Representative Ritchie Torres is a fighter from the Bronx who has spent his entire life working for the community he calls home. Like many people in the South Bronx, poverty and struggle have never been abstractions to him, and he governs from a place of lived experience.
Ritchie’s mother single-handedly raised him, his twin brother, and his sister in a public-housing project. She paid the bills working minimum-wage jobs, which in the 1990s paid $4.25 an hour. While Ritchie grew up with mold, lead, leaks, and no reliable heat or hot water in the winter, he watched the government spend over $100 million dollars to build a golf course across the street for Donald Trump. In 2013, at the age of 25, Ritchie became New York City’s youngest elected official and the first openly L.G.B.T.Q. person elected to office in the Bronx.
With an annual ridership of over 3.6 billion on buses and trains, public transportation is the lifeblood of New York City. Our city’s transit infrastructure is in desperate need of renewal – and local and state governments cannot do it alone. Revitalizing transit options towards a greener standard is one of the most effective actions we can take to improve public health outcomes, reduce carbon emissions, and tackle climate change head-on. With the help of the federal government, New York City can champion clean, renewable energy that will lay the groundwork for a greener future.
There is no larger symbol of environmental racism in the Bronx than the Cross Bronx Expressway, a dilapidated highway that has torn our neighborhoods apart and driven our asthma rates to the highest in New York City. I’m pushing for an overhaul of the Cross Bronx that will “cap” the highway, transforming portions of the roadway into green space that would be placed on 2.5 miles of the roadway that are below grade. Reimagining the Cross Bronx Expressway for the 21st century will curb pollution, improve public health outcomes, and promote a cleaner, safer environment for generations to come.