Last December a group of dedicated people headed to Toronto’s waterfront to attempt to see what could be discovered there in parallel to Buffalo’s own waterfront. The trip proved to be a great learning experience for the Waterfront Development Committee. Today marked the follow-up to that trip. The experts from Toronto made the journey to Buffalo to discuss their thoughts for the record in an open to the public meeting.
John Van Nostrand, a partner at Architects Alliance, was one of the four men from Toronto to cross the border. They almost did not make it across, because as Van Nostrand noted, “The woman at the border said, “I don’t know if I should let you in. I’ve been waiting 15 years for something to happen. Are you really going to help us?””
So much is the attitude for change in Buffalo that before the group could get to the city, they were assailed with skepticism. Which is okay with them, they do not claim to have the answers. During the meeting, all four at one time or another said that Toronto has made its blunders but that Buffalo can learn from their experiences. It was with that attitude of helping out a neighbor that these four men gave their advice.
Citing the many problems of the NYS Department of Transportation was Councilman Kearns, who began the meeting by saying that, “the public, not the Department of Transportation, clamors for a world-class waterfront.”
He spoke of the desire the public has to keep Route 5 but that in its reconstruction, a boulevard alternative could be created. He noted that Seattle was another candidate where a boulevard would be useful and that they have already said yes to progress and are creating it.
“This project is a very important project for Buffalo’s future. We have been struggling for 50 years to recover our waterfront,” said Kearns, citing the attention this subject has received from the Wall Street Journal and most recently, the Boston Globe.
Kearns spoke to some length about the similarities between the City of Toronto and the City of Buffalo, but when it came to differences, he had only one major point. “The difference is your mayor has made this project a priority and unfortunately, our mayor has not,” said Kearns.
With his introduction out of the way, the first speaker from Toronto to take the floor was Van Nostrand. He spoke about the large need for a constituency or a reason to go to the waterfront to begin with. He said that Toronto waterfront draws young suburban kids who want to be in the city, parents who have empty homes who want to be closer to theatres, and immigrants who are constantly being weaved into the fabric of Toronto.
Van Nostrand also discussed how some areas of the expressway might be better to keep up while others could be taken down to a boulevard but that most importantly, everyone needs to be involved. “You won’t get there by meeting with people separately and dividing people up,” said Van Nostrand
Lance Alexandar, an engineer who is the Senior Strategic Corporate Policy Consultant for the City of Toronto was next. He spoke to the great difficulties the city faced in taking down part of the expressway. He said there were a lot of protests involving picketing, brochures, and even stopping cars to talk to them.
However, once the group of developers took a step back, they realized they had been approaching this project as a transportation issue and that it was a mistake to do so. Alexander said to make it work, “you got to make the project a place.”
Alexander said, “Toronto’s downtown has been changing over the last decade.” Some of those changes involve the fact that the city is moving away from industry and towards having service/knowledge base workers. Alexander said that it is important to move major cities towards being livable for these types of individuals. “Every city in the world is competing for knowledge base workers,” said Alexander.
John Hillier, a partner of Hillier Architecture, an urban design firm, spoke after Alexander about the way in which different areas have to be treated differently. For the East Gardner Expressway, resistance was met when people could not understand why a quick route to downtown was going to be removed. However, it worked to remove that section, but was not the answer for other areas.
Fort York was another place where the Gardner Expressway loomed overhead. In this instance, there was no on or off ramps to the expressway and it made it workable to create boulevards that went under the expressway. This really helped connect the Fort York area to the waterfront and it kept the expressway intact.
“Some areas it will make sense to take down and others, it will not,” said Hillier.
Last to speak was David Dennis, who was one of the main project coordinators. Dennis, though he had less to say than his colleagues, made a huge point when he said, “What Buffalo’s essentially doing is a social exercise.” What Dennis means is that this should not be a technical concern about getting people from point A to point B, but a concern about making it a livable space, attractive to pedestrians.
Overall, the meeting was an intriguing glance at the possibilities for Buffalo’s waterfront as seen through the eyes of Toronto designers and architects who have already done great work in revitalizing Toronto’s waterfront. Kearns and the Waterfront Development Committee certainly see this as a huge possibility as they have made trips to many major cities to see their use of their waterfronts. Van Nostrand made one of the best points about our city when he said, “How can a city on the Great Lakes call itself a Great Lakes City if it has no relationship there?”