“…Anything short of a true restoration of Humboldt Parkway is unacceptable.” explains Mike Puma in Buffalo Rising’s story, “NYS DOT Proposes Band-Aid Fix for Kensington.”
Citizens for Regional Transit (CRT) agrees. CRT calls for an approach that values all transportation modes, reconnects the community, places people above cars and respects environmental priorities. Please see our video.
The New York State Department of Transportation (NYS DOT) proposal to cap the Kensington does none of these. The $1B cap proposal prioritizes cars over community and over environment. It won’t connect MLK Park with Delaware Park, nor reconnect the Fruit Belt. The money spent on capping the Kensington Expressway would be wasteful and disrespectful of taxpayers. NYS DOT’s proposal serves only to perpetuate the car-centered, traffic-funneling Kensington Expressway mistake.
The famous quote credited to Albert Einstein is applicable here: “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” NYS DOT wants to make the Kensington mistake all over again, but this time hide it under a $1B cosmetic cap. It will still be a noisy 6-lane expressway through one of the poorest neighborhoods of Buffalo.
In contrast, CRT calls for a complete rethinking of the NYS DOT proposal. CRT proposes the following course of actions to restore Humboldt Parkway to its former glory while achieving environmental and community goals defined in the NYS Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) Scoping Plan and the Erie County Climate Action Plan. CRT’s proposal is to:
- Fill-in the Kensington trench. The cost of filling-in is a small fraction of the cost of capping the expressway (See Puma’s article.)
- Extend Buffalo Metro light rail rapid transit through East Buffalo to the airport to alleviate traffic congestion and fight climate change.
- Restore Humboldt Parkway using Olmsted’s original design modified to meet today’s complete streets criteria providing safe travel for everyone.
- Reconnect orphaned streets (e.g., Northland, Woodlawn, Lemon, Mulberry…) to restore the East Side Communities destroyed by the Kensington Expressway.
- Rebuild the homes on Humboldt Parkway that were removed for Kensington Expressway construction.
- Offer financing to Humboldt Parkway tenants to purchase property at today’s pre-restoration value to protect against gentrification.
- Offer financing to current property owners for deferred home maintenance.
- Form a Humboldt Parkway historic district to take advantage of incentivizing tax credits.
- Provide new metro bus service to connect Humboldt Parkway to other Olmsted parks and cultural attractions for tourism and venue accessibility.
CRT wants Olmsted’s vision of a “city in a park” restored, as shown in Figure 1. The actions outlined here will rebuild generational wealth lost over decades, restore value lost from the City and County tax base, and reconnect neighborhoods. Humboldt Parkway restoration will help meet Governor Hochul’s goals of providing more housing at multiple price-points.
The feds are providing $56M for the Kensington project — not nearly enough for capping but a substantial portion (and possibly enough per Rochester experience – see Puma article) for filling-in and restoring the Humboldt Parkway as a surface complete street.
The predominant NYS DOT concern expressed when discussing possible closing of the Kensington and restoring the Humboldt Parkway is traffic congestion. However, Buffalo’s many arterials can easily handle the additional traffic today as explained in the video linked above. Also, by building rapid, high-capacity transit to eastern communities over the longer term will provide an energy efficient alternative to driving. This overcomes the concern of increased commute time, while costing about the same as capping the Kensington Expressway. New high-capacity light rail rapid transit would also connect downtown Buffalo and suburbs to the airport and encourage tourism, in addition to offering a fast, clean transportation option for everyone.
What CRT proposes also enhances safety. In just the last three months of 2022, the Kensington had six fatalities. On New Year’s Day 2023, two additional motorists were killed in a head-on crash. Over its lifetime the Kensington has been the cause of numerous fatalities and injuries, whereas Metro Rail has had zero passenger fatalities and zero injury-producing crashes.
CRT proposed actions also provide immediate and sustained employment opportunities in reconstruction of aging infrastructure, such as in restoring water supply pipes, sewer lines, gas, and electric service and expanding Buffalo Metro. Most importantly, the CRT proposal restores communities and enhances the livability and beauty of Buffalo.
The city has a once in a lifetime opportunity. The time for action is now! If the community misses this chance and instead doubles down on the Kensington mistake, Buffalo will be stuck with the 1960s Kensington disaster for another 50 years.
Join CRT in urging Governor Hochul to restore Humboldt Parkway. Ask the Governor to replace NYSDOT as the lead agency on the Kensington Expressway project and turn planning over to the Greater Buffalo Niagara Regional Transportation Council (GBNRTC) with instructions to focus on community and environmental priorities like done on the Project Central (Scajaquada) redesign. Your voice is needed. Please write to the governor at this address: tinyurl.com/GovHochul.