February 25, 2003
Peace Bridge Chronicles #61Public pressure and the International Railroad Bridge option
by Bruce Jackson
Trucks at the International Railroad Bridge
Bruce Campbell, deputy project manager of the Peace Bridge Expansion Project, said at the February 13 meeting of the Buffalo Common Council's Binational Peace Bridge Task Force that the PBA is "taking a hard look" at a $500-million dollar, four-lane, high-level bridge running roughly along the route of the International Railway Bridge, which hits Buffalo's west side close to where the route 198 meets the downtown section of the Thruway (I190). Such a project would require major highway construction to provide links to the QEW and I190, which means it would need a great deal of new Canadian and American cash.
Thus far, Canada has evinced little interest in putting much or even any money into the expansion project. It wants the extra lanes for trucks, but all of its design pressure has been for functional minimalism. The Canadian representatives on the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority have continually voted for quick and ugly. Their overarching concern is faster truck processing. All the pressure for an environmentally responsible and aesthetically interesting crossing have come from the American side. Canada may come up with QEW connection money if that's the only way it can increase the truck traffic, but it is unlikely it will allow any of its resources to be utilized for anything else.
A crossing adjacent to the International Railroad Bridge had been all-but-dismissed by the Peace Bridge Expansion Project earlier, primarily because of the difficulty and great cost of connecting a landing at that site to the Thruway. The project's director Vincent Lamb pointed out that NY 198 and Delaware Park and its accompanying residential neighborhoods couldn't handle the huge amount of truck traffic that would result from a crossing at that site. Furthermore, the Coast Guard requirement that any non-drawbridge crossing over the Black Rock Canal have 100' water clearance meant it would have to be a high bridge, which in turn would mean a large landing and ramp area on the Buffalo side of the Canal.
But then a lot of noise interfered with that line of thought and things got turned around. At least for now.
Grand Island's pre-emptive attack
The Expansion Project's fourth "Collaborative Workshop" on December 17 was swamped by a huge Grand Island contingent that voted en masse against a crossing at or near Grand Island and in favor of a crossing at the International Railroad Bridge. Suddenly the IRR option was back on the table. It's moved from 18th ranked position at Workshop #2 to 2nd rank at Workshop #4, with 347 votes, second only to the current Peace Bridge site with the plaza shifted north, which had 314. Slight variations of the IRR description also moved it into ranks 4, 6, 7 and 8. (The full rankings report is online at http://www.peacebridgex.com/files/ws4summary_07jan03_sm.pdf
More than two-thirds of all votes cast for IRR site were by Grand Islanders. If they hadn't come and voted as a block for that site and against all other sites, IRR would still be at the bottom of the list. I'd interpret their vote as a straightforward Not In My Backyard to a Grand Island site rather than a Yes, that's the best place for the IRR site.
No reason they shouldn't do that. I wouldn't want all those fume-spewing loudmouth trucks in my neighborhood either.
What they won
I asked Vincent Lamb, project director of the Peace Bridge Expansion Project, how seriously they were considering the IRR site. Lamb replied:
The Consultant's recommendations going into Workshop #4 was to retain alternatives at the existing Peace Bridge site and at Tonawanda. After Workshop #4 the PBA directed us to include the IRR site for further consideration. We took another look at the IRR corridor and concluded that none of the alternatives suggested to date were without the fatal flaw of adversely impacting NY 198 and Delaware Park. So we (I am sure others have thought of this before) defined a alternative at IRR based on trucks only ( autos only and no trucks at the Peace Bridge ) and connections directly with I-190 designed in such a way to preclude bridge truck traffic from using NY 198. There would be no connections between this IRR truck bridge and the local street system. Our first thoughts are that this would probably be a 4-lane bridge, but this is not settled, nor is the cost estimate.
Is this serious? We will consider the IRR concept as well as the Tonawanda concept to determine whether one or both are reasonable and doable or not as alternatives to expansion at the Peace Bridge. The reasonableness and doability of all retained alternatives needs to be determined and documented in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Is this likely? If you mean that we take a hard look, then the answer is yes. If you mean is the IRR a likely solution that will be selected. This can only be determined by the Process.
I take that to mean that the smart politicking by Grand Islanders put the Public Bridge Authority in the embarrassing position of having to honor their own process, even though the vote at Workshop #4 was obviously loaded. Like all other public works projects, part of what's going on is grounded in public relations project. The PBA got in so much trouble with the courts two years ago because it ignored public opinion in favor of private interests. Now it's bending over backwards in the opposite direction—spending a lot of money on options it already decided were fatally defective.
Additional NIMBY in Tonawanda
The Tonawanda town board considered locating a bridge there at its meeting Monday night. There was a large and vigorous public turnout in opposition. Because of the great width of the river at that location and complex environmental considerations, any bridge in that area would be several times more expensive than adding lanes or building a new bridge at or near the present site. It's possible that a new bridge could go there, but given the economy it's not likely that funds will be available to do it. Unless the PBA can convince the Bush administration that national security requires two bridges some distance apart to reduce the likelihood of terrorists closing down this part of the border. Anti-terrorist craziness and spending are both so high that such a proposal might indeed find extraordinary federal support. But it still would have a difficult time getting past the local residents, who are more concerned with the more demonstrable threat of noise and air pollution from the trucks.
Time for some Buffalo self-defense?
Is the International Railroad Bridge a viable site for new truck lanes or is the current study just a move to satisfy public demand for current study? Is this look at the IRR site merely a truck stop on the way to expansion at the present site, which is clearly the favorite choice of the PBA's consultants, or is cars at the old bridge and trucks at a new IRR bridge a real possibility? Who knows what really moves those folks down in the conference room at Peace Bridge Plaza?
One thing does seem clear: if folks on Buffalo's West Side don't want this project totally muddled by negative interests, they better get out there for Collaborative Workshop #5 and vote defensively.
Copyright 2003 by Buffalo Report, Inc.