Author: Carl Skompinski
With the recent boom of construction – Canalside and “Pegulaville” increasing the area as a destination, and further build out of the Outer Harbor and the coming children’s museum, this will significantly increase the traffic and visits to the area increasing car traffic and possibly adding to parking needs. Currently, about 50% of Buffalo’s downtown space is parking lots that break up the landscape, hinders economic development, and hinders more productive use of valuable real estate.
In addition, with the build out of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and UB’s 2020 programs to move biomedical schools to the Medical Campus, the area will be saturated with medical workers (estimated at 17,500) and NOT counting students, hospital visitors, vendors and ancillary support businesses that will pop up over time – and not one new parking space will be built. Fruit Belt residents are already complaining of medical workers taking up street parking spaces with are impacting their home life.
Amherst will get their enhanced rapid transit option to UB and/or Crosspointe Office Park in the form of Bus Rapid Transit. Now is the time to start evaluating a light rail extension to the Airport for the follow reasons:
1. Growth of Downtown (DT) as a destination
2. Better reuse of the DT park lots for infill mixed use residential and commercial space. I believe BR did a story a few years ago on the critical mass needed to make DT viable as a livable community. I would like to see 50% of the park lots removed and replaced with infill buildings, pocket parks and fountains – we need more water features in DT as we are a water-based community. Bring more water features into our community. The pocket parks, green space and fountains will be an enhancement for DT residents as well as enhancements for visitors. Win-win. Take another 30% out and position two parking ramps on the footprint of existing lots.
3. Millennials are slow to become car owners. They favor public transit. Having light rail from DT to the Airport opens up shopping and travel options for downtown residents. One Region Forward data and surveys are telling us this fact. In their Transportation Survey, if I recall correctly, 5 of the top 8 destinations where people would like to see improved transit fell directly ON the Airport extension corridor.
4. A light rail extension would go through the Eastside which has been neglected. With an extension going through the East side it would give the poorest residents options for shopping as well as better options for education – as they could get to ECC-North as well as ECC-City. It would also open up options for students in the burbs to come to ECC-City.
5. The extension would over time become an artery – connecting Canalside, The Arena, Pegulaville, Larkinville, with Buffalo’s Central Terminal, Wildroot Building (Bailey Walden area), with the Thruway Mall area, Galleria, and Airport. Allowing for development options along its corridor. Helping with redevelopment efforts from Larkinville to the Central Terminal to the Cheektowaga border.
6. With a solid North-South route – Amherst BRT/light-rail to DT, we need a solid East-West route. The Airport extension is it. The Kensington Expressway doesn’t do it for residents with no cars or millennials who won’t buy a car or can’t due in part or college debt burdens.
7. The route crosses the I-90 at Walden with gives an additional location for a ride and park, increasing the pool of potential riders.
8. Having the ability to keep your car in the burbs – saves on wear and tear, hassle, stress levels, etc…. It would also increase a person’s time to manage their life as light rail could be Internet accessible where riders could make productive use of their time.
9.On average it costs a person $1,100/month to keep their vehicle operational – gas, insurance, maintenance, parking. This would option would increase disposable income for families.
10. Much of the right-of-ways along the line are abandoned lines. There are long sections of beds that are ready for tracks. Since all of this section will be above ground – we could use cleaner natural gas engines to run the line until a decision is made to electrify the time – but a costlier option.
Buffalo Rising
Sometimes the authors at Buffalo Rising work on collaborative efforts in order to cover various events and stories. These posts can not be attributed to one single author, as it is a combined effort. Often times a formation of a post gets started by one writer and passed along to one or more writers before completion. At times there are author attributions at the end of one of these posts. Other times, “Buffalo Rising” is simply offered up as the creator of the article. In either case, the writing is original to Buffalo Rising.