Buffalo Youth Climate Lawsuit on $1 Billion Kensington Expressway Project

The WNY Youth Climate Council has jumped on board with others in filing a lawsuit against the New York State Department of Transportation on the $1 Billion Kensington Expressway cap plan.

The lawsuit is an attempt to stop a tunnel from being built.

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17-year-old Kevin Nadayishimiye was born and raised in the Broadway-Fillmore area.

He'll be heading to Harvard University this Fall.

But before that happens he’s making his voice heard at meetings for the East Side Coalition.

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“Yeah, I live close to the Broadway Market between there and the highway so I know a lot of people and my neighbors that I've talked to about it and said they didn’t even know what’s going on,” he says.

21-year-old Valerie Juang is the co-founder of WNY Youth Climate Council.

It's a youth-led climate justice organization that’s part of two lawsuits against the 33 project.

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“The youth climate lawsuit at a state level that’s based only has a really strong emphasis on climate justice specifically to ensure that no further environmental racism happens in this community,” she says. “And that’s something that everybody in our community needs to see.”

Although Valerie doesn’t live on the East Side, she does have family here.

“People who I love are here and I don't have a car and I walk everywhere and man it is dangerously hot here people will get heat stroke here because there are no trees,” Valerie says.

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“Some people have died because of it. We have families that have lost their wives and husbands to cancer or respiratory illnesses. I have a brother-in-law that lives on Humboldt Parkway and he has been sick and a lot of people have been sick in that household,” says Betty Jean Grant, a member of East Side Parkways Coalition.

The DOT plans to hire Buffalo residents for the project.

Pastor Steve Lane of St. Philip's Church says that’s not enough.

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“It'll be a temporary employment for that area, but it’s not going to help generate wealth for the East Side of Buffalo,” he says. “But if you restore the parkway you’ll create all sources of new wealth.”

The State DOT says the project, which is expected to begin next year, will right a wrong made decades ago and rebuild a tree-lined parkway, reconnecting a community.