NYC Invests in Air Quality, but the Bronx Still Can’t Breathe Easy

By Lauren Dalban - Inside Climate News

Highways, peaker plants and commercial and industrial activity cluster in the borough. Despite projects and policies designed to help, pollution remains a problem.

NEW YORK—When Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that $20 million from the city’s congestion pricing revenue would be redirected to fight childhood asthma in the Bronx, Javier Marchand celebrated. 

But Marchand, the air quality advocate for the community advocacy group South Bronx Unite, knows the new funding will not be enough to fix the pollution problem in his neighborhood. 

Every summer, New York City’s emergency communication system floods residents with air quality warnings. The warnings signal the arrival of wildfire smoke from Canada, or the presence of ground-level ozone, which forms when pollutants emitted by vehicles, power plants or refineries chemically react in the presence of sunlight.

In the Bronx, though, some neighborhoods experience poor air quality year-round, with lasting health consequences.