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Outer Harbor Parkway to be completed by the fall of 2010

New waterfront plans opens access, and will spur harbor rebirth

By Stuart Bridge - Buffalo Waterfront News Team

April 19, 2008

Having the ability to show progress on that crucial roads that link between downtown and the Southtowns is critical in hopes of future harbor infrastructure funding, including federal Highway Bill aid to remove the Skyway, although a federal court challenge, work on the Outer Harbor Parkway now is under way, and should continue.

Challengers of the parkway concept want to stop the project until alternative designs can be reviewed. There time is over, and an end to outer harbor development hold ups and stagnation is needed. But the opposition actions and pressures have resulted in improvements to the plans that were announced after the public comment periods of the design process. The latest involve landscaping and design changes made with the help of a panel of community representatives and landscapers.

The current confusion of one-way stretches of Fuhrmann Boulevard and service roads is a large barrier to the waterfront. Landscaped parkway access offers hope of opening the Buffalo shoreline to green space and compatible development. Rep. Brian Higgins and Mayor Byron W. Brown have pointed out this stage of infrastructure improvements as a important step toward that shoreline renaissance, and Higgins in particular continues to champion for replacing the Skyway with as many as three Buffalo River bridges linking the city core to its historic harbor.

The current effort to turn Fuhrmann Boulevard into an Olmsted-like parkway providing easy access to the waterfront should be completed by the fall of 2010. Efforts to enhance the parkway appearance an improvement over the previous plan presented by the Department of Transportation last October have elicited a few conciliatory words from Opponents, that called the revision a step in the right direction although they continue to advocate an alternative plan.

Both DOT plans the new and old have Fuhrmann, currently split into southbound and northbound roads on either side of the elevated section of Route 5, consolidated into one road separated by a tree-lined median on the lake side of Route 5. Criticism centers on the elevated portion of Route 5, which opponents describe as partitioning off the lake and ensuring that the Skyway will survive.

The elevated section also safely separates local, low-speed waterfront traffic from high-speed commuter and truck traffic, which will continue at least through the next several years, better than the alternative multilane boulevard proposal could. And Higgins, who sees next-phase federal funding as unlikely unless he can show his House Transportation Committee some construction progress from this $55 million project, has committed $2 million to Skyway removal studies now.

The Outer Harbor Parkway Project is a tangible result of a 17-year, $7 million Southtowns Connector review. In this latest version, a group of 10 local landscape experts and community leaders have improved project amenities by adding boardwalks, fishing piers, landscaping with native plant varieties and better visual and road access through archways beneath Route 5. This is a better project than it was, but the basic concept is still better than the alternative and it's a project that should build some much-needed waterfront impetus.

To view photos of development please visit buffalowaterfront.com

This article and the attached images fail to recognize that the current plan of action for the outer harbor has an enormous embanked highway immediately east of the site.   That highway has long been recognized as the source of the Outer Harbor's access problems.  Despite a very long and very expensive EIS process the final design does nothing to address the serious flaws in the Fuhrmann/elevated Route 5 combination design that were the focus of the Route 5 planning process.  The elevated Route 5 system will still occupy an unnecessarily wide piece of land - keeping valuable land off of the City's tax rolls, will continue to block visual and physical access along almost the entire Lake Erie shoreline in Buffalo from lands to the east, will continue to require a series of limited access on and off ramps requiring travellers to loop around to their destinations and supports the continued operation of the skyway.  In fact, the roadway will actually increase in height in some cases, further blocking access across Route 5.  If readers keep in mind that (according to a local transportation expert)  the Scajaquada Expressway actually has more traffic than this section of Route 5 - yet uses a much smaller amount of land -using one four land roadway- and is being redesigned by the DOT to slow down traffic and reconnect the lands on either side - the Route 5 project's flaws become even more obvious. 

WNY taxpayers must be extremely wise with our tax dollars and ensure we do a high quality projects correctly, the first time.   As the Boulevard Option was deemed feasible through the same EIS proecess that is yielding the current project there is no reason to expect that it would take several years to get this  project back on track - and resume construction - as quickly as possible.  Already, we have construction workers on the job through the weekend - if DOT engineers worked to implement the boulevard with the same zeal the time loss could be minimized.

This is a complex issue and residents should look beyond the quick fix being offered to find a real, long term solution to the Outer Harbor's transport problems.  Based upon how long its taken to get to this stage - it is unlikely we will have a shot to correct the Elevated Route 5 problems again in our lifetimes.

Julie O'Neill
Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper
jboneill@bnriverkeeper.org