A new route for drivers from the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge to the northbound Harlem River Drive will divert 17,000 vehicles a day from going through East Harlem's local streets, the MTA announced Wednesday. A ramp, set to be completed by 2021, will create a direct route for drivers from the bridge to the east side highway for the first time since the RFK Bridge was built in 1936.
"We commend the MTA's plan to reconnect the RFK Bridge and Harlem River Drive, as it would remove a great deal of car and truck traffic from local East Harlem streets," Transportation Alternatives spokesperson Joe Cutrufo said in a statement.
The current route forces motorists to exit the RFK Bridge—formerly the Triborough Bridge—between 125th and 126th Streets and head northbound on Second Avenue. Drivers merge onto Harlem River Drive near the Crack is Wack Playground. The detour is a half-mile loop.
Current connection to the northbound Harlem River Drive from RFK Bridge.
By 2021, the MTA expects to finish construction of a new ramp allowing drivers to exit the bridge directly onto the highway, passing over the Willis Avenue Bridge, which sits just north of the RFK Bridge.
The ramp will be complete in 2021.
On a daily basis, thousands of drivers cut through the neighborhood to get to Harlem River Drive heading northbound, spewing particulate matter and greenhouse gas emissions directly onto residential streets in East Harlem.
Cutrufo said the decreased traffic would create a "safer environment" for pedestrians and cyclists in the neighborhood. Nearby the existing route, a driver making an illegal u-turn struck and killed 25-year-old cyclist Matt Travis in an early morning hit-and-run last year; he was one of 29 cyclists who died on city streets in 2019.
The MTA touted the health benefits of the new route, since it is expected to reduce how many cars go directly through East Harlem's streets. MTA's chief development officer Janno Lieber said: "This project will have huge transportation and environmental benefits for the public, so it has to be delivered as soon as possible."
The new route will reduce 2,500 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions a year from East Harlem, where children ages 5 to 17 go to the emergency department for asthma at more than twice the rate of children citywide, according to 2018 city data. That totals 580 asthma emergency department visits per 10,000 children. For comparison, in the Financial District, there are about 28 visits per 10,000 children and 264 per 10,0000 in Manhattan.
"Children are uniquely vulnerable to the effects of air pollution, due to their greater inhalation rates," since their lungs are still developing, the director of the Division of Pediatrics at NYU Langone Health Leonardo Trasande said in a statement. "I am hopeful that these steps will reduce pollutants in the areas of NYC where children suffer from asthma all too frequently."
Daily commuting motorists will also save about nine hours of travel time a year, the MTA predicts.
Judlau Contracting is the firm tapped to design and build the ramp under a $48 million contract.
