You paint a very incomplete picture by neglecting to mention NYC's failure to build the IND “Second System” which would have connected many of the same areas as the Cross-Bronx Expressway. The simultaneous political support for building the one that required expensive car ownership and against building the one which anybody could ride tells me that the freeway was not the real problem here lol
The cross bronx expressway doesn’t “connect the same areas” as any subway, seeing as 95 runs north and south from Maine to Florida. IIRC, it was a question to run 95 “inconveniently” through more parts of Manhattan and wealthier areas (read: Westchester), or take the shortcut through a poor neighborhood in the Bronx. At some point, this highway has to go west to east (laterally?), and issue was where. Not that I’m saying Robert Moses did nothing wrong.
The third avenue El (which was torn down in the 70s) had no real problem being rebuilt over the portion of Third Avenue (the Third Avenue of the Bronx certainly isn’t as flashy as the one in Manhattan, and the Bronx’s Park Avenue is pretty much train tracks on one side) for the 20ish years the two co-existed, at least from my understanding.
Don’t mind me though, because I certainly don’t live about 1/4 mile away from the CBE.
https://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/IND_Second_System_-_1929_Plan
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/1939_IND...