What's in the
Air You Breathe?

STORY BY PAMELA Y. ROZON

PHOTOS BY SIGMUND SOSIEWICZ

Published Dec 2023

A step outside one’s home in the South Bronx reveals streets packed with large trucks and cars, honking loudly at one another, as smoke fills the air and pours into our lungs. It’s not unusual to see large apartment chimneys pumping smoke into the blue skies, and children in playgrounds mere inches away from traffic.

The Cross Bronx Expressway is one of the leading causes of air pollution in the Bronx. It was built between 1948 and 1963, and designed by controversial urban planner Robert Moses. The construction caused dozens of apartment buildings to be demolished, with thousands of people displaced. An average of 300 trucks every hour and tens of thousands of cars per day enter the expressway, causing tons of exhaust fumes to enter the surrounding communities.

The Congestion Pricing Plan, proposed with the aim of cleaning air pollution on city streets, was introduced near the end of March 2021. The program will charge tolls as high as $23 to discourage drivers from entering Midtown and Lower Manhattan, areas known for being the city’s center of finance, tourism, and entertainment. Although many would assume this to be a positive plan, the details of the plan completely ignored the consequences low income communities would face if implemented.

In order to avoid the tolls, drivers will make their way to the city’s center through the Cross Bronx Expressway, resulting in an estimated 5% increase in air pollution. This plan would also increase the number of trucks on the expressway by 50 to 700 per day. Leslie Vasquez, the Clean Air project organizer at South Bronx Unite, an established nonprofit that works to improve social, economic and environmental conditions for South Bronx communities, says this plan would disrupt a community that already struggles with intense health problems from poor air quality.

“We are afraid that congestion pricing will worsen our traffic and will worsen our air quality. We have a fear that, because certain areas will have higher tolls, those cars and trucks will be redirected to our highways in the South Bronx,” said Vasquez. “Now, we want to be able to track the air quality during this year and the air quality during the time that congestion pricing is in effect.”

This September South Bronx Unite has partnered with QuantAQ, an air quality monitoring provider, and will install 25 MODULAIR sensors in Mott Haven, Port Morris, Melrose and other areas known for their high rates of air pollution. These sensors will provide public air quality data, with minute-by-minute changes in the concentration of particulate matter and other gas pollutants. This data will aid clean air advocates in providing evidence of the harmful effects of certain policies and help change those policies if necessary.

Measuring air pollution in the city often focuses on levels of PM2.5, which is fine particulate matter. These are particles that can be liquid or solid, and are small enough to enter the bloodstream through the lungs. Once inside the bloodstream, health problems can occur, such as respiratory and circulatory issues and a shorter life expectancy. Currently, these levels contribute to 2,000 deaths and 5,150 emergency hospital visits yearly in NYC. 14% of PM2.5 comes from traffic in NYC, and each borough experiences these concentrations differently, with 50% more in low income neighborhoods than in more affluent areas. Hunts Point in the South Bronx is nicknamed “Asthma Valley” for its dangerously high rates of respiratory disease.

According to NYC.gov, the Melrose neighborhood has the second highest rate of health problems resulting from PM2.5, the first being East Harlem.

“There’s indoor air quality and there’s outdoor air quality,” said Diana Hernandez, a tenured professor in the School of Public Health of Columbia University. Hernandez is a Bronx native who studies the environmental impacts of housing with a focus on energy inequality. According to Hernandez, NYC has an older building stock which relies on inefficient ways of creating energy.

During the winter months, the sounds of banging and air fizzing are the norm in many of New York City’s older apartments, because they still use steam heating. Steam heat was very popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The steam would rise on its own, and as it cooled, the resulting condensate would return to the boiler to be reused.

These steam heating systems require a lot of water to function, run on fossil fuels and take a long time to heat up. The fumes that are expelled from these ancient heating systems are contributing to the fact that more than 70% of NYC’s carbon emissions are caused by buildings. 

Accompanied by the massive amounts of CO2 and PM2.5 emissions by the Cross Bronx Expressway, this is yet another form of air pollution which causes the South Bronx’s high rates of respiratory diseases.

“We have poorer air quality than other parts of New York City. It’s also not coincidental because we’re also predominantly people of color, predominantly working class,” said Valesquez.

The future of air quality in the city is not all negative and bleak; many small victories have been won over the course of the last decade. As an example, Governor Kathy Hochul has created a $10 million commitment plan for clean transportation in the Bronx which aims to have electric public transportation vehicles in the city.

There has also been a $12 million Heat Recovery Program which will modernize buildings and focus on projects to make buildings more energy efficient. The Congestion Pricing plan has yet to be approved, as politicians have been discussing how to lower the environmental and public health impacts that may arise. Although change has been slow in terms of improving NYC’s air quality, there are many initiatives currently taking place focused on environmental health for the South Bronx.