I am not a fan of the new Peace Bridge Plaza or the destruction of this neighborhood. I think the time to secure the truck traffic and to develop a logistics center in Buffalo has passed. We missed the boat. We could gain something from a new bridge and truck plaza, but I am not sure that there will be a full return on our investment.

I am curious about this claim: A five-year breast cancer survivor, she also pointed to each house that was home to breast cancer victims, five in all, one deceased, as well as those in which the inhabitants have asthma. She blames the trucks that will come closer still in the new plan..

Is she saying that her proximity to the Peace Bridge caused her breast cancer? There is evidence that an increase in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or PAHs can cause an increase in breast cancer in women; however the increase in PAHs from auto exhaust is minimal when compared to other environmental contributors such as tobacco smoke and diet. There was a major study done on the link between auto, especially diesel, exhaust and an increase in cancer for local residents. The study stated the women who were exposed to high levels of exhaust had less than a 50% greater chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer, this is minimal considering that there is a 150% greater chance for women who live near high tension power lines, a 500% increase for women who have a high fat diet or consume grilled foods, and a 1,100% increase for women who smoke. There is a correlation, but it is minor when compared to other factors.

I am also curious about the age that the survivors were diagnosed with breast cancer and whether or not they were receiving estrogen or progesterone therapy. The risk of breast cancer is much higher for women who are hormone sensitive, these women tend to receive hormone replacements that may increase there risk of breast cancer.

The fact that there is a high rate of cancer in this area is concerning, but let's factor in the other causes that may contribute. Smoking, birth control, hormone replacement at menopause, family history, and other environmental factos all weigh into the equation. Just as there are other factors that weigh into the perceived increase in asthma.

This article attempts to draw a loose correlation between the bridge / plaza and health concerns. I am sure that there are correlations, but please build them off of facts instead of emotions and perceptions.

That said, I hope that this project is moved to a location that is more convenient for residents and drivers.

It is a shame because these are not the wrecks that people tend to think they are when you say west side. The sad truth of this whole issue is that the new plaza is going to be destabilizing arguably the most stable part of the west side while leaving the blighted areas north and south of it intact. This area up along Porter with D'youville offers a nice swath of well maintained and pretty homes from the Elmwood Village / Richmond area to the waterfront.

I just can't see the plaza benefiting the city when you consider the potential harm and disinvestment that could occur as one of the most stable middle class neighborhoods on that side of the city gets paved over.

RonR - not sure that website provides insight into what the future of trucking will do for Buffalo. However, we do know the legacy of highway construction/ expansion in Buffalo and the impact it has had on the city.

I agree that shared border is the way to go, but Judge Fahey ruled that the bridge and plaza projects are NOT separable (that's what the original lawsuit was all about). Besides, you can't just start building a bridge with no place to land.

Allow the wildlife study to take place, wait for a new Administration, and push again for SBM.

You would think that WNY would learn from past mistakes but once again Buffalo will be treated as a doormat for the advancement of other places. Lets review:

Cut off 100% of the city's waterfront for highway right of way.. Divide the city's premier park in half with a highway... Eliminate one of the city's elegant parkways in favor of a new highway built in a trench... Relocate the single most powerful regional economic engine out of the city to a remote location.. and now - Destroy a valuable neighborhood in order to park trucks..Trucks, by the way, that are not destined for Buffalo. With all the vacant and underutilized land in Buffalo does this not seem a bit absurd?

generally BRO and its "collective membership" uses the "good urban planning" set of principles. some of it idealistic, some realistic, but generally all desirable. It's about the city and making a better city and its all drawn from the same principle, to make the city more livable. There have been so many neighborhood displacing projects in Buffalo in the past 50 years that have come with great promise and it's hard to believe that this one somehow is going to be any better then the rest. Is there is no real alternative viable here?

And the neighborhood is not just 90 homes, it's ninety plus the blocks that now have a new level of exposure to the truck plaza once the blocks between are demoed and new asphalt laid.

REALLY????

SO the report says explicitly that the region will add 27,000 jobs if we tear down these 90 houses to make a truck plaza? In a city with supersized highway infrastructure, it's just these 90 homes that stand in the way? The last 90 to fall, the last neighborhood to slay before Buffalo is finally reborn with all that promised growth the highways were to bring?

I DO NOT BUY IT.

move the crossing point (grand island anyone?), build the shared border, or leave it alone.

If you or somebody in your family was living around the Peace Bridge and had cancer or respiratory disease than there would be not such great concern for statistics to help in building a second Peace Bridge. The concern would be in correcting the problem for your family, neighbors, or yourself.

There is hypocrisy from top to bottom in the Buffalo and Fort Erie Peace Bridge Authority plans for building a second bridge into Buffalo. The Authority is full of authority and has absolutely no conern for the health and rights of citiizens living in the neighborhoods shadowing the bridge. If you ever have cancer statistics are not going to help you. Statistics are not going to prevent your family member or neighbor from getting cancer.Nitrious oxidies are not taken out of truck emissions under the new federal truck emissions for diesel engines. Nitrious oxides do become smog in sunlight. Smog does cause heart and respiratory disease. A person on the West Side of Buffalo can quit smoking and be still be a lab experiment for the advocates of the trucking and Authority industry. They can clean the smog and dust in their homes, on their windows, on their cars and lawn furniture with the wipe of a cloth but they can't do that to their lungs and their blood. They can't wipe out truck emissions that trigger a cell to go bad and mutate into a tumor and spread through their bodies.

It is a lie to say that a new bridge will not further harm the health of the people in Buffalo.

It is false to say that this new bridge is the solution to hurry traffic across the Niagara River.

It is nonsense to say that massive expansion of long term jobs will be created in Buffalo by building a second bridge.

It is a slap in the face of democracy and self determination to urban renew Busti, Columbus Park, Vermont, Rhode Island, Niagara, Prospect streets into a plaza for trucks. This project is as bad as the war in Iraq and full of the same logic that says that torture of prisoners is justified.

Many people will not go into the ocean because from time to time a shark kills a person. People stay indoors because of fear of being hit by lightening. They can do this to limit their exposure to harm being done to their health. They have an option not to take even a small risk like a shark attack. They percieve sharks as a very dangerous threat to their lives even though more people die each year from cancer in the hundreds of thousands. The Peace Bridge expansion is a threat to the health of people in Buffalo. The Peace Bridge Authority could realease hundreds of starving lions, tigers, and polar bears in our community and stock public pools with crocks, bull, black tip, hammerhead, tiger, and white sharks and the statistics from those deaths would not match the number from cancer and respiratory disease on the West Side. One can eliminate dirty carpets and smoking of cigs but not the ozone coming from truck engines crossing the Peace Bridge. The air doesn't smell fresh or clean in the summer by the bridge. It is dirty with smog, Soot is falling all over the West Side every day and being breathed into our bodies. It is currently unhealthy for the residents as it is for the employees at the Peace Bridge because of the truck emissions. The dismisal of health concerns is just another authority trick to disarm the public and discount our rights to a heathier community. It is like killing the American bison herds to build a railroad. There is no progress gained through the theft of a culture to benefit a capitalistic culture that no longer cares about the American people and the citizens of the West Side or public health.

Talks for shared border management should be opened with Canada in 2009.

nyc, I don't know. I would love to see a survey of the truck destinations.. i doubt very many stop in buffalo at all. the best we can hope for is the sales tax from selling them gas and burger king... Doesn't sound worth a neighborhood to me.

I agree with JW.. the election is right around the corner.. lets more foward with the bridge construction and keep the book open for a plaza design. From what I have seen the bridge and plaza are two different projects. We don't HAVE to have this plaza if we want a new bridge. Shared Border is really the way to go.

For god's sake it is only Canada. Whats the big deal? The way Bush killed the shared border idea you would think Iran was north of us.

what is the great benefit of more truck traffic again? more warehouse jobs? is that it? someone enlighten me please.

In 7 months the current administration, in Washington, will be gone. Even McCain is none to pleased with what happened in New Orleans. So, In all probability, Chertoff will be replaced, no matter who wins the general election. They have waited 10 years to start the bridge. what is 7 more months. Shared border management can probably be revisited.

whoa, sorry about the double post....

Great..Ron R NOW MENTIONS 26,000 NEW JOBS..Can we add these figures to a presidential candidate's campaign promise of thousands of new jobs for Western New York when she was runningfor senator from New York? How about a hundred jobs to demolish a complete neighborhood and intact landmark community.The spirit of Robert Moses is in Buffalo.Who remembers LOWER MANHATTAN before he "renewed" it.There is the possibility of another bridge for trucks..yes privately financed.

RonR, I think shared border would impact any potential jobs that a focus on logistics may or may not bring. I think having on border and one building to do the job of both countries makes economic, security and environmental sense. Also where would those trucks actually go to the new logistics jobs. Odds are they are still going to bypass the city and to be either in Cheektowaga near the airport, Niagara Falls, if they ever get the cargo idea off the ground or perhaps in South Buffalo near the 90.

Also in most of the plans I see for an expanded plaza there is so much empty room. It really appears like they want to expand just to create a buffer from the people that no longer will live there. Pollution is an issue but it is only an issue because people live close to the bridge. There are other ways or dealing with that problem than remove the people.

I also would like to mention that the supported plan, at least the last iteration I saw not only expands the plaza but actually shifts the WHOLE thing north. This moves it away from Front park.. ok great but is part of the reason that so many homes needs to come down. If we kept a part of it where it stands now perhaps we could save a couple blocks from the chopping block. The only thing under the plaza now is an old fort (never much to see) and greenspace. We would loose Sheridan drive and the Bank (Olmsted elements) but these are not going to be redone in any of the scenarios. just can't work with any plaza design. even shared border.

I would say if we can't get shared border, we leave most of the plaza where it is, give them the episcopal home (which is moving anyhow) and half of the block that faces them already to the south. This give them room to grow and would probably be ample space for customs and security stuff. Other things like duty free, offices etc can be on the periphery as a buffer from the neighborhood and the plaza. There isn't any reason to design this like a mall with the buildings in the center and parking around but bring people into an open security area with buildings around them. Gives use lots of vantage points to keep on eye on things and if something where to happen there would be nothing but plaza until you his the edge buildings giving everyone a little bit more security and buffer room. Who knows... I have spent way to much time thinking about this topic both for work and in my spare time. It really sounds like a design problem in the end.

Trucks will roll across the one bridge we have faster and more efficiently by hiring a larger staff to process the traffic. Slow movement of cars and trucks through the West Side is the problem that creates more smog and health problems. Spend money on staff and not on buidling another bridge.

Move the all inspections to Fort Erie.

If necessary build a second bridge in Lewiston and not Buffalo.

Or pass legislation in Albany to abolish the Buffalo and Fort Erie Peace Bridge Authority. They are not subject to U.S. constititional law and therefore a petty tyranny upon the lives of Americans. They should be abolished and be subject to the will of the people of the West Side. They are subjugating the people under unfair conditions that are no different than the British Stamp Act. Abolish these authorities and reinstate democratic political processes which allow the people to be the guides to their future.

If we could show that there would be an economic benefit to Buffalo than I would be more inclined to support a plaza expansion but the biggest part about highway and road construction are false hopes.

whoa, sorry about the double post....

Rez, if you admit that the bridge isn't the cause of the problems but the problems lie in how the trucks are handled then why oppose the second bridge in Buffalo? It would be nice to drive over a new bridge and symbolically connect Buffalo to Canada and Toronto's doorstep.

You are not alone in your fight for a healthier environment but you are not alone. There are people all along our regions highways that suffer from problems. Perhaps the fight shouldn't be to stop a new bridge but to support and encourage cleaner diesel or hydrogen technologies In 15 years there probably won't be very many diesel trucks left. Who knows maybe we will be arguing about building a second railroad bridge because that is now the bottleneck.

What does need fighting for is a plan that accommodates not but doesn't hinder our future. That is the real problem I see with the plaza expansion. In 50 years when there is no longer the demand for individual trucks then what? We are left with an empty plaza and half a neighborhood. Shared border seems to be the best solution for the city now and into the future.

Al Alo is a little offbase in his comments....... it wasn't the Erie Canal that made Buffalo great......that honor goes to a part of the chicken that most others believed to be useless. The rest is history.

Now New York State wants to stop ideling school bus pollution that is harming school children but looks the other way while the people of the West Side get harmed constantly. Yes terns, fish, and school children are better protected from enviromental harm then the people residing in the shadow of the Peace Bridge. To further the degradation of the public health of the people on the West Side is Love Canal and Hickory Woods thinking.

There still isn't a basic need for any new bridge but a bigger inspections plaza and greater manpower to handle the traffic. This new shared plaza belongs in Fort Erie. We need to wait to 2008 to renegotiate shared border management.

In my opinion a second Peace Bridge is a grand mistake.