Submission by Derek Kelly:
I was walking back to my car from the Powder Keg Festival and got very irritated about the state of Main Street. I recently moved my best friend to Denver and spent time on their 16th street. The thing I payed most attention to is how easy it was to travel on that street. I feel the main reason why Main Street does not prosper is because there is no traffic. Just like Denver our Main Street is closed off to traffic, but the difference is how long it takes for one to get a mode of transportation to get from point A to point B.
I know they are in the process of returning traffic to Main Street, but that requires time and a lot of money. I feel the easy fix would be to copy Denver and have several (4-6) buses constantly make a circuit from the tunnel entrance to the arena all day, including the trains. For restaurants to survive, they need the irregular traffic to be there and as of now there is zero of that. Main street has the atmosphere of a city, way more than any other street in Buffalo, they just need the traffic that will bring the restaurants and shops.
I would be interested in creating a “group” or something to look into this option. This is an option that could literally happen next month if people fought for it. I am still learning how to become a leader to do things that benefit Buffalo. I could be totally wrong with this but really feel that if there is a constant flow of traffic and it is easy to get around on Main Street, then retail and food would go down there quickly. The only way to get around there is to walk more or less. For example, I walked from the Powder Keg Festival to the Market Arcade theater without a single train passing me on either side. That’s on a weekend evening during a festival… something is wrong with that. If there was a free mode of transportation down there that came around every few minutes or so, Main Street would become the best street for people to get up and down the downtown corridor.
*A walk from the Powder Keg Festival to the Theater District is under 20 minutes