Covington Associates Consulting

If, as the City of Buffalo insists, according to this article, there are 20k fewer people traveling into downtown Buffalo everyday than there were 5 years ago, is the New York State Department of Transportation’s claim that 75k vehicles travel on NY Route 33 Kensington Expressway daily, accurate?

Downtown's dilemma: How to thrive with 20,000 fewer workers Buffalo's economic development commissioner, building owners, developers and others say the key lies in remaking downtown so it's not reliant as much on daytime workers but rather on its new permanent residents, evening diners, nighttime revelers and weekend visitors.

Great New York Times Newspaper article, that includes links concerning Covington Associates Consulting | CAC's leadership profile in the Community Opposition Movement against the NY Route 33 Kensington Expressway Project, here, in Buffalo (NY).

A Highway Split Their Community. Efforts to Fix That Face Opposition. The Biden administration is spending billions to reconnect communities of color that have been fragmented by highways. Some projects have stirred debates over how to mend longstanding harms.

The fourth in the series, "Restore and Reconnect the Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood + Tribute to MLK" combatting the Environmental Racism 'vehicle' that is the NY Route 33 Kensington Expressway. Thursday, April 4, 2024, at the Frank E. Merriweather, Jr. Library in Buffalo.

Sponsored by:
East Side Collaborative Partnership
Covington Associates Consulting
We Are Women Warriors
East Side Parkways Coalition

A vow to keep fighting the state plan for the Kensington Expressway Opponents of the state's plan for the 33 say they will not stop fighting for something better for the neighborhood surrounding the expressway.

The second in the series, "Restore and Reconnect Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood" Community Support Rally and March II. Saturday, 20-April-24, from the former Gigi's Restaurant (257 East Ferry Street) in Buffalo, to E. Ferry at Humboldt Pkwy.

Humboldt Parkway residents continue push against Kensington Expressway project Demonstrators with signs reading 'no toxic tunnel' gathered along East Ferry, protesting the state's plan to convert a below-grade section of the 33 into a tunnel.

CAC is continuing in the assistance, implementation, and coordination of the Community Opposition Movement and strategy against the NY (Route) 33 Kensington Expressway Project. Excelsior! Forward…

Watch "In Our Own Words", heartfelt stories about the widespread and broad-based Community Opposition to the NY (Route) 33 Kensington Expressway Project, as told by (current and former) Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood Residents...and their Loved Ones:

Covington Associates Consulting | CAC - YouTube Covington Associates Consulting | CAC, is a 100% Minority and Woman-owned, Social Issues concerned consulting company, based in Buffalo, New York, USA. Its o...

Would you support an Initiative to connect ethnic and cultural community small business Owners, and their Companies, to Customers? Think: Black and African American Customers, able to quickly locate a Black-owned small business, in and throughout Buffalo and Erie County. Please complete this Form, for this historic and one-of-its-kind Effort! Thank you.

FirstMarket Customer Survey Form Please click the link to complete this form.

Hope no one is falsely consoled by the NYSDOT pronouncement of a 500-ft. (so-called) 'buffer zone' between the Kensington Expressway, and Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood homes. Or, by the fake park that is supposedly going to be plowed and planted atop 3-ft. of soil dropped onto the concrete tunnel, slated to be drilled atop the dreaded Kensington Expressway. Envision 5 years of construction, including blasting. Look at the ugly enactments of driving through the toxic tunnel, that will host NO air filtration/purification system. NY Route 33 Kensington Expressway, if the claims of Environmental Illnesses emanating from Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood Residents is any indication, is a disaster. Planting a park over an infrastructural barrier that is making people sick, ought to be illegal. It's like The Bible warns: Cast not your pearls before swine. The U.S. State of California has been warning developers and builders, in that part of the country, that 1000-ft. should serve as the minimal distance from a freeway, for "sensitive uses", like schools, churches, clinics, hospitals, daycare centers, skilled nursing facilities, and homes. Just as importantly, other studies are touting that 1-mile is the only safe distance a residence should be located in relation to a highway, like the NY Route 33 Kensington Expressway. Not caring to do anything about the suffering that is occurring in the Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood, is unequivocally and morally wrong, absolutely unconscionable, and The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have stated so. He would have demanded an Environmental Impact Statement [EIS] variety of study, before the Kensington Expressway Project would have gained approval from the Federal Highway Administration- or politicians.

Thank You, to the East Side Collaborative Partnership. Our Founder and CEO, Ms. Sherry Sherrill, will be presenting "What Might Dr. King Have Said/Done Concerning The Kensington (Expressway) Project".

Community Townhall: MLK Tribute + Kensington Expressway Project Perpetuates Environmental Racism Join us for a community townhall honoring MLK, and discussing how the Kensington Expressway Project perpetuates Environmental Racism.

The struggle continues.
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Let me start by declaring, again, that the NY Route 33 Kensington Expressway is a 1950s era Federal-Aid highway that is like countless similar freeways cutting through the 'heart' of a highly-densely populated Black and Brown Community, in this country. It was no accident that those roadways were placed where they are, today. When the neighborhoods where they are, began to change into (predominantly) minority locations, the U.S. Federal Government declared a virtual 'war' on the residents, and began 'redlining' and building high-speed expressways that practically walled-in those families, and separated them from even their own neighborhood residents. Think of how the Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood was fragmented by the Kensington Expressway, and how Cold Spring Residents are now separated from Fruit Belt Residents, and how both groups are now separated from Trinidad Park Residents. The expressways becoming built was something that was told to the white residents who moved out of those urban inner-city communities, but not to the Black families who bought such homes, like in Buffalo's Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood.
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Black homebuyers bought those beautiful homes, but wound up living in a neighborhood that the government plowed a high-speed expressway down the center of it. Six lanes of 40- to 60- foot trees were massacred to make way, for the Kensington Expressway. Over a thousand homes were destroyed, and several hundred small businesses were forced to close, including those on nearby busy commercial corridors like Jefferson Avenue, and Fillmore Avenue, and East Ferry Street, and East Delavan Avenue, and Kensington Avenue, some due to the loss of the high volume of motor vehicular traffic that used to travel near those companies, on those radial ('side') streets. Forced to choose between keeping their newfound lovely homes, or trying to sell them at a loss, many Black homeowners chose to remain in Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood. What they've learned since then, however, is that high-speed freeways, like the NY Route 33 Kensington Expressway, actually can- and do- make people who live close by they, sick. Unfortunately, in some instances, sick enough to die.
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What would The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. likely have said, and done, about that reality?
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Join the East Side Collaborative Partnership, for an Environmental Justice themed Tribute to The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and to his work against Environmental Racism, at "The Kensington Project Perpetuates Environmental Racism", on this coming Thursday, April 4, 2024, in the Frank E. Merriweather, Jr. Library, at 1324 Jefferson Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14208. At the meeting, a Care Packet will be distributed to interested meeting attendees that will detail steps Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood Residents, and East Side Buffalo Community Residents, can take to better protect our households against the Kensington Expressway's pollution.
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Have we found a link to African American Health Disparities?
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A Harvard University Study, and the U.S. State of California (Los Angeles), are advising developers and builders against constructing "sensitive use" Concerns, like schools, churches, hospitals, clinics, skilled nursing facilities, daycare centers, and residential homes, inside fewer than 1000 feet away from high-speed highways...like the Kensington Expressway, in Buffalo. Research, however, has established that highway pollution reaches up to (approximately) 5280 ft., or 1 mile, from these transportation infrastructure roadways. Most of East Side Buffalo Community lies within one mile, of the NY (Route) 33 Kensington Expressway. Come learn what steps your household should take, to better protect yourself and your Loved Ones from its pollution, including Greenhouse Gases [GHGs], and Particulate Matter. The best NYSDOT Project, is a Removal of the Kensington Expressway, and the Restoration and Reconnection of the Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood. The virtual park themed Concrete Deck and Tunnel Plan that NYSDOT is pursuing, instead, is not that. It is a Highway Preservation and Expansion Plan, and news stories against that approach are happening all across these United States.
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In the video attached to this post, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer happily describes the benefits of the "Reconnecting Communities" approach to Historically Disadvantaged Minority Community Empowerment, to City of Rochester (NY) Residents, on 29-June-2021. Lead Agency in the Inner Loop Highway Removal, there, was the Stantec Corporation. The "Reconnecting Communities" Programme Office, in Washington, D.C., is the Agency paying for this generation's Kensington (Expressway) Project's dreaded Concrete Tunnel and virtual Park, here in City of Buffalo. The senator's glowing report is the opposite of what transpired here, in Buffalo (NY), where the Lead Agency of the NY (Route) 33 Kensington Project, is NYS Department of Transportation.
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The planning process for Rochester's Inner Loop Highway Removal Project, was a partnership between residents and the Lead Agency, and had the support of that city's Government. The planning process here in Buffalo for the Kensington Expressway Project, was a dictated agenda, in which removal of the Kensington was taken off the table of possible options, by NYSDOT, and despite widespread and broad-based Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood and East Side Buffalo Community Resident preference for a Removal Project. In Buffalo, Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood contains a high incidence, if not high prevalence, of residents sick or deceased from Environmental Illnesses caused by living in close distance to the Route 33 Kensington Expressway. Why would a Neighborhood and Community that is aware a highway is making people sick, tolerate a Project that would not remove the source of that assault? Also in Buffalo, there will be no sophisticated ventilation and air treatment mechanism, to filtrate all the toxic air that the tunnel will create. Like now, all that bad air will be released into the Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood, where it will mix into the airspace of the surrounding East Side Buffalo Community. An Environmental Impact Statement [EIS] would have disclosed this Adverse Environmental Impact. An EIS would also have revealed the Environmental Illness Claims of Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood's, and of East Side Buffalo Community's, residents. In Rochester, an Environmental Impact Statement [EIS] was furnished, by the Stantec Corporation. In Buffalo, NYSDOT refused to furnish an Environmental Impact Statement. The function of refusing to furnish an EIS, is and was to perpetuate a tactical ignorance of the High Incidence of Sickened and Deceased Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood ​and East Side Buffalo Community Residents. These residents deserve the Kensington Expressway to be Removed, and they deserve to be compensated for their being deprived of Health and Wellness. If you know anything at all of the Community Opposition Movement against the NYSDOT Kensington Expressway Project, please know that: We are, and were, fighting for Black lives to matter. Stay tuned! See you at Thursday's meeting. I'm one of the presenters.
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Truly,
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Sherry Sherrill, Founder and President
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COVINGTON ASSOCIATES CONSULTING | CAC
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Buffalo, NY, USA
Covington Associates Consulting
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+1(716) 800-1394 | 24-Hr. Main Telephone

Senator Schumer press conference describing the Inner Loop Highway Removal Project, in Rochester NY. This is an excerpted version. For the full Event video visit WROC Channel 8, and other City of Rochester News Media outlets.

We only need 237 additional signatures, to reach our goal of 1k. If you haven't signed this Petition seeking the full restoration of Humboldt Parkway and its Humboldt/MLK Park, and the full removal of the NY (Route) 33 Kensington Expressway, get busy! Sign it, and share it, so we can support Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood Residents, in their fight for cleaner air, cleaner water, respected Rights, and a restored/reconnected Natural 'Great' Outdoors Environment.

Can you spare a minute to help Sherry Sherrill? 320 signatures are still needed! Reconnect And Restore The Humboldt Parkway Neighborhood And Its MLK Park

Here is a spot-on Issue Video, from East Side Parkways Coalition. ESP is one thorough and detail-oriented NY 33 Kensington Expressway Project expert.

Why not us? A short, powerful video about the controversial New York State Department of Transportation proposal for the Kensington Expressway and Humboldt Parkway.Pleas...

Right around the 19:40 mark, this video is all Buffalo (NY), from there. Heartbreaking, when one adds the Human Toll the NY (Route) 33 Kensington Expressway has wrought. Residents living up and down the Kensington Corridor, have contracted the very same variety of Environmental Illnesses, Diseases, and Chronic Conditions, now known to be caused by living in close proximity to high-speed freeways. There is a very High Incidence of such Complaints, and numerous residents have even died, due to their Ailment(s). The only sane, equitable, conscionable Solution to the NY (Route) 33 Kensington Expressway, was/is to REMOVE it, rather than retrofitting (i.e. "expanding") and revitalizing it.

Frederick Law Olmsted | Designing Western New York This WNED PBS original production explores the role of Frederick Law Olmsted in the Buffalo parks system and his work with the Free Niagara Movement. The Buf...