Buffalo Rising Online

To assert that the Ambassador proposal will 'kill' Black Rock is ludicrous. It is hyperbolic hysteria at its worst, a farce, a slap in the face to common sense. This misgiven notion is 180 degrees out of step with reality.

First things first: IF the Peace Bridge plaza is to be expanded at its current location, then it is better to take the opportunity now to connect the bridge to Niagara Street while retreating from the park Frederick Law Olmsted characterized as the crown jewel of our park system. Niagara Street can benefit from vehicular traffic syphoned off the bridge. This will require the demolition of several blocks of neighborhood. That's a shame. Yet the further north one goes near the bridge, the more commonplace and deteriorated the neighborhood. The ideal is not to drastically expand the current plaza site in any direction. The ideal is to relocate the current plaza off the park to a site which can better benefit the local community and to minimize the footprint and environmental impact of such.

But with regard to the assertion that Black Rock would be sacrificed for the sake of the Ambassador proposal, give me a break!

Black Rock is an ideal alternative. Far from destroying the surrounding neighborhood, this location brings with it every capacity to substantially benefit the surrounding neighborhood. A few points:

1. The Black Rock site is at minimum three times as large as the largest Peace Bridge proposed site. Lots of room for ancillary operations could better benefit the surrounding community. Jobs from warehousing and intermodal transportation are likely here, but impossible at the landlocked Peace Bridge site. The immediate neighborhood is bordered by many underutilized industrial sites which would be attractive to border focused development. At the current location, the bridge plaza does not have the capacity to tie in to local opportunities for development (one of the motivations for bringing the plaza to Niagara Street as opposed to isolating it in an island of parkland).

2. Buffalo State's path of expansion: IF and WHEN Buffalo State should EVER desire to expand, lo and behold there is AMPLE land upon which to do so immediately ADJACENT to its campus, immediately south of its campus behind (west of) the Richardson complex. There's plenty of vacant land there now and more to come via demoltion of some of the psychiatric center's more dilapidated and unimportant structures. Does anyone in the world see Buffalo State jumping over Dart Street, then jumping over the Scajaquada expressway in order to occupy the polluted former industrial sites on Tonawanda Street? When? 100 years from now?

3. The Black Rock site offers the opportunity to amplify trade (and jobs) via intermodal operations: connect road trade to rail trade. The Peace Bridge site cannot match this opportunity. Consider too that substantial federal funds are available specifically geared toward intermodal transportation developments.

4. Steve presents this Black Rock neighborhood as some valiant yet vulnerable community in danger of being sacrificed to the gods of trade. Yet not a single home will be destroyed in the Ambassador proposal. The proposal involves land already zoned 'industrial' (as opposed to parkland and neighborhood, like the Peace Bridge), already polluted, already a decayed eyesore.

Amherst Street will indeed become the border between neighbhorhood and the Ambassador plaza, but this will help, not hurt Amherst Street and its surrounding community. Driven Amherst lately? Amherst Street between Elmwood and Grant has been on a wonderful, slow upward climb ever since Wegman's opened (Tops helps too). Amherst Street west of Grant is a tough love kind of neighborhood. The neighborhood between Niagara Street and Tonawanda Street, and then between Tonawanda Street and Grant Street has been on a very steady, very negative spriral for several decades. That decay continues today. I drive Amherst Street every single day. I drive the 198 every single day. The area which the Ambassador people propose to transform is one of the most decayed, depressing and polluted sites in the city. It is a black eye to every visitor, a red flag to every potential out of town student.

There are two primary means by which the surrounding community can benefit from the location of such a piece of infrastructure: jobs and commerce.

Jobs: low level workerbee postions, such as warehousing and package forwarding jobs can be developed IF there is sufficient land upon which to locate such companies. The Ambassador site offers that, the Peace Bridge site does not. These are precisely the type of employment opportunities which can attract residents to this type of affordable, yet redeemable neighborhood. Jobs help solidify a neighborhood.

Commerce: Why has Amherst Street, between Grant and Elmwood, been staging a comeback? Wegman's shoppers with money to spend (remember the polluted industrial hulk Wegmans demolished?). In the same way, increased automobile traffic on Amherst Street west of Grant for the purpose of border crossing will give the commercial property owners there an opportunity to cash in. Retail needs traffic. Instead of a decaying strip of hundred year old vacant storefronts, entrepreneurs will be able to benefit from all the outsiders coming to the bridge on Amherst. A heathier retail strip strengthens the neighborhood.

Let's simply think about the difference in impacts between the two different proposals. The Ambassador Niagara plan will not take any residences or commercial businesses -- but the Peace Bridge will take five city blocks--that are currently occupied!

Both projects will potentially impact neighborhoods, but how can you equate condemning and then demolishing 120 homes with NOT demolishing any and redeveloping what is now brownfields?

When was the last time we allowed a state agency to take a neighborhood by the way? Think about it.

Jim Kane - Ambassador Bridge Group

Excuse me, but what do you think your Canadian visitors see now? We're stuck on the bridge, with you and the trucks, then we're stuck in the plaza, with you and the trucks inhaling fumes. Then we get the heck out of there onto a highway that takes us to, um, Galleria Mall or the Airport or to hockey/football. Occassionaly, some of us brave through the maze of one way streets to enjoy some form of the arts. We know how to get there but aren't really excited about stopping and exploring because heck, the neighbourhoods along the way aren't very inviting. The ABG plan takes the trucks, not the visitors, across Squaw Island and because of the large size of truck pre-clearance facilities, it looks to me like there won't be any trucks stuck on the bridge.

Well said Ontario! Thanks for your points. The Ambassador Niagara crossing would handle primarily truck traffic -- the real "public" benefit of our plan is that the Peace Bridge becomes a "car-only" crossing allowing for the development of a truly "international gateway" for the tourists, visitors, and local folks to develop and enjoy as a genuine "front door" -- not the loading dock that it looks and feels like now. The other ancillary benefit to the "public" is that with our plan the U.S. taxpayers will not have to fork (or should I say pork?) over to the PBA an estimated $75 MILLION dollars to close down and repair the Peace Bridge so it can continue to function as a truck crossing/loading dock in the most historic part of Buffalo -- "The Front." The greaest compliment the PBA has already paid to the Ambassador Niagara Bridge Group was when they also saw the wisdom of developing the "IRR" corridor and spent more than $1.2 MILLION (sorry - your tax bucks again) to actually buy land in and around the IRR corridor -- so they too could use this as future site for development. It was then we learned we had a viabale, feasbale and reasonable alternative to demolishing an historic neighborhood in the Queen City. Thanks for that PBA. Please check out all the details, including our powerpoint presentation at www.ambassadorniagara.com. Thanks -- Jim Kane -- Ambassador Niagara.

RonR Why are you setting a different standard for ABG than PBA? I thought $22 million Canadian tax dollars were loaned to the PBA and that the PBA will end up paying for the whole thing. (and who designed that ugle canopy that doesn't stop rain or snow? if that's your idea of 'signature' then....) ABG wants to build a plaza IN THE MIDDLE OF A FARMER'S FIELD which means no hassle, no neighbourhoods destroyed, no parks lost - your argument is more PBA crap. re PBA 'signature bridge' design, The Fort Erie people on the design selection team were at best PBA bobbleheads who approved what the PBA wanted. And your third paragraph is more typical PBA crap - start with one sentence and jump to a completely different point. The Canadian government has not given approval to either the PBA or ABG plans so why do you assume Canada should automatically be considering the PBA plan? Because you're an unPublic Authority? Why don't you get us a map of the Fort Erie houses you say are in the middle of the farm field and railroad tracks that ABG plan is going to affect because I don't see any. What I see is the PBA plan affecting houses on Queens Street in Fort Erie. And the new plaza's eliminated the whole of Walnut Street and that's slowly killing the Chinese Restaurants along that Riverwalk the PBA talks about being so important but nobody uses.

Thanks Atwater... "no mas" on that score....pls give me a call as to what more we can do on the website.

And your right about the power and influence -- the "Public" Bridge Authority is made up of political appointees that perpetuate and fuel fundraising and the high-paying political patronage jobs (do you know what they get for pensions?) that gets the politicians re-elected and the "public" authorities out of "public" review or scrutuny for decades on end...the good news is Governor Spitzer promised to do something about them on Day One.

We are private-sector owners, operators and employers of the largest and busiest international bridge crossing in North America. We have and will continue to compete using our own money AND on the merits of what we know to be the right answer to the international bridge problem here on the Niagara Frontier. Since we have not aked for public money the political powers that be just don't see any opportunity to leverage jobs or money for their own political preservation. So why would we get their support? (Try it sometime!) We knew going in that we would have to start from scratch and withstand the political pressure that both the BFEPBA and the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission would bring to bear on our being so audacious as to propose a PRIVATE-SECTOR solution in a community now under the control of NY state financial review boards in both the cuty and the county -- how outrageous is that!

Do you think The Buffalo News or your congressman would care about that? Naw..... - Jim Kane

I'd rather have a private company in charge of a new bridge anyday when the option is an unPublic Authority that believes its above the law.

RonR -- I can only "guarantee" that our bridge - if we are so permitted -- will be run like a business and with the same expertise and efficiency we now employ at the Ambassador Bridge - which every government agency we work with will tell you is second to no one in keeping traffic and TRADE moving as fast and securely as any bridge in North America. We have had and will continie to have open and public meetings and input on our plan in Buffalo and Fort Erie. " Commitments" from government agencies - at least the ones we care about -- don't come before they can review your environmental impact statements and we are in that stage as we speak.

Thanks for your comments. -Jim Kane

BuffaloRox -- We support the downgrade (and say and show it in our powerpoint) and we have said so from the start. Our project could be the catylist for that to actually happen. We use the 198 ramps to access the plaza, yes. Keeping trucks from going east is possible by not provbiding a ramp for trucks to exit the plaza to get on the 198 going east. They would all have to get back on the 190 via 198 westbound and go from there north or south. We show this at our public meetings. Also, our project is consistant with and supportive of the design study being done right now by Wendell Engineering. I will try to get some better visuals and info posted at the website ASAP. Thanks for the comments - Jim Kane.

RonR, I repeat: I'd rather have a private company in charge of a new bridge anyday when the option is an unPublic Authority that believes its above the law of both Canada and the U.S. The PBA is crowning itself and nothing could be scarier.

RonR, your passion on Buffalo issues is obvious and your commenting on other br topics too. And seems to me you've really studied these bridge plans. I'm just wondering why an obviously intelligent person like yourself is resorting to personal attacks to make a point. (I think you're the one who said they don't care about Fort Erie. Planning to build half a bridge?) I'm not the only one supporting the ABG plan at this point and ABG's open participation in answering questions and considering changes to their plan and wwwsite shows something positive to me. Your questions to ABG are valid. Where's the PBA stand on those same questions? We know they're reading this. You work in San Diego because you couldn't find a job in Buffalo. Basicaly, money. But by asking ABG and PBA to guarantee they're not going to raise their tolls you're asking them to limit payroll and pay increases. I don't think that's fair to the workers and flys in the face of what you've told us about yourself. Do you know the tolls at the PB have been increased in the last year? And that Rienas announced it in the Snooze before it was approved by the PBA board? Tolls are 3.50$CDN and 3.00$US even though the money is at par. Fair? I bet US tolls will probably go up to 3.50$ Awhile ago I heard a PBA study says consumers will complain at first about a toll increase but it doesn't affect the overall vehicle crossings. How about that since Rienas has been at PBA there have been no new full-time hires at the PB? The plan is to bring in private contractors to do all the bridge work - and you know how much those poor suckers get paid. Is that how to guarantee tolls? And what's so wrong with increasing the cost to consumers for product that leaves a carbon footprint 8000 miles long? Why should I eat Chilean products instead of buying locally? Not like the poor workers in SA are making much money. And maybe I haven't been as clear as possible on the ownership issue so let me try from this direction.....there are more than two crossings between us and if the private guys decide to become greedy then other crossings will be used and the free-market (because we do have choice) will work it out. But I'm thinking the main issue is whether or not our governments should have the ultimate control over the running of a PBA or ABG bridge and that the PBA believes its above the law.

Chris, Ruby, Ron - whoever --

Given you live in San Diego, I will forgive your ignorance about the real nature of the "Public" Bridge Authority and how they really operate here in WNY/ S.O.

As any private sector business owner can tell you - -we are bound "by the rule of law." The "Public" Bridge Authority contends they are "bound by no laws" Do you get that? No LAWS -- and they spend millions of our tax $ dollars to keep it that way.

Are you contending that a "public" bridge operator is somehow beholden to the will of the public? Or operates for the "benefit" of the people? That is laughable here in WNY. They have raised tolls repeatedly and without any public input whatsoever. Do you even know this?

Again you are in CA. Maybe Arnold Schwarzeneger would not put up with that, but sad to say we are seemingly stuck with it here. Let me repeat my earlier comment on how this works again:

".... your right about the power and influence -- the "Public" Bridge Authority is made up of political appointees

that perpetuate and fuel fundraising and the high-paying political patronage jobs... that gets the politicians re-

elected and the "public" authorities out of "public" review or scrutuny for decades on end...the good news is

Governor Spitzer promised to do something about them on Day One. "

-Jim Kane