The bus barn has been proposed by the Metropolitan Transit Authority to take up the entire city block bounded by Lexington and Park Avenues, and 99th and 100th Streets. The site is surrounded by daycare centers. New York Children's Aid Society is only one block away, as is Mount Sinai. Metropolitan Hospital is not far off. This is in addition to thousands of residential apartment units. 

The MTA is seeking to bypass environmental and zoning codes, claiming that it is exempt as an "authority", and because the  site has been used as a bus depot for at least 50 years. But now it knows with new scientific findings and documentation, provided by Mount Sinai and Metropolitan Hospitals and other medical sources in opposition to the proposed bus barn, that particulates cause cancer and aggravate asthma, among other harmful effects.

The MTA has reneged on its promises to the community that  the buses would be half diesel and half electric and that the building would be just three floors high. It abruptly switched to full-diesel buses and five giant floors, equivalent to ten normal stories.

East Harlem's population is made up primarily of African Americans, Latinos and poor whites. The MTA is sending us a message, by polluting our community, which already has such high cancer and asthma rates.

We residents of East Harlem feel that the MTA is trying to murder us, because diesel particulates cause breast and lung cancer. 

The initial proposal for this bus barn was met by an arduous struggle led by NYC Councilmember Phil Reed's office, but apparently, the MTA now wants to quell the community into silence, but the community is still resisting.

Two bus depots, on 14th and 42nd Streets, are located in commercial-industrial-zoned areas.

The bus barn on 14th Street is actually scheduled to close as soon as this depot on 100th Street is to open, and its buses will be transferred to 100th Street. The 14th Street facility will be converted into a riverside recreation area, similar to the Chelsea Piers.

Currently, all bus depots above 96th Street are in residential-zoned neighborhoods. But unlike the proposed East Harlem depot, they are near rivers and release some of their foul exhaust gas in the direction of the water.

The original structure was a horse and buggy barn during the 1800s, and some 100 years ago was converted into use for El trains, and and later into a bus barn. It was closed in the earlier 1990s, and demolished, after it was alleged that the original structure was no longer sound. The residents of East Harlem have endured the diesel fumes and 24 hours a day of nonstop noise from buses going in and out. However, this project is completely reckless, and the MTA has a cavalier attitude toward t he people of East  Harlem. The particulates are airborne, and do not stay just in East Harlem. The Upper East side suffers the highest rate of breast cancer in the city. 

Please sign the petition (click) . There are other locations where the bus barn could be more appropriately sited. For example, the proposed site for new stadiums in NYC would have enough space not only to house the buses, but because the area is commercially zoned for industry, there are few residences where people would have to live with such a facility. Six of the eight existing bus barns are in Harlem and East Harlem, which many feel is environmental racism and classism. The residents of
Harlem and East Harlem are already participating in much more than our "fair share" of environmental burdens for NYC.

Please sign the petition (click) and help us to clear the air and rid this monstrosity from the village of East Harlem.