It’s been said that “Planning is human, but implementation is divine.” If that’s the case, then redevelopment of Buffalo’s waterfront has been a very human endeavor. Occasional meetings, commissions, plans, and announcements have been interspersed by decades of inactivity—with few tangible results. This cycle of broken promises is enough to make any longtime resident flatly cynical.
That is, until recently. A visionary plan for the Inner Harbor, developed with strong public consensus, is now funded and being built. Efforts by local leaders, most visibly Congressman Brian Higgins, have kick-started activity on the Outer Harbor. Finally, it seems like there are concrete reasons for optimism.
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But there are still some large obstacles in the way. Literally. It’s been recognized for years that the system of waterfront highways that were built starting in the 1950s have cut us off from what should be some of our most beautiful and valuable land. Other cities have also come to this realization, and many, like New York, San Francisco, and Milwaukee, have actually done something about it. Those cities that have removed their aging highways all have one thing in common: they’ve all seen development skyrocket after constructing surface boulevards and reconnecting with the city street network, with no negative traffic effects. (Some cities never built highways in the first place: Vancouver, BC, one of the most vibrant, valuable, and cool cities in North America, has no highways at all within it’s city limits.) Those cities that built and kept their urban highways have something else in common: virtually all are languishing in inactivity, pessimism, and indecision.
In fact, urban highway removal has been so successful, it’s a wonder that everyone isn’t doing it. Around here, at least, you’d assume that we’d have given it some serious thought. As it turns out, we have: after public outcry and consensus building, the Scajaquada Expressway through Delaware Park will soon be restored to a parkway. Decking-over the Kensington Expressway to restore Humboldt Parkway has been seriously discussed. For the Outer Harbor, public workshops several years ago identified highway removal and restored surface-street connectivity as the fundamental issues to ensure success.
Community groups, elected leaders, and developers see the value that will be unlocked by removing the elevated Route 5 highway between downtown and the Lackawanna border. Average citizens understand how the highway acts as a physical and psychological barrier.
You’d think that the professionals charged with the project would understand these things better than anyone else. But the latest “preferred” plan selected by the NYSDOT for the Route 5 reconstruction project intends to keep the highway essentially as is. Only one point of connectivity would be added between Lackawanna and downtown in the form of a highway connector between Tifft Street and I-190, and Fuhrmann Boulevard would be widened to a four lane arterial. It is bad enough that this will be a repetition of a colossal 1950s mistake, but it will also result in two parallel and redundant road systems—and a waste of both limited money and scarce waterfront land.
This is perhaps the best answer to the earlier question: While many cities have removed urban highways with unequivocal success, most have not because the agency in charge is typically the state DOT. Most DOTs think of places like neighborhoods, downtowns, and waterfronts merely as places to drive through. Their jurisdiction and their vision do not extend beyond the highway shoulder. That some of these areas have real social value or investment potential, or should contain activities other than speeding traffic, hardly enters into their assessment.
Case in point: the environmental impact statement (EIS) produced by NYSDOT includes a full surface-level “boulevard” alternative that it considered “feasible” for handling traffic and other criteria, but rejected that alternative for reasons not stated anywhere in the EIS. This raises some serious questions: If the boulevard plan meets the DOT’s criteria, and is also less expensive in the long-term, why did they reject it? Was their reasoning omitted simply due to an oversight, or was it somehow intentional? These are questions that only NYSDOT can fully answer.
Other questions remain, such as: Why has waterfront proponent Rep. Brian Higgins sided with the NYSDOT plan to keep the Route 5 highway? His office has cited DOT concerns about delays and possible loss of funding, as well as assurances from DOT that the plan does not preclude eventual removal of the Skyway bridge. That’s great, but what about the fact that 90% of the Outer Harbor will still be cut-off by an elevated highway? Also, with the “boulevard” alternative already part of the EIS, will changing the plan now really delay the project much, if at all? Why do we need to rebuild an elevated highway that’s already far under capacity, especially when that same road becomes a surface boulevard just a few thousand feet south at the former Bethlehem Steel site? And most importantly, with a project that could potentially make-or-break our waterfront for the next 50 years: Is it ever too late to do the right thing?
Congressman Higgins has earned a well-deserved reputation for getting things done. But now, so determined to appear as a man of action, he seems to value activity more than accomplishment. This project is too important for the future of our city to be considered only within the timeframe of the next election cycle, or to be dismissed offhand based on platitudes coming out of DOT. Perhaps there are other political forces at work here, but Higgins has shown in the past that he has both vision and determination. Let’s hope he hasn’t lost his compass.
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Other local leaders have taken a more progressive position. The Buffalo Common Council’s Waterfront Committee, chaired by South District Councilman Michael Kearns, is unanimously in favor of the “boulevard” alternative, which removes the embanked Route 5 highway completely. On September 7, the committee hosted John Norquist, president of the Congress for New Urbanism, along with other members of the CNU. Buffalo’s Route 5 and Skyway are the subject of a nearly two-year-long CNU study that examined the Route 5 project and its relationship to both the Outer Harbor and the rest of the city. The CNU came up with recommendations and a plan very similar to the DOT’s rejected “boulevard” alternative (see links below).
Among other things, Norquist called the current DOT plan “breathtakingly stupid” and “weirdly out of date.” If those seem like strong words, consider his record of accomplishment. As mayor of Milwaukee for 16 years, John Norquist helped revitalize that city with strong, progressive leadership. He led the fight against Wisconsin DOT to remove a section of highway, similar to Buffalo’s Skyway, that cut off downtown Milwaukee from it’s riverfront. After the highway was removed in 2003, the city street network was restored and reconnected to the water’s edge, and hundreds of millions of dollars in private investment followed. The area has become both a destination and a great place to live. In the four years since, over $350 million has been attracted to the redevelopment site itself, and over $300 million to the surrounding areas. Despite the usual dire warnings from DOT, there were no negative traffic impacts.
Back in Buffalo, NYSDOT continues to act myopically, if predictably. Last week DOT Commissioner Astrid Glynn sent a letter to Brian Higgins’ office, essentially saying “no” to the idea of removing the embanked and elevated Route 5 highway cutting us off from our waterfront. Oddly, the letter focuses mainly on retaining the possibility of removing the Skyway, as if that were the crux of the issue. The Skyway bridge only comprises the northernmost 10% of the project area, and so Glynn’s response ignores 90% of the problem: namely, the elevated highway running along virtually the entire shoreline from the Skyway to Lackawanna.
Commissioner Glynn also mentions that the EIS and the selection of the preferred alternative were part of an “open process” with a “wide range of participants from city agencies and community groups,” and that the process has “achieved a broad-based consensus.” This may be true, but conversations with several EIS hearing attendees have produced more questions, as it seems that the boulevard alternative was what the public wanted. It also contradicts the known positions of many of the most influential community groups, the Buffalo Common Council, and the outcome of the Outer Harbor public workshops, so how “broad-based” could it be? Curiously, the only group or agency Glynn mentions by name is the Old First Ward Association.
So, what happens from here? NYSDOT plans to advertise the project within the next two weeks and open bids on November 15, with groundbreaking sometime this coming winter. Opposition to the project is building, however, and members of the Common Council and a coalition of community groups are working to try to get DOT to reconsider the boulevard alternative.
If you’re interested in affecting the project, contact local leadership, including Congressman Brian Higgins, Councilman Michael Kearns (Chair, Waterfront Development Committee, and an advocate of the CNU/boulevard alternative), Mayor Byron Brown, NYSDOT, Governor Spitzer, Senator Hillary Clinton, and Senator Chuck Schumer. Let them know that you demand to do the right thing, that you value the long-term good of the community, and you don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past. You’ll find contact information and links below. A phone call or two can go a long way.
With so much at stake, NYSDOT needs to know that we in the community are aware, active, and determined to get the kind of development we envisioned. After all, it’s our city, and our waterfront.
CNU Route 5 Study:
http://www.cnu.org/buffaloskyway
CNU News: Helping Buffalo Avoid Another Freeway Mistake by the Lake:
http://cnu.org/node/1488
CNU News: Bright Future of Buffalo’s Waterfront Threatened:
http://www.cnu.org/node/1463
DOT Letter to Higgins:
Click to access DOT_Letter_2007Sep20.pdf
Other Interesting Links:
http://www.cnu.org/node/1301
http://www.preservenet.com/freeways/FreewaysParkEast.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/stories/2007/09/24/daily5.html?jst=b_ln_hl
http://nmgonline.org/Tools/Broadcaster/frontend/itemlist.asp
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/153073.html
[see bottom of Off Main Street column for Hillary Clinton section]
Governor Eliot Spitzer, 518.474.8390
http://www.ny.gov/governor/contact/
NYSDOT (State Office),
Commissioner Astrid G. Glynn, 518.457.4422
https://www.nysdot.gov
NYSDOT (Region 5, Buffalo),
Alan E. Taylor, Regional Director,
716.847.3238;
Gary V. Gottlieb, Planning & Program Manager,
716.847.3241
Congressman Brian Higgins,
716.852.3501
http://higgins.house.gov/email.asp
http://higgins.house.gov
The Greater Buffalo-Niagara Regional Transportation Council (GBNRTC),
Hal Morse, Director,
716.856.2026
http://www.gbnrtc.org/
Mayor Byron Brown,
716.851.4841
http://www.ci.buffalo.ny.us/Home/Leadership/Mayor
Councilman Michael Kearns (Chair, Waterfront Committee),
716.851.5169
http://www.city-buffalo.com/Home/Leadership/Common_Council/Biographies/Kearns_Michael
Senator Hillary Clinton,
716.854.9725
http://clinton.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm?subj=issue
http://clinton.senate.gov/
Senator Charles Schumer,
716.846.4111
http://www.senate.gov/~schumer/SchumerWebsite/contact/webform.cfm
http://www.senate.gov/~schumer/