This is the third in a series of articles that examine the state of Buffalo’s highways, what the future holds, and ideas and precedent for change. See also:
A New Way of Thinking
A New Way of Thinking in San Francisco
Back in 1971 Buffalo prepared a city plan based heavily on transportation and dreams of new downtown high rises. Many of the buildings did not come to fruition and thankfully neither did most of the transportation proposals. The plan depicted here shows what was supposed to be the grand finale of the Kensington Expressway. The expressway was never intended to end so ingloriously at Oak street as it does today. It was planned to split into the Elm Street Connector going south eventually meeting up with the Niagara Section of the thruway. This would have been a massive sunken axis along the east side of downtown. The other branch dubbed the West Side Connector was planned to cut a westward track through the south side of Allentown to connect again with the Niagara Section. It seems one connection to the thruway was not enough. The idea was to have high speed arterials and highways ringing the downtown core allowing virtually uninterupted and efficient traffic flow around the central business district. This was a popular planning concept at the time.
The thinking was (at least the stated thinking) to ring the core with fast moving traffic that would dump into large parking garages at the edges. Then people would walk to their work place. This would (the thinking goes) eliminate congestion in the center. It was a very idealistic and supposedly a very progressive idea which many cities considered implementing. Rochester New York, being more modern and progressive than Buffalo at the time, actually carried out a similar plan for its downtown. Today downtown Rochester is completely surrounded by a roaring sunken moat of traffic. In Buffalo planners went about setting up all the infrastructure for the eventual completion of its own modern ring road. All the ramps and interchanges were in place. All that needed to be done was to start eliminating the neighborhoods that stood in the way.
Much of the talk of transportation efficiency and elimination of congestion was also a smoke screen for what people at the time desired but could not not state openly. They wanted to cut downtown off from the poor inner city neighborhoods. They wanted to create a safe island of offices and shopping in the city center. At this time in our history many in power had great disdain for the city and few had any real appreciation for the beauty of the urban environment. Efficiency and order were held to a high standard. The old city was the antithesis of that desire. Gradually people began wakeing from their coma and came to realize the damage these highways were doing to our cities. It was the birth of a new way of thinking. In the early 1960’s Jane Jacobs published her ground breaking book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” in which she described and exposed the myths of highway planning and the destruction wrought by their construction (among many other urban bungles).
In New York City the powerful Robert Mosses finally met his match when his proposed Mid-Manhattan Expressway gradually lost favor with the people. It was officially declared a dead project by the Governor in 1971. Meanwhile in Buffalo planning continued for approximately another 10 years for the downtown ring road. For reasons I do not know the plans never canme to fruition. For sure there were people on the west side who fought the plan but most likely lack of funding had stalled construction until people were able to come to their senses. By the early 1980’s the plan had been dropped in favor of a drastically scaled back raodway project. The West Side Connector was eliminated entirely and the Elm Street Connector was downgraded to a surface arterial which utilized one way streets on Elm and on Oak. The new semi-expressway was named the Elm Oak Arterial.
Buffalo dodged a bullet when this downtown ring road plan was cancelled. Buffalo also realized that it did not have to accept every city destroying proposal that came along. Since the defeat of the ring road the mentality of the people has changed. No longer could a Scajaquata Expressway destroy a valuable city park. No longer could a Kensington Expressway be allowed to eliminate a graceful parkway. No longer could an expressway be built that cuts the city off from the water. These things were done in the past but nothing like this would ever be allowed to happen today. Now it is time to advance that kind of thinking and realize that we do not have to accept what was already done to ruin vast portions of the city. It is time to turn back time and correct the destruction. We have seen it done in other cities. It can be done in Buffalo. There is great potential for Buffalo to take the lead in a trend that is growing accross the country. All it takes is the will of its people.