now for a safe, functional interstate highway. It was not built that way back in, you know, decades ago. And so, once the conversation, it just makes me wonder, you know, if we could just rebuild these assets exactly as they were, would it prompt these same kinds of, you know, outside-the-box conversations?
JD: It would have been a lot harder, I'll say that. Like, if leaving it alone, if just patching it up was one of the more viable options, that would have been a lot harder to fight. I think the, you know, the contrast between, as you're saying, making it twenty feet higher, twenty feet wider, knocking down…
IC: Taking more homes.
JD: I forget the numbers, twenty-something, you know, knocking down twenty more buildings than the grid option. It taking another almost, you know, $800 million to build, another few years to build. All of that really was, at least from our perspective, as the advocates, you know, I let the commissioner speak to how came from her side, but from our side as the advocates, we were like, wait, so you want it to be two years longer or three years longer of construction? You want it to cost $800 million more? You wanted to knock down twenty more buildings or thirty more buildings than, you know, and sorry if I’m using, you know, broad strokes. I don't have them all memorized like I did back then. But basically, I think it would have been a lot harder argument to make if you could have said, yeah, we'll just put some rubber bands on, you know, some, some band-aids on it.
IC: Fresh coat of paint.
JD: Fresh coat of paint.
LOC: I just don’t know if the community would have went for that. I think that there was a strong, strong desire from community residents and allies to remove the viaduct. I think it was very clear from the beginning. (audience light applause) So I think it would have been an uphill battle for sure, but we would have probably still kept our foot on DOT’s neck (panel laughter) to say, this thing has to go. And I think we would have been aligned with that. And deciding the best option isn't always about what's the cheapest option, right? Or what's the quickest option. So I think reconnecting the community was named as a goal in the project proposal, and then we really hung our hat on that, right. So, you’re like what is the project goals? One is reconnecting the community, how do we get there?
IC: Commissioner, so you make this decision that we are going to go for the community grid option. Do you think at that moment, people in Syracuse actually believed it would happen? (laughter) And maybe, Lanessa and Joe, you can speak to that too. But I'm curious from your seat, did people take you seriously?
MTD: I have to say, I personally went to a number of the community engagements, and had a chance to talk directly with folks here and in communities all over the area. And, it depended on who you talked you, but I will say there were a number of people or probably a number of people today that probably believe that this project will never either be finished or they haven't been downtown and they haven't seen what's actually going on, and they're like, really not doing anything. Or they're just saying you're doing it on the outside because we're working around the city of Syracuse right now, you're never going to really take down the viaduct.
IC: So there’s still skepticism.
MTD: What’s the term, doubting Thomases? But the bottom line is, is that, you know, I have to give it to our team because they were incredibly consistent. They were, we have a really incredible team here in Syracuse, New York State DOT professionals in our main office in Albany. And working together with the community, it was one of those opportunities that I think even if I talk to people that have retired, that worked on the on the project, you know, starting in 2010, it's one of the things that they're most proud of because so many people were doubtful that we could do anything different, regardless if it was, you know, are we going to repair in place? Are we going to do nothing? Or are we going to actually come forward with this visionary idea that the community was presenting and that we were pulling together of a community grid and then explaining what a grid is? And how do you how does it actually work? How do you actually bring people into the city of Syracuse at grade, low speed, no more high volume, high speed, you know, access through the middle of Syracuse? It was an opportunity of a lifetime, and I think, I really commend the community for all of the work that was done to help advance it. It has not been easy.
LOC: I think one of the first major wins from the community's perspective was when the New York State DOT had, did their preliminary draft and proposed to put the on and off ramp about 125 feet away from the STEAM at Dr. King Elementary School. And so, as we were reading through the preliminary DEIS, we had noticed that and we took that to a parent-teachers meeting at the local STEAM elementary school that's in that footprint.
IC: And when you say off-ramp, you mean where it basically goes from a highway to more of a street-level boulevard?
LOC: That's correct. And so, that raised a little bit of red flags for us, and we didn't like it. And so, we brought it to parents and teachers and faculty and staff and community folks and started having a conversation. We did some independent research, and we had found that the EPA and the CDC had also recommended that highway should be at least 500 feet away from elementary schools. And so, we took that information and we thought, we got to do something big because asking the DOT to change their design plan is a huge request. So, we decided to have a march and a rally. And so, we started at STEAM at Dr. King about a few hundred folks, maybe 200, 300 folks. And we walked from STEAM Dr. King to the New York State Department of Transportation's office building. And we had a rally outside, and we, you know, we also worked with a bunch of other coalition partners, and we kind of demanded that they had moved that viaduct. And then we kindly just waited and waited and waited. And then we heard from the, at the time, I-81 director, Betsy Parmalee, and she was like, hey, I think we have a solution. And it was such a huge win for the community, and it put such a battery in their back to say, oh, wait, they are listening, they are working with us, and it really kept them going until now. And that major win was years ago, and now we're at year 8, year 9, and people are still active and still engaged and still showing up because that win meant so much to them, and they really felt like the DOT was being collaborative partners in the work and kind of respecting their viewpoints. And I think that was just something tremendous that you don't really see often where the collaboration result in a design plan change.
(audience applause)
MTD: I think people think that we don't listen and we do listen. And so, I give it to our project team because they were listening. They were going and talking, like, actively to members of the community and, you know, everybody's active. But moving that roundabout, which was an original design that the, you know, we had come up with, community spoke very loudly. We heard very clearly, you know, where else can we do this? We like the community grid option, but not next to Martin Luther King Elementary School, got it.
IC: And you clarify when you talking about the roundabout, you're saying basically when it transition from highway to the surface road there would be this rotary roundabout right there at the elementary school.
MTD: It just so happened that the location of the elementary school is where traffic would access, you know, that portion of the southern portion of the city.
IC: So, it's still coming down the grade there, but there will not be the roundabout there.
MTD: Correct.
IC: Got it. When I travel around the country and I talk with urban planners about, you know, how they would like to see the future of cities and highways, a lot of people will point to exactly what Syracuse is doing, saying, look, we have a beltway, you know, we have a road, in this case 481 that goes around the city. That should be the highway, right? Highways should go between and around cities, they should not go through cities. And so, Syracuse really feels like a very powerful test case of like, as we discussed, we built the highway through the city, people have gotten used to that highway through the city. Can we go back? Can we undo that, change people's behavior, change people's expectations of where highways are and where highways can get them? And so, I want to get into some of the mechanics of that, how that will work. And I thought we could start with the beltway piece of it. For the people who just want to get from one side of Syracuse to the other, what's the new option?
JD: Yeah, so, you know, the current path of 81 will still be 81, but it'll be rebranded as Business Loop 81, and it will come to grade, you know, further south than originally, you know, down by Colvin and then it will go back up. So, it's about a 1.4-mile section that will go to grade. But if you're looking to just, you know, if you're going from further north to further south, the contracts one and two have kind of fused 481 and 81 at a southern interchange in the northern, so exactly as you said, there will be a way to, if you want to just stay high speed, you can take that route and then you'll be able to access the same route that it currently takes, but it will be, the speed limit will be reduced and it will be taken to grade and it will be more like a city environment than a high speed tube.
IC: And how big is that detour to go around the city, roughly?
JD: I don't know if you guys know the exact, but it'll be a, it's about four minutes, five minutes, something like that, you know, at its worst points. You know, they did a lot of modeling about how much longer the traffic times would be and nothing was over five minutes or so.
IC: Did you want to speak to that, too?
MTD: This was a point that people, in particular that live in the outer area, you know, suburbs of the city were concerned about. And so, we tried to make sure that we were not adding additional time, but we were also making the most efficient path, you know, developing the most efficient route around the city. So, yeah, I think it's only about, what, five minutes? Five minutes extra. One minute extra.
(audience member: “Thumbs up, five minutes.”)
(laughter)
IC: We got the technocrats out in the audience with the details.
MTD: Exactly, I’m looking at the engineers.
JD: We're all looking at the team to make sure we don't get it wrong.
MTD: So, it's five minutes extra, but I would argue that it's five minutes that literally saves, it saves lives. Because you're not having high-speed conflicts in the middle of downtown Syracuse. It certainly saves emissions in the middle of downtown Syracuse. And, I think when you're referring to something that's a beltway, much like the city, like the suburbs of Washington, DC, there's literally a loop around the city of Washington, DC. This is a loop around the city of Syracuse and it does provide alternatives. And so, for New York, this hasn't been done before. It was a new design across the state, you know, when you look at New York City, it's very tight real estate down there. So, you've got very fixed roadways. But in other parts of the state, we haven't seen anything like this. So, the fact that our designers help come up with, you know, a different way to look at things, that was efficient, but also kind of achieve the larger goal of how do you get a community grid in the middle of downtown Syracuse as opposed to a high-speed viaduct? It worked.
IC: What are you doing to, are you doing anything to shore up or change that 481 beltway now that it's going to become I-81, it will be the main corridor for through traffic?
MTD: So, before we can even go into downtown Syracuse and work on the viaduct itself, we have to create the roadways in and around the city of Syracuse. So that's what we're doing right now. We've got a series of contracts that we're executing. So, we're working on the east side, on the west side, on the south side. We've completed a bunch of work down in the valley in the last couple of weeks. But the bottom line is we have to build out that entire network. So that it literally is a, you know, a path that traffic can move. So, regardless if you're a tractor-trailer and you're moving freight on Interstate 81, because it's a very important freight corridor for the United States, or you live out in the suburbs and you want to make sure that you got the fastest way into the city of Syracuse, we're building out all of those roadways. And, you know, arguably they all needed work anyway. But it hasn't been easy because we've got everything from, you know, intermodal rail station that we have to deal with to a lot of other challenges. But the bottom line is…
LOC: Seven months of snow.
(laughter)
MTD: And there's always the weather. (laughter)
JD: And Ian, if I could just double click on one point that was raised that I feel often gets lost in the shuffle is, Lanessa had talked about the asthma that she experienced and that corridor has the second highest rates of heart disease and asthma in the state. So, it's not just Lanessa’s story, when you talk to people from Pioneer Homes, there's lots of stories. And this rerouting will, you know, diesel trucks and 18 wheelers they account for 7% of the traffic, but they create 30% of the pollutants and emissions. And so with this, you know, the ideal, you know, we have projections, we don't know exactly how it's going to go, but the projections are that that will be reduced to a level, you know, a 30% reduction which is, it's 30% over now, that could, you know, would actually address this. So for me, that's been a Northstar of this project that hasn't, I don't really think gets enough attention because it is projections and it's and we don't know exact numbers, but addressing that environmental injustice to me is what got me excited about this project and still what keeps me motivated.
LOC: I mean, I think that's the important piece, right, because…
JD: Yeah, that’s what I’m saying, yeah.
LOC: Also, for people who are listening, have no concept of like why we're talking about five and ten minutes. Like, if you live in a major city and you're saying, like, my traffic time's going to increase by 5 or 10 minutes…
IC: Right, that’s nothing.
LOC: It sounds kind of off the wall, right? And so, the fact that we had years-long debates about 5 to 10 minutes of increased traffic, it just reminds me of like, sometimes when you're starting to think through how you can distribute pollution equitably, it starts to feel like oppression to other people, right? And so, for decades, this neighborhood has carried the bulk of traffic pollution, truck traffic pollution, car pollution. And now we have this opportunity to reroute about 70% of the major diesel trucks, which are all air pollution is not created equal. And so, these are the things that are actually poisoning the neighborhoods that are going to be rerouted to outside the city, where it's safer. You're not in a residential neighborhood, you have a lot of trees, a lot of other plants that are kind of soaking up that air pollution before it gets to folks’ homes. So, it's a much safer place for cars to drive for people. And, just having that conversation around 5 to 10 minutes felt so off the wall for folks who live in the city of Syracuse to continue to have that conversation, even now in this conversation, still feels off the wall. I mean, I've lived in New York City, I've lived in DC, they're very high traffic areas, and 5 to 10 minutes is laughable in a lot of major cities. And I think the uproar from our towns and villages who live is also laughable.
(audience applause)
IC: Yeah, it's an interesting reminder of like, when harm has been concentrated and wildly unequally, you know, distributed for so long, that becomes the baseline, right, that we’re all used to. And so, then the idea of redistributing that harm even partially, I mean, these are difficult conversations. These are, somebody has, that truck that's coming down from Canada to New York, downstate New York, like, it's got to get through somewhere. But suddenly, that redistribution of the harm, as you said, can feel like an assault on somebody else.
LOC: That’s right. And that’s a great word.
IC: Did you through those conversations, did you feel like you were able to convey the harm that, you know, that your neighborhood had been bearing for the rest of the region for all these decades?
LOC: Yeah. I don't want to put a blanket, it's not a blanket. It wasn't all suburban neighborhoods, right?
IC: It's not like city vs. suburbs.
LOC: No, there wasn't, there was some great suburban partners. We had DeWitt for the ‘burbs.
JD: We had a lot of suburban partners.
LOC: We had a few suburban partners who understood the historical harm and the current harm. And as an organization, the NYCLU, we went to every single town hall that every town had during that time. And we did try to have an opportunity to speak to folks. But like I said, I think it was a much deeper conversation, and they weren't really invested in. It was never really about the 10 minutes, it was more about the drive in the neighborhood and their fear of having to enter into the city of Syracuse.
IC: So let's talk about entering into the city of Syracuse, let's talk about the grid itself. Could one of you, because I think, I've seen renderings, I'm sure many folks here have seen renderings, but really, could somebody paint me a visual of, you know, you're on the highway, you're chugging along 60, 65, 70, I don’t know how many miles an hour, and then suddenly you approach the city of Syracuse and it changes. What do you see? Commissioner, maybe you can lay that vision for us.
MTD: So, what you see, first of all, the way in which you come into the city will change, so, the roadway itself. So, you're coming from a high-speed, I'll say, ramp, right, an exit to come into the city of Syracuse. You're going to be reducing speed, and the roadways are designed to slowly kind of move you so you're not in a straight line, you're not going as fast as you possibly can. You know, our regional director, Betsy Parmalee, who's our project director for a long time, says it's a mind trick for a driver, right?
IC: I'm really interested in this, how you said, like, trick people into thinking you're not on a highway anymore.
MTD: It's a little bit of a mind trick in terms of how we design the roadway. And you start to curve a little bit, but very subtle curves, not sharp curves, but subtle curves, to start to slow you down. And eventually you come to…
IC: And these are deliberately added…
MTD: Deliberately added.
IC: The road is just weaving slightly.
MTD: Slightly.
IC: And the lanes are narrowing slightly too?
MTD: The lanes are narrowing and you're getting closer and you're clearly in a city now, right? You've got, you'll be, it'll be very apparent. They'll be medians in the middle of the road. You're slowing down, you're eventually going to hit a roundabout. The roundabout slows you down.
IC: That forces you to… you are no longer on a highway.
MTD: …forces you to slow down. You also have to make some choices. Where are you going, right? Are you going to go up towards the Hill? Are you going into the city of Syracuse or are you going to go north, where are you going to go? And that's easy, you can spin around the roundabout if you decide you want to go a different direction. But the bottom line is, is that we've taken you in such a direction that you have options. But now your speed is between 25 and 30 miles an hour, and you're in the city and you've got pedestrian walkways, you've got grassed areas, you've got a shared use path, you've got lighting, you've got all of these indicators that will now be along the roadway and in the roadway, right?
IC: That say this is a place for people, not just for cars.
MTD: This is not just for cars. This is about pedestrians, bicyclists, people walking now across the street to access the other side of Pioneer Homes, which they could never really get to safely. So, you’ve got to remember that on both sides of the street, it's a housing community. And literally people who lived on one side of the housing community often didn't engage with people on the other side, even though there's playgrounds and other things there, because it's just a difficult road to cross right now. Now we're going to have a very direct way into the city and hopefully very, a lot of different modes of transportation, walking, biking, pedaling, whatever you want to do, and it'll be safer.
LOC: Can I paint a quick picture…
IC: Please.
LOC: …that contrasts what the commissioner is saying. Because right now, it's dark, it's dreary, parts of the highway literally cover about 20 feet of the basketball court that's there.
IC: They’re overhanging, the park and the courts.
LOC: It's overhanging the basketball courts. So people are actually playing basketball at Wilson Park underneath the viaduct. The paint is chipping, it leaks any time it rains. It's just an ugly, ugly, ugly structure. I'm sorry, guys, you didn't build it. (laughter) It's a really ugly structure and it's really hard to get across. And there are parts of people's homes, their bedroom windows can literally reach out and throw a rock and hit the viaduct, that's how close it is. And there's backyards under the viaduct, right, that's just blocked by one chain fence. And so, thinking about the beautification of the neighborhood, you're going to have a proper welcome sign to Syracuse, right? So, you get off the highway, it’s going to say, “Welcome to Syracuse”, right? So, it identifies who we are, it gives us identity. We're talking about like, beautiful intricate noise walls. This was also a thing that we had to, like, work together on. Like, what should the noise walls look like, right? Maybe they shouldn't be gray brick walls, right? Maybe that's not a good thing to put in a community that's already kind of isolated. Maybe they should be beautiful wooden walls and have paint and historical relevance and Black culture on those noise walls. So, I think it's bringing in like this beautification of something that people can feel proud of instead of like, they're stuck here.
IC: Yeah, yeah. So, when I hear phrases like it's going to be a boulevard, it's going to be at grade, something I wonder about, and this partly comes from studying the, you know, the story of the Big Dig, which, you know, for folks who've been to Boston in the last 20 years, you know, the elevated viaduct is gone. You know, that structure that looked a lot like what you've got here is gone. But I will say, as somebody who walks and bikes around downtown Boston a lot, it's sometimes kind of feels like there's just a highway on the surface. The cars still move pretty fast, it's actually not that great for biking. When I talk to, you know, folks who are involved in planning the surface of what is now, you know, downtown Boston, I think there were, a lot of people who were involved recognized that there were missed opportunities. And so, the question I have, and Joe, I'd be curious for you, coming specifically from the city standpoint, you're focused on the residents within the city of Syracuse, is this going to be just, you know, a highway at grade or is this a city street?
JD: Well, my wife can testify, that's what wakes me up at 3 a.m. most nights. (laughter)
IC: Because if it’s all the same cars, but now at grade instead of overhead...
LOC: Well, a lot of the cars are going to be rerouted.
IC: Right.
JD: Yeah.
LOC: So, a lot of the truck traffic will be out of that neighborhood.
JD: Well, I said that jokingly, but, you know, I really have a lot of confidence. You know, they've talked a lot of times about, you know, when Lanessa was talking about the roundabout and, you know, a lot of that…NYSDOT has really listened to us, tremendously. When I first got this job, someone said, I hope you like hearing no, because that's all you're going to be told for the next few years. And I've told the NYSDOT people that jokingly a number of times, because that hasn't been the case. To Lanessa’s point about the walls, and, you know, the roundabout and a lot of the conversations we've had along the way, I think, you know, you are always going to have that push and pull. I think there is, you know, there's a need to move traffic, we still have to move traffic. But, I feel very confident and very hopeful that, you know, the bike lanes are being put in, the wide sidewalks and pedestrian infrastructure are going to be everywhere on the project. Just on my way here, we were driving over Spencer Street Bridge and all that area of the north side had no bike-ability, no walkability, no connectivity. So, you know, when it comes to the boulevard, we're actually, it's tough for me to say definitively exactly what's happening because we're still working on contract date right now and still talking about it, the final contract, but, the fact that we are talking and we're listening and the city planners and myself and all these folks are sitting with the NYSDOT folks, making sure that it will be a boulevard that can move both vehicles and people. I feel very hopeful that that we'll be able to get it right.
IC: Have there been, I don't mean to dwell on conflict, but have there been points of friction between the state and the city? Because the state is obviously, you know, Commissioner, you have to think about the functioning of the whole regional transportation system. Joe, you know, you're thinking about the residents who walk and bike and drive around that area.
JD: Yeah.
IC: So, like, when you get down into the nitty gritty of like, the width of the lanes, the width of the shoulder, the turn radius.
JD: Yes, I would say there have been conflicts and we haven't gotten every single thing we've asked for.
IC: So, what were you looking for originally that was a struggle?
JD: You know, I think a good example is, they had started with 12-foot lanes and we wanted 10-foot lanes. And it not to be cliche, but we've ended up with 11-foot lanes. You know, I don't know if that’s…
IC: That's democracy.
MTD: …if that’s corny, but it's democracy. It's like, right, we still wanted 10-foot lanes, but this is what we got.
IC: And I mean, just to flag this for everybody here, I mean, I think these things sound kind of arcane and technocratic, but, like, as you know, Commissioner Dominguez, you were saying there is a psychological element to this of like, whether you feel like I'm driving on a highway or I feel like I'm driving on a street, and these are the signals, right? So truly, the difference between 10 or 11 or 12-foot lanes actually matters with how we relate with that roadway as drivers and pedestrians.
JD: Yeah, and I'd say we engaged a consultant who really wanted one lane in each direction for the boulevard. And they wanted the state to do that and NYSDOT was just very clear from the beginning. They were like, look, we still got a lot of vehicles to move, and this is not going to happen. And so, you know, there was the things that we asked for that we didn't get, but I think overall, I think that 12-foot, 10-foot, 11-foot is basically how it's gone a lot of the way.
IC: That’s emblematic of it.
JD: I think all the hills that we were willing, that we told them that like, hey, we're willing to die on this hill, like, this is really, really important to us, we haven't had any of those that we've been brushed off and we haven't, been listened to and either explained why we can't get what we want. Either they've adjusted plans and worked with us to give us the thing that we need if they're able to, or if not, they've at least sat with us and said, look, we already did X, Y and Z, this is not going to work with the plans we already have in place. So, you know, I think there have been things that we haven't gotten that we wanted, but overall, I would say I came in with the expectation that we weren't going to get any of the cookies we wanted, you know, like, and maybe that's wrong, you know, but I've been very pleased that we've gotten to 11-foot lanes, I'll say that.
IC: Could you speak to the state side of that equation, Commissioner? How is that back and forth over the, you know, the actual design of the grid felt for you?
MTD: Honestly, it's what the department does absolutely every single day across the entire state, because every single project we have that we need to execute on, it's a conversation with the community, right? And if we're not having that conversation, with, you know, the city, with elected officials, with stakeholders, you know, that's our job. We need to actually, to have those conversations. One, to explain kind of, you know, we're also, we have rules that we have to follow as well. We have federal standards that we have to meet on design and engineering and safety. I mean, most everything around any transportation project at its core, there's a safety provision. Why is it like it is? Because I guarantee you dollars to donuts, 97% of it goes back to a safety provision. And when you look at whatever that regulation is and you start to apply it in a modern-day setting, you know, Syracuse is a great example. Everything that's been built here in terms of the existing 81 viaduct was built in the 60s and 70s to those standards. Now, when we look to what we can do, you know, today we've learned a lot about additional pedestrian safety. How do we make sure that we can provide enough buffers so that pedestrians feel safe and bikers feel safe, as well as people that are you know, accessing the city by car? But, you know, there are a lot of things that we have to account for and one of them is, is that people want to come to downtown Syracuse, their number one reason for accessing the city is to come for some reason, they're going up to the Hill to for a medical appointment or a sporting event, you know, they're coming downtown to enjoy a great museum like the MOST. You know, but the bottom line is, is that making sure that they're coming in in a way that they want to access it and that we're hearing what those elements are, that's what's critical. You know, one of the things that Lanessa referenced is something that we're, you know, we set up an outreach office here, we set up two outreach offices, actually, when we were doing all the engagement, when we were doing the environmental process for the actual EIS for this project. But we did not in any way shrink our footprint and our engagement with the community when we started construction. In fact, it's enhanced where, you know, I'll call Betsy at any point and time during the day, and she's in the middle of a of a meeting with stakeholders, trying, you know, working through different elements of the project. The bottom line is, is that our approach is one of constancy. Because if you're not having that level of communication, whether it's on the elements that Joe was talking about, we meet so regularly with the city. Whether it's the project team, the mayor and her team, the county and their team, there's so many different stakeholders that we're constantly having those communications with. That's what makes a difference, because you're learning and things happen and, you know, you have to have that.
IC: Yeah. So, I came into Syracuse this morning by train, and I took an Uber from the train station to downtown and I was just talking with my driver as we were coming down 81, somebody who drives for a living, and I was asking him about the project. And, this guy who grew up in Syracuse, lived here his whole life, and he said, it's been this way, way too long to change now. And it did make me think about the ask here for the community to really change the way they get around, the way they think about this area, to change their behavior. And I'm curious how you think about that, that sort of like, that next hill that you all have to climb of actually, you know, building the thing is one thing, but then actually changing the hearts and minds, you know the behaviors, the habits that go along with it. And how will you know if you've succeeded at that?
MTD: I'll give you a couple anecdotes really quickly. You know, going to some of the public meetings, I had a gentleman come up to me and he said, you know, it's really great that you've got all these ideas out here, way to go. This is never, ever going to happen, never ever going to happen. And you can take that in a lot of different ways. One, the doubting Thomas or people's fear of change whatever that is, right? There's a lack of believability, trust, whatever that is. And I'll tell you another anecdote from one of our lead designers. I said, I asked him, like, when did you feel, like you've been at this for, you know, almost 20 years now, when did you actually feel like you turned a corner? And he said, a guy came up to me in a community meeting and he said, look, I live in Pioneer Homes, people are telling me a whole bunch of stuff, but I know that you're going to tell me the truth. What is the truth? And that he wanted to know what was the impact going to be on his, where he lived. And for him, because this, the gentleman, you know, who worked for New York State DOT, you know, that was like the culmination of his whole career. Because the trust.
LOC: I want to add, as an organization, when we got involved in this and I don't know what year, 2017, we started having weekly meetings in the footprint and we had weekly meetings every Tuesday at 2, every Saturday at noon, and we canvased twice a week as well and we talked to hundreds of people. Like I had mentioned, we had submitted 5000 comments by the end of that two year stretch, and there was a few things that were going on that we heard consistently. We went in with this civil rights, racial justice lens and what we kept hearing over and over again was, the highway has always been there, they're never going to tear down, and we're afraid of construction. We don't want to live in a construction zone for 5 years, we don’t want to live in a construction zone for 10 years, my health can't handle it. I was not an environmental justice expert when I started this position, 8 years later, I am. And that's a result of listening to the community say, this is what we're actually afraid of, this is what our actual concerns are. And me being able to say, first let me hire a consultant because I don't know anything about environmental justice, let's talk to some experts to figure out what we can do about this. And then quickly taking this information and saying, here are the fears that we are hearing from the community, here are the concerns that we're hearing, how can we remedy these things? Because I don't think anyone that we spoke to actually wanted the viaduct in their neighborhood. What we heard was, it's always been there, it's easy to get on the highway from here, or a lack of our understanding of how air pollution from highways impacts our health. We would have community meetings and I would say, how many folks in here have a respiratory issue, have asthma? Everyone's hand would go up. Are we blaming just the highway? No, right, but it's a combination or correlation of things. And so, getting to understand that one, asthma is not hereditary, it's not generational, it has a lot to do with your environment, it has a lot to do with where you go to school when you're a child and your lungs are still developing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We really were able to kind of pivot folks to say, well, maybe there's a possibility that can come down. And I think you'll always hear naysayers, even 100 years from now saying it's still not going to come down and it's already gone, right? (laughter) So, I think you're always going to have those people who are really difference to change, but I think why my experience was so rich is because we were able to talk to folks that said to me, I remember when the viaduct came down, my family moved from one block to the next block because we didn't understand our entire neighborhood was going to be demised. And then six months later, we moved to the next block and the next block, and by the time we had to move out the entire neighborhood, my parents were flat broke because they had moved four times in two years, right? And so like, we were able to hear those real impacts. I had one of the elders tell me they were lost in construction at 10 years old because they decided to play in the construction zone and couldn't figure out how to get out, right? We were able to take that information and be like, how are we making sure that kids aren’t going to get in this construction zone? So, I just think it's a really rich experience and I don't know anyone that would volunteer to live under a viaduct.
IC: Right. So, what you're saying, you're getting at one of the real core challenges of any generational investment like this, is that the costs and the benefits play out on very different timescales. So, you know, the benefit of improving the air quality and the public health, that is something that plays out over a long time period. You know, having to spend five more minutes or seven more minutes in your car to get to Wegmans, that is an immediate thing you feel now, the transformation of public health, the transformation in what that whole area could be if it is truly a walkable, bikeable, navigable, crossable area. These things, you know, take years and years or decades to be realized. And so, you're always, you know, dealing with that, like, the immediate challenges and the long term vision.
LOC: I also want to address that too, and I'm glad you said that, because we were able to take all of the construction concerns, and we had created like this large wish list, about 17 things we wanted the New York State DOT to do, to kind of bolster up their environmental protections. We were asking them to go way above and beyond what the federal and state require, and I think we had a good case for it, right? We presented our best case, we had all those people that presented these comments to say, we're really asking for additional protections here, because when these folks have endured the impact, right? And secondly, they're 3, 5, 10 feet away from this viaduct and they have all these other health concerns. And so, some of the things that we asked for, they were truly like a wish list. We wanted a health needs assessment, we wanted to understand the health of the footprint. We wanted, well, I won't get into the details, we wanted like a hotline. We wanted folks to be able to call a hotline and say, like, I feel like I'm having impacts because of construction. Maybe I'm wheezing a little bit more like, I want to be seen, or I want to least be triaged over the phone. Recognizing that folks in that neighborhood either are under-insured or don't have a primary care doctor, and we didn't want folks waiting five, six hours in the ER. All these things came to us from community engagement, it's nothing that NYCLU had created on our own, these are things that people were asking us. People are also asking for, like, energy-efficient appliances, right, well, we're going to have to close our windows and we're going to need more air. So, we really went with this really long laundry list to the to the DOT.
IC: Thinking, no way we’re getting this.
LOC: There's no way they're going to do these things. Maybe some and maybe we can try to like, bully them to get some of these things done. But I have to give credit to the at the time, the I-81 director, Betsy Parmalee, who said, well, let's sit down and have a conversation and think how we can get this done. And we've been meeting every week for about two years thinking through some of these additional environmental protections. And so, I think the immediate ask is like, yeah, you're not going to see the immediate increase in air quality, right, right away. That's something that's going to happen over generations. But you are going to see the things that they're doing during construction. And some of those things are like do's and don'ts during construction, like refrigerator magnets to say, you know, don't sweep your floor while it's dry during construction. You want to first wet mop your floor. Tacky mats, right? Tacky mats you want to put in front of your door that the DOT's created and are passing out and we're passing out to say, when you're walking into your house, it's going to trap the dust off your shoes so you're not carrying in that dangerous pollution into your home, right? We've created a hotline. This is not just DOT, this is our other coalition partners that we had to bring in. We had to bring in the county Department of Health, the New York State Department of Health. This is like us identifying who should be at the table, how do we create this interagency, interstate organization that can actually do some of the things that we're asking for? And so that was a collaboration. It took a really long time that we've, I think very, very proud of the work that we’ve done around creating these additional protections to recognizing that people are very, very concerned about living in a construction zone. And like, how can we ease some of that anxiety that's happening in the middle of their neighborhood.
IC: We saw a concrete example of that. So, I took a site visit with some of the state staff. We were walking around and there are some holes, you know, being drilled. And there were not pounding pile drivers, they were actually, you know, drills, boreholes that, which are quieter. And that was, as I was told, part of you know, this agreement.
MTD: So, one of the things that we, not one of the things, but I don't even know if you know this Lanessa, but when we first, when we were hardcore into the environmental review process, it became, you know we were listening to the community, a number of the health issues were coming up. The energy issues were coming up, right? One of the things that we did was convene, and I give the governor a lot of credit for this, it's a whole of government approach. We’re the lead, New York State DOT for this project, b ut we convened a meeting with all of the relevant state agencies that had equity in this in the city of Syracuse. What do I mean by that? Equity in this project. So, convened a meeting here in Syracuse with the Department of Health, with NYSERDA, which is the Energy Research Development Agency that looks at all kinds of energy efficiencies, whether it's geothermal or anything else, housing, Department of Housing, Department of Labor. So, many of the, I'll say, byproducts of that initial meeting because basically we heard from the we heard from the community, we made some presentations, understood what every state agency’s opportunities were here in Syracuse and we've been able to carry that out. So, the county health department needs to work hand in glove with the New York State Department of Health to actually monitor health in and around the construction site. So, this assessment, this health assessment will be a baseline. You're not going to see the immediate results because it'll take generations to kind of make sure that we're monitoring and moving forward. But now it's institutionalized. It's institutionalized with the county and with the state Department of Health. That's a great thing. All of the environmental recommendations and construction mitigation measures that Lanessa was talking about have all come out as a result of, you know, we hired a full-time, hygienist who's now working full-time for the Department of Transportation to make sure that everything that we're doing is actually meeting all the environmental and health requirements. But it was hearing what the community's concerns were, at the same time, by the way, the State Department of, you know, our housing office, HCR, was also looking at, how do we actually make sure that we're funding Pioneer Homes because they had a master plan for what they wanted to do, it's been said multiple times. It's one of the oldest, if not the oldest housing project in New York state. And they wanted to invest in a renewal process and they were putting forward grants to HUD to actually do that, etc.. All of this fed into it, because when you start to invest in transportation and when you start to invest in a project of this scope and scale and magnitude, it's not just the state DOT, it's so many others that have to be brought together to actually leverage the power. And I give Governor Hochul a huge amount of credit because she lent all of the state expertise to all of the elements that had to come together here in Syracuse to make it happen and work with the city, Mayor Walsh, now, Mayor Owens, to bring up the whole of government approach to make it happen. But it's lead to some really good results. It's lead to some things that we, you know, we're hoping to carry through, through over the course of the project and the community raised their voice on a whole bunch of different things, and they're still doing it. There's so much investment going on now in the city of Syracuse, whether it's on the housing front, or the other economic development. We're talking about MLK as a STEAM school, that was, you know, we've got other STEAM schools here in the city of Syracuse. There's so many different elements of the investment.
LOC: And I don't think, you know, the New York Civil Liberties Union, we don't often write amicus briefs for state agencies, it’s just not something that we do, we’re typically on the other side of things. But, you know, we felt very strongly that one, when the final EIS was,
MTD: Challenged.
LOC: challenged, when it was first issued, we knew that it would be challenged by the Save I-81 people. They were a well-funded, well organized organization that were against the community grid. So, we'd already started the planning and mapping out if we wanted to get involved. And so, some of the things we thought about is do we want to be intervener, which means we're intervening ourselves into the case because we have a vested interest? Or do we want to write an amicus brief in support of the project? And those conversations were already kind of, just very infrequent for the New York Civil Liberties Union, I would say. And so we decided to join, litigation as amic-eys, right, (amicus curiae) a friend of the court, a friend of the project. And I think we felt very strongly about our involvement in that litigation because of the kind of groundwork that we had laid over the years and the confidence that we had in the final proposal of the plan and all the additional protections that we saw. And we just, it was so clear in the FEIS that the community's voice was in there that we really wanted to kind of step up and support the New York State DOT during the litigation phase of the project that I think delayed it by almost two years, year and a half-ish.
MTD: A year and a half, yeah. But, I really appreciate that and thank you for saying that, Lanessa. She's downplaying the importance of the ACLU, NYCLU, nowhere in the country, nowhere in the country have they ever, ever filed an amicus brief for state DOT.
(panel laughter)
LOC: It’s not infrequent.
MTD: When I say the level of trust and things that like, that have come together here, it’s a very, you know, it's a long time in coming. It's not something that happens overnight. So we, we very much appreciated it for purposes of the litigation because, you know, I think we put together a pretty solid EIS and it played out in court that way. But the bottom line is, is we had community collaborators and local government collaborators along the way and all of this. And so, look, it's not done, we're just smack in the middle of construction right now. But the bottom line is, is like the federal, the U.S., I don't know if I ever told you this, U.S. Department of Transportation came to me and they said, we've never seen anything like this before.
IC: Wow. "Big Dig" listeners will know this, but for anyone who doesn't, ‘EIS’, environmental impact statement, right? When the interstates were built in the 50s, in the 60s, the thinking was the experts know best, the engineers, the planners know best, trust us. Obviously, we've come to rethink that expertise. It seems to me that part of the implicit promise of this project is that the state is going to do better, that the state has learned its mistakes from the past. And I'm wondering if there are people or stories that you carry with you, for any of you, as reminders of that, to keep with you as this project moves forward?
JD: Doing better from the first project to this project?
IC: Doing better than the original creation of I-81, yeah.
MTD: Look, I think, you know, everything is an evolution and if you don't learn from the mistakes of the past, you just repeat them. And so, the opportunity that I would say New York State Department of Transportation is looking at doing is omnipresent. Syracuse is, you know, we've worked in Rochester, we completed a really great project with the city of Rochester there to fill in a highway. The benefits from that project have been manifold for the city of Rochester. Here in Syracuse, this is a much bigger project. The scope, scale, and impact is just unbelievable. And when you talk about bringing a community out from under the shadows of the viaduct and literally shining light in a very positive way, it's truly, truly, an opportunity of a lifetime. And that's what we mean by transformational project. But doing things differently is something that if you're not constantly improving on a day to day basis, you're missing out because if you're not learning every day, if we're not learning as an institution, if we're not listening, if we're not advancing, whether it's technology, design, community engagement, whatever it is, there's just, you know, that's the future.
IC: I was wondering, could you tell me the story of Van Robinson?
MTD: So, when we had, I'll tell you just really quickly, I had the opportunity when I first started on the project to meet with Van and his lovely wife. He was a civil rights leader here, head of the NAACP for a long time here in the city of Syracuse. And he was introduced to me as a civil rights leader, but he was also a former elected official. And by the time I met him, he was well into his later years. But when he was introduced to me, it was an opportunity to hear directly from him. We were at another public event, and I said, tell me about 81, because I know that you've been an advocate for years to bring down the viaduct. And he told me his story and how he had worked so many years to look at alternatives to actually take down the viaduct and what it meant, because he represented the community. And unfortunately passed away recently, and when he passed away, what it, you know, I had the chance to meet with his wife who's also a force of nature, and she said I want to be there, I want to be there with you and with the community to knock down the viaduct and rename Almond Street. And the governor said at his funeral, I want to rename Almond Street in honor of Van Robinson. And, to me, that's kind of full circle. If we're able to get to that point, that'll be full circle.
JD: And his wife, Linda, means literally with the sledgehammer. (laughter) She doesn’t mean she wants to be there when the cranes take it down, she wants the sledgehammer, she wants to be the one to hit the viaduct. And, yeah, just what a tremendous impact Van Robinson had. He would always, you know, do that, Mr. Gorbachev, tear that viaduct down. You know, he really, he was always cracking Berlin Wall jokes about how the viaduct was our own little Berlin Wall. And, it just, you know, he said from the first time he came here, he saw it and just said, that needs to come down and he stayed fast that his whole life.
IC: I think we have time for a few audience questions. I believe there is a microphone. He's got it, so please raise your hand and wait for the microphone to get to you so that we can all hear your question. Up there in the red?
Audience Member: So, I also acknowledge that this question might not be able to be easily answered by our panelists, but knowing NYCLU and Joe. So, thinking of everyone coming down in affordable housing, I think of the Crowne Plaza that is being turned into studio housing that's at minimum like $1,600, which I wouldn't consider affordable housing. So, I guess thinking of 81 coming down and really trying to acknowledge the racial impacts and affordable housing, what are some of those conversations currently happening that's not just the Crowne Plaza and $1,600 studio apartments?
LOC: So I think, to the question of what keeps you up at night, that's the part of the project that keeps me up at night, right? Because we had this really robust conversation about the collaboration between not NYSDOT and the community folks in the NYCLU and others, but there's a piece of this that's unfinished that does require cooperation with the city of Syracuse, along with New York State DOT. And that's what are we going to do with the land that becomes available after the viaduct comes down? That's the thing that keeps me up at night, right? Because we think about the 1300 families that were displaced during the 1950s and 60s. It was just straight ravished, right? They were just, that community was razed, and overnight those folks were gone. What we're concerned about now is that future land use will be used for private developers to build 1 and 2, and 3-bedroom luxury housing. And what we'll see, instead of immediate displacement, we'll see more like a slow leak. Landlords will start to raise their rents, homeowners will start to see an increase in their property taxes, and they'll be pushed out by just the market itself. So, something that we've been heavily, heavily advocating for and pushing for through the city of Syracuse and through the New York State DOT, is like whatever land that becomes available that is actually developable, is required to be used for affordable housing by the city of Syracuse. So, before they transfer that land over to the city of Syracuse, and they can fight it out about how much they'll pay for the land or whatever, but the contingency has to be that they have to use that land for community affordable housing, and it has to be in which the character of that neighborhood currently exists. That's a family neighborhood, we know there are families that live there, 3 and 4-bedroom apartments in public housing. But also, along the viaduct, there's not just public housing, there's also about 250 homeowners, and a ton of renters. And so, like, how are we making sure that neighborhood stays affordable, right? What we don't want is a beautiful neighborhood where people can walk their dogs and ride their bikes and have these beautiful sidewalks and have these beautiful noise walls to protect their neighborhood, and now the neighborhood looks dramatically different. We want to make sure we're keeping the cultural relevance of that community, and that folks who live there that have beared the burden of this highway can now see that benefit. And that's something that's really unfinished about this project that I think we're still really heavily advocating for, so thank you for that question.
IC: Thank you, yeah. Up here.
Audience Member: Yes. So, I understand with any project there are unforeseen and unintended hardships or consequences. So, I'm wondering, because I live in the outer Comstock area and apparently this onramp is going to be placed there. So, all of last year we've had dig crews, construction crews, road closures, delays. And I got a letter this week from Department of Transportation stating that that's just the beginning, there will be more. So, I'm wondering what resources or what agency is available to compensate for some of this, because at this point it’s a hardship. So, is there some resource or some compensation that is in the works or maybe hasn't been thought of that might be thought of now going forward?
MTD: So, as we were talking about, earlier, there is, we have a resource office and outreach office here, you're welcome to come and visit. We're happy, we're in the community a lot. We can give you some information on when we're there, but the bottom line is, is that there's no direct compensation for the construction. What we are doing is making sure that we're sharing information on health tips, safety tips, construction noise, as well as any of the other impacts that might be felt. So, happy to work directly with you and can put you in touch with some of our folks, but there is no direct compensation. And it is very different than if you are living in Syracuse housing, they do have, they are actually closing, you know, and moving people, and that's different than the actual construction that's going on for the I-81 project. I would just want to make sure that people understand there are two very different, very local issues, but very important to the people who live here.
IC: Yeah, right in front here.
Audience Member: Yeah. In the telling of the story of I-81 and the lessons and the transformational aspect of this process, I think one of the things that a little bit missing from the telling tonight that I think would be good to Joe and Vanessa to say something about, is the transformational impact of local hiring in The Big Table in the I-81 process, because it's important part of this project that we haven't talked about yet.
JD: Yeah, I would just, I'll let the commissioner speak to it, but I would just say, absolutely, that's been, and give a shout out to the Urban Jobs Task Force and Deka who are not here tonight and Aggie, all those folks that worked on this with NYSDOT. But yeah, when we go to conferences in other parts of the state and other parts of the country, I will just say they go, you guys are doing what now? We heard early on from people who had been involved with construction things that frequently, people got the training, but that a bulk of the work went to the unions. And so, the training doesn't do you much good if you can't get on the job site. And really, NYSDOT and the city and the unions, again, the thing that excites me most about being involved in government is things like when the commissioner was talking about getting like 12 agencies together and everybody's working together, that's when the really good stuff happens. And, you know, I wasn't, you know, just for clarity, I wasn't really actively involved in that. But they have hit some amazing targets for local hire. I don't know if you want to speak to, Commissioner…
MTD: So, when I was talking earlier about some of the unique things that have happened under this project, one of them is the ability to hire people from the community that was impacted from the original construction. I literally mean people that live in and around the viaduct. So, all of these people that were displaced, right, the economic opportunities never passed down to these families. And we have a local hire provision in our contracts that we work toward a goal with our contractors of 15% of all the people that work on the project have got to be from the community that was originally impacted by the construction of the original viaduct back in the 60s and 70s. And we're meeting those goals, and we are able to do that because we partnered with the New York State Department of Labor. We've partnered with The Big Table, which is, you know, a local initiative. We had the mayor, had a huge convening of making sure that local hire, and what do I mean by local hire? I mean literally workforce development, bringing people together to learn a trade. We had, the referring to Deka, who is a woman who literally led an effort to bring local hires to fruition. So, there's so much goodwill and so much effort that's been put behind, and our local unions, right? All of the trade unions, the laborers, the carpenters, the electricians, everybody has had an opportunity. And we've got a lead here who's helped convene it all from Scott Butler, from our team, to bring everybody together to make sure that the economic benefits of the project get translated directly to the people that were originally impacted by the devastation of it and that generational wealth. I mean, you know, one of the examples I'll just tell you anecdotally is, I met a woman who is a local hire. She's been working on the project, it's not easy work, it's heavy highway work. She has five kids and, you know, when asked, like, why do you do this? She said, because it is a good-paying job. I can feed my family, I can house my family, and I've got a future. I've got work that I can count on because Syracuse is growing and there will be work for decades to come here.
LOC: And I want to give a shout-out to Legal Services of Central New York, Andrew Croom specifically, because he created this report, and it was a really robust report that showed that most major projects at Syracuse had less than 2% of people hiring from the local city of Syracuse. Like, most of the folks who worked on these jobs were from the outside of the city of Syracuse. And that was really the catalyst, the kind of data that we needed to kind of advocate, the Urban Jobs Task Force along with other coalition partners, to advocate for this 15% local hire initiative. So, I'm just saying that there's a huge partnership that goes into this where like, what's the data show? What the last 10 projects, major projects in Syracuse, what did that data show and s why is there a need for a 15% local hire? And like bringing all those folks to the table to get that done with, like a tremendous lift, that I think had to have the buy-in from every local partner.
MTD: So, the other thing is, is that the…
IC: I want to make sure I have time for other questions, too. I don't want to take too much time on this. Maybe one more question? Up here.
Audience Member: Hi, I'm in a local labor union, which is a nice segue and to piggyback off of what we've been talking about. My job is more involved up at the JMA Wireless Dome. I work up there on a regular basis for large concerts and television productions for sporting events. So has the thought process for, you know, funneling the people to that when you have a 50,000 person concert like a Bruce Springsteen or a large football game where you're going to have 50-60,000 people all going to there all at once, how is that going to make things easier, or is it going to make things harder to get through the city when you have 50,000 people and possibly a large, maybe 30%, 40% of them have never been to Syracuse, driving around and creating a nice cluster**** for everybody?
JD: I'll take a little bit of that, if that's okay. One of the things that helped me visualize it and understand it is, when you have a hose, a water hose that has intense pressure, like you're trying to, you know, even a pressure washer or whatever. You know, everything comes to one point, and then you have the kind of leaker hoses that you have in your garden that have 20 different avenues for the water to get out of. That's kind of the analogy that helped me kind of when traffic engineers were explaining this to me, everybody currently there's one on ramp, an off ramp that everybody has to access when it's a dome event. Everybody has to go to Adams and Harrison, pretty much and the queues get ridiculous. Now with 10-15 different ways to enter 81 the local, you know, yes, you're going to have the people that don't know the roads, but a lot of locals are at those SU games and they're going to be going to, oh, I'm going to go up here, I'm going to go this way, I'm going to go around the Westcott neighborhood, I'm going to go back to the south side, whatever it is. And you know, the engineering and the hope is that, with the roundabout and with these multiple avenues that you can now take, that it will reduce that pressure rather than intensify it.
LOC: Yeah. I think what's missing is the part of the design plan is there are going to be adding more entryways and exits to these larger events, right? Now, you're thinking of what we currently have, which is one way in, one way out. But this new design plan has several ways it and several ways out. And also, there's a little bit of disingenuous in your question because you said that they're not from Syracuse, then they're not going to know any different. They're going to follow the signs of the road. So, if they're not from here, they're not going to experience a cluster****, they're just going to follow the roads and get to where they have to go. It's going to be the folks that are from here that are used to going one certain way, because they're kind of stuck in their ways, and are going to be in the cluster**** because they're not going to want to use the new exits and entrances that are created by the DOT.
JD: They'll figure it out.
MTD: I don't need to say anything. (laughter)
IC: I feel like there are more questions we have time for, but I think one more, if you want to pick somebody over here, sure.
Audience Member: Yeah. Thank you very much, folks. Vanessa, I was especially interested…
IC: Lanessa.
LOC: It's all right, happens all the time.
Audience Member: I'm sorry?
JD: It’s Lanessa, with an L.
Audience Member: Oh, Lanessa, I was especially interested in your description of living by the viaduct in your neighborhood there, because back in the 60s, I went to college in New York, in the Bronx and I was right underneath the Throgs Neck Bridge for four years. And I made a vow then that I would never live near or under a bridge with all the things that went on, including the suicides, that we went out into the river to try and rescue people. It was very, very unpleasant. But for you to live there, your life with your family and all, I cannot imagine how that could have been with the noise and so on. So, I appreciate you sharing that and it brought me back to my early days. And I can tell you now, 60 years later, I am not living anywhere near a bridge. (laughter) And then one quick question, how do you determine with the noise barriers, whether it's going to be a translucent, clear barrier or a solid opaque barrier? What the, how do you determine that? Thank you.
MTD: We look at what the opportunities are, basically. So, we put up a translucent barrier kind of north of the city because it's in a more nature enriched, and walkway, it was right next to a walkway, pedestrian access area, and it was actually safer to make sure that you could actually see the pedestrians there. So, you know, there's just different safety factors that go into what we need to look at and also what type of barrier is going to work with the geography, the topography, etc., what has to be there. There's a whole bunch, there's just different engineering standards that have to go into it.
IC: Just to close on a forward-looking note. Lanessa, if you put yourself back in that apartment in Pioneer Homes and you look out your window 10 years from now, 15 years from now, what do you see?
LOC: Hopefully, I see a lot of people that look like me in that neighborhood. I would love to see amenities. I think what we heard a lot from community residents is like somewhere to sit down and have coffee, a coffee shop, benches, a community room. I mean, right now you have to go on the bus to go anywhere, you get to get in your car to go anywhere. There's just no services there. So, yeah, having things that, yeah, having things that people can enjoy their neighborhood. So, I would see kids playing outside, people enjoying public benches in public parks, a place to get ice cream, a place to sip some tea. That's what I would see in that neighborhood. But most importantly, people who look like me.
IC: All right. Thank you so much to our panelists, Lanessa Owens-Chaplin, Marie Therese Dominguez, Joe Driscoll, thank you all for coming out tonight.
