Living Life: Buffalo's Canals

What is it with people believing that you need centralized planning to make stuff happen? That photo from Indianapolis is sterile and anything but cozy.

How much of the "beauty, attractiveness and cozy comfort" in the old-world and early new-world sites listed here were actively planned by some wise men in an ivory tower? I'd be willing to bet a lot more of it grew organically, over generations, with the only 'planning' being some sort of preservation or historical designation.

Looking at ourselves, how much of the rejuvenation of Elmwood, Allentown, Hertel and the Upper West had anything to do with central planning? And what, exactly, are developers doing that doesn't cater to what people want? (A quiet little cul-de-sac in Amherst is pretty damned comfortable...)

Nope. Fancy "planned" crap isn't the answer. Streamlining "the process" that so many people hate is - make it much much easier for development to actually happen and it will.

As one member of the Canal Place Bidding teams, I have now spent 3 months reviewing every aspect of the Canal Place plans. And while its construction details have fallen a bit short, It is a very well done plan! And with or without Bass Pro the design stands as an example of what a well thought out waterfront can look like... and GUESS WHAT??? It looks like the picture you posted! In fact with more building articulation, more vegetation, more texture, more context and more activities!! I have been overwhelmed with everyone's expectations of "Starting Fresh" now that Bass Pro is out... We finally have a fabulous plan and you want to throw it out and rethink Waterpark??? Come on people! Look at the plan, examine it and hopefully you will realize that the 4 season, pedestrian oriented mix of retail and activities such as paddle boat rental, ice skating and even warming your toes at the outdoor fireplaces, or just hanging out next to the cascading creek that interprets our pre-industrial heritage, having lunch on an authentically recreated barge, or basking in the sun at the "beach" are all VALUABLE experiences that add to the quality of life for all BUFFALONIANS!

what canals is everyone talking about theyre all burried under the thruways I thought.

I’m not a big fan of the photo. I know it’s not actually Canal Side but it’s too bland, even if you add more foliage. If you go down to the Naval park / board walk area there are some history plaques with photos of the canal area from the early 20th century. They show rows of buildings with balconies that overhang the canal, much like if Pearl St. Brewery were replicated a bunch of times on a canal. That is the design / theme I’d like to see, not the Galleria mall on a canal.

"Whatever happens to Canal Side we should remember to fight it tooth and nail until it eventually gets killed."
-Tim Teilman, circa everday

The lack of centrallized planning in the city since the mid 1900's lead to the current mis-use of our city's unique position on a body of water at an international crossing. The city's original radial street layout was centrally planned by the Masons in the 1800s. Most major cities were centrally planned in some fashion in their history because the government wanted to have some control over the character of the place they lived in. Buffalo has unique assets, history, location, cost of living, that we need to take advantage of, and regain control of their future use.
Let's assume we're going to do this waterfront exercise right. I agree with Chris that we can do something in the character of Boston, Montreal, Quebec, etc if we care. I also think having BassPro, or any specific silver bullet out of the picture is better for the success of Canal Side, because forcing someone's vision down the throat of a historic character project will ruin it. There's a reason Boston doesn't have BassPro next to Feneuil Hall, but it has the historic district in North End, and has the new at grade parkway along the water & museums. It will have to come bit by bit in a city our size, but we have resources available with the coordination of ECHDC (wether or not we agree they are needed, they are here & have funding to lend to the process). So it's up to us as the residents to ensure our elected leaders follow the vision of Canal Side that is laid out and that we want. A few changes don't derail the project, because no development project ever looks exactly like its original outline. But we should be sure this one maximizes the value of its location, and creates somewhere the residents want to use regularly, not just an occassional use retail space on the water.

I used to live in Indy, in the building in the far left, before the footbridge. The building was made as a hotel/dorm for the Pan-Am games circa early 1990's then converted to apartments. The canal is man made, to the best of my recollection. The building to the right is a Marriot hotel (Residence Inn I think). The canal area of downtown Indy was a nice little area to walk and run, and was 'connected' to a park and tennis center, and then to the NCAA museum / IMAX theatre. Then I think White River park put in an amptheatre (can't spell don't care). So all in all that area went from zilch to much loved and used in less than 10 years. City hall and the ECHDC (I really think they should be called gangsters) have managed to only spend money and put lipstick on a footbridge at "canalside". Disgraceful.

I think I used Marion Co. IN as an example, in a past rant, of how Buffalo could get its F in S together. Incorporate Erie County now.

Again with the comparisons to much bigger cities!!! We are not Boston - never were, never will be.

@ Sally, no Buffalo isn't Boston in total metro size. But the comparison holds in terms of geographic size of the city & position on the water. Their downtown is no more than 2 miles wide, and is surrounded by water, the entire downtown is a walkable distance from the business center to the water. It is a rather compact major metro with 4 MM people (yes twice the size of Buffalo). They have established retail, entertainment, museum & torusim draw right downtown in and around their city hall, federal building, mass transit system and on the waterfront which is accessible to all. We shouldn't expect the level of investment they received from the Feds for the Big Dig, but we should aspire to something other than the mundane, without being pie-in-the-sky unrealistic. if we don't learn from other's city's experiences, and their mistakes & ours, we will repeat those mistakes. Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again & expecting different results. I hope my kids aren't having the same debate here in another 40 years that the community is now.

I am Scared to death and fairly sure benderson will screw this up. I say keep the plan the same sans bass pro. Keep it urban, mixed use and Leaning more to entertainment with Light retail. Stay way from national retail for sure. The canals should be usable, ice skating in winter and boats the rest of the time. It should draw buffalians to it all the times to hang out. Then out of towners will follow too. retail has plenty of places to fill in downtown.

I want to reiterate again...I am not an expert. Just a citizen that was born and raised in Buffalo that would love to see our waterfront tarnsformed into a place for everyone in all seasons. Other cities, big and small, have either created this atmosphere recently through revival, or have had maintained this throughout history. I wholeheartedly believe Buffalo is capable of revival, with the right direction.

By the way, I was thinking of ice skating along canals (a la Quebec) in the winter...just not sure if it is possible.

Again, just a vision from a regular citizen.

Am I the only person slightly disturbed that neither of these photos have any people in them? I don't even see any boats. building a condo with a sidewalk right up the the water's edge isn't exactly the most fulfilling way to take advantage of the canals.

Housing and hotels are nice, but not many people will want to live in or visit a place that is miles from the nearest store, restaurant or attraction.

I fully support taking advantage of the canals for residential use, but only as part of a multi-use master plan that includes commercial and entertainment also.

I love these ideas! Rowe's wharf in Boston is a huge success, so much so I scratching my head about why every city with a horbor hasn't done similar kinds of developments. Buffalo is so ripe with possibility too, especially if much more of the original canals could be rewatered. As to "the lack of people", who knows when those shots were taken? Immediately after or just prior to completion? This is how a city like Buffalo can retake ownership of its waterfront: with projects that assimilate the best things about the past uses into the way people today want to live. Do this and we're laughing at Bass Pro forever!

Do children live in those apartments and/or get anywhere near all that open and deep water?

One reason why so many canals in Buffalo were filled in was because there was no circulation of water through them. The water was stagnant, pollutants weren't flushed out, oxygen levels were low, and they smelled really, really bad. There's a very good reason why the Ohio Basin, Clark-Skinner Canal, Hamburg Canal and other branch canals and slips were dewatered and filled in.

The last thing Buffalo needs are more stagnant, polluted dead-end canals. Short slips off the lake can work, but the Buffalo River doesn't have enough flow to flush itself out, much less dead-end slips and canals branching from it.

From the Delaware/Maryland Dead End Canal Conference precedings:

-- Receiving waters – Canals with lower tidal ranges are limited in their ability to be
flushed (i.e., move the canal’s water outside to exchange it with fresher bay water) by the supplying waters from open areas of the bays.

-- Aspect ratio – Canals with higher length-to-width ratios have limited flushing and
poor water quality.

-- Depth-to-tidal-range ratio – Deeper canals with lower tidal ranges suffer limited
water exchange.

-- Physical orientation – Canals that are positioned perpendicular to prevailing winds
will experience less internal circulation (i.e., moving water around inside the lagoon).

-- Sill development – Sediment deposits trap canal water by acting like a dam at the
mouth of the canal. Removing these sills could improve flushing and water quality.

-- Sediment retention – The nutrients and toxins carried by storm water runoff settle in
fine silt on the canal bottoms. This silt absorbs and holds contaminants that build up over years. Most of the toxins are retained in the lagoon and don’t flush out to the open bay waters. The retention problem may be fixed by dredging.

-- Dissolved oxygen levels – When dissolved oxygen reaches low levels of 2 parts per
million, organisms start dying and the water puts out an unpleasant, heavy hydrogen sulfide odor. Hydrogen sulfide is toxic to fish, animals and algae living in the system.

-- Retention areas – Unsightly, wind-driven debris lodges in these canals. Storm water runoff carries toxins and nutrients into the canals where they reside to stimulate algae growth and hydrogen sulfide production. Contaminants become trapped in the canals and can’t escape.

-- Configuration – Long, shallow lagoons lead to deep, non-flushing waters that trap
fish, such as menhaden, who cannot find their way out. These high oxygen consumers suck the oxygen from the canal and perish in a fish kill event.

-- Residence time – The amount of time that water resides in a canal without being exchanged with fresher, open bay water is extremely slow because the residence time of the entire system is very slow. Flushing usually occurs during storm events. Models indicate that usually 66% of the water is turned out and 33% of the water is left behind. (Records indicate the flushing of Rehoboth Bay at this 2/3 ratio can take 45 days.) Maximum water exchanges take place during Northeaster storm events. (The normal tidal range for Little Assawoman Bay at Fenwick Island is 1-foot. During a recent Northeaster event, this tidal exchange increased to 2.5-feet.) Tidal ranges and exchanges vary throughout the Inland Bays with all dead-end canals located in 1-foot tidal range areas.

-- Algae – High levels of nutrients in the bays result in overabundant algae growth. Harvesters are used to remove large amounts of odiferous algae and apply it to farmlands where it decomposes. Black, bubbling water occurs when decomposing algae produces highly toxic hydrogen sulfide. When macroalgae occurs in dead-end lagoons, it must be harvested quickly before it turns to toxic soup. Another algae, that looks and acts like monofilament fishing line, causes navigation problems when it wraps around boat propellers and must be cut off.

-- Fish kills – Surface debris on the water can prevent life-sustaining oxygen from penetrating the water and may contribute to fish kill events. In the summer of 2000, more than 20 fish kills occurred in the Inland Bays. This extremely high rate of fish kills occurred due to weather and environmental conditions including abnormally high rainfall, high temperatures, overcast skies, low dissolved oxygen levels, and runoff-fueled algae growth. Weather stations were installed to measure weather parameters around the bays.

-- Harmful Algal Blooms – The University of Delaware and the Center for the Inland Bays have citizens monitoring programs that study HAB occurrences and causes of fish kills. Several species have been found locally to be of concern, including chattonella. This species produces brevitoxins; detectable levels of pfiesteria have also been detected.. Hot spots of these types of organisms are shifted around lagoons by winds.

-- Stratification – the deeper canals form “layers” where toxins like hydrogen sulfide can mix with surface waters during heavy winds. This mixing action can contribute to fish kills.