Buffalo Rising Online

I don't believe a roundabout or landscaped island is the best solution for the dreariness/predicament that is Delevan & Delaware. You've got two gas stations, (poorly maintained) Metro stops, billboards, a drug store, and a huge volume of multi-cross traffic patterns opposing the beautiful Forest Lawn. Smart land use planning decisions should have come into play a long time ago. Now we're certainly stuck with the above for the foreseeable future.

Delevan at Delaware, on the gas station and drug store sides, had large (big enough to block a linebacker) concrete "flower planters" until this spring. I wasn't sorry to see them go because they only contained weeds and tons of litter. I was doing every-other-day cleanups in that area in May/June...and just when I figured that the City?/a block club?, etc. wasn't going to plant them, I was making plans to do it myself ....but then the planters were removed! (Not sure where they ended up.)

My point: Even when softening opportunities are in place---they oftentimes aren't maintained. That district's land owners (Canisius High down to Forest Lawn store) should unite to place flower pots & hangers (and litter barrels) to provide the softening and eye-pleasing scape Queeneyes desires.

Olmsted Conservancy and Elmwood Village do great jobs within their boundaries. The challenge is to get MORE dedicated participation by all business districts/associations to beautify and maintain their districts. In the absence of the above, individuals and ad hoc groups will need to keep up the long, hard fight.

When Uniland gets going with its Gates Circle Tower, I hope it is the catalyst for this part of "The Avenue" to return to its elegance of yesterday.

The roundabouts on Richmond are just beautiful, nice lighting and great landscaping. They make Richmond Ave.special again. What ever happened to the idea of a circle on Elmwood near the gallery?

I love Richmond and its circles just make it look even better. Delaware & W. Delavan could be an amazing high density intersection if a developer came along and bought out the existing businesses. And Delavan and Main would look a lot better if Canisius allowed local artists to paint murals on that big blue wall.

The roundabouts look great and slow down the traffic but people in Buffalo do not know how to drive in them. The Gates Circle rotary is so dangerous. If you are going North on Delaware into the rotary and want to go left onto Chapin Pkwy you almost always take your life into your hands with the cars going south on Delaware into the rotary. I have had almost 4-5 near side impacts of cars that run through the Yield sign going South. I have asked the previous councilman to look into have signs posted that say "Cars in the rotary have the right of way" as they do in the New England states. I see cars in the rotary that have the right of way, stop their cars in the rotary because they are confused by the onslaught of cars entering the cat and mouse game coming from all sides.

A few years ago I saw a small compact car going south on Delaware enter the Gates Circle rotary and hit a big SUV broadside and flip it onto the SUV's roof. This was Thanksgiving Day about 4 years ago.

Someone is going to get killed and I have notified the city about this problem. How much does a sign cost and why can't the police help manage the traffic on the very high traffic circles at 8am and 5pm.

The rotaries are beautiful and historic looking though if you can just survive the trip.

We must rebuilt some of the many beautiful fountains and scupltures of the PAN AM EXPOSITION to complement these planned rotaries.

Nice article.

There are significant differences between traffic circles and roundabouts. Buffalo has neither in pure form. Gates circle is a modified traffic circle. The Richmond circles are modified roundabouts, which partly explains the stop signs located at Ferry Circle. It's too bad the City didn't follow the code and build a true roundabout. At least Olmsted has landscaped them well.

The State DOT has recently built a true roundabout built to code in downtown Niagara Falls.

Statistics show they are safer, are cheaper to maintain, and raise property values. That's why Howard Zemsky would like to build one outside the Larkin Building. He understands the value of them.

This is just the kind of cool item and idea I love finding on Buffalo Rising, and which Buffalo Rising was started to spark and promote. It seems to me that additional traffic circles would fit right in with the "re-greening" strategies discussed in "Blueprint Buffalo"--a great document (available online) that your Neighbors To The East have looked at adapting for our own fair city. The key is that it's been shown that--all other things being equal--properties located near green features such as parks, parkways, boulevards with planted medians, planted traffic circles, etc. have higher property values. This extends to a degree into surrounding neighborhoods, and such projects can also build community because people have to come together to plan, fund, build, and maintain (just talk with folks from the Kleinhans Neighborhood or WSCC and notice how proud they are of their traffic circle projects). This potential gives a clue to how additional traffic circles could be established: a TIF (Taxpayer Increment Financing) or BID (Business Improvement District) could be established in the project area to raise funds in anticipation of resulting higher property values--making well-thought-out community improvement projects self-financing to a large degree. New York law allows this, but it's hardly ever used in Upstate--we need to change that! So...like-minded folks could get some foundation funding, get involvement from UB planning/architecture, and take a look at the benefits of traffic circles. Such a study could identify some potential locations--like the ones in the posting, or the one proposed for the Larkin District--for some new traffic circles, and also look at issues affecting cyclists, pedestrians, and ADA issues. If the study proves favorable, then do the TIF (or BID), do a pilot project, then lather, rinse, repeat. Perhaps a dozen potential locations spring to mind, so an organized, focused effort could have projects in the works indefinitely, and over time have a measurable impact on the quality of life--and property values--in Buffalo. Best of all, it's building community revitalization on what's uniquely Buffalo! If I hear about such a thing in the works, I'll roll up my sleeves and help.

so many people do not realize these are 4 way stops, they zoom around them, i love the looks but sometimes they scare me!

They are only 4-way stops if marked such. Otherwise you just yield to traffic already in the circle.

Dumbing down the population is not an excuse to not impliment more of these. As mentioned above, add an aditional sign explaining the right of way for those who have forgotten the rules.

They are also safer by removing the number of actual crash senarios, and when one does happen it is usually at a lower speed and smaller angle (no head-on or t-bone impacts.)

oh....and paved corners should be outlawed....nothing kills an intersection like that. Let use some imgination people so both pedestrians and drivers both get what they need and everyone was something nice to look at.

anyone see Kensington/Wherle/Harlem in Cheektowaga lately? What use to be a cool intersection in now all asphalt with new drugstores and parking lots at every corner. It now loks like a big empty waste land.

I was certain at one point a circle was supposed to go in there. Imagine if that did happen with a requirement to built up to the street with hidden/side parking. Something nice and unique would have been created instead of big empty lots which will start fading and cracking in a few years.