22 March 2004
Bruce JacksonThe Peace Bridge Now: approaching endgame
The current phase of the Peace Bridge expansion project, which began in late 1999 when New York State Supreme Court Judge Eugene Fahey told the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority (which always incorrectly refers to itself as the "Peace Bridge Authority," as does the Buffalo News), that it would have to obey New York environmental law and engage in the full environmental impact study it has assiduously—with the help and support of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership and the Buffalo News—sought to avoid, is moving toward endgame.
All location options for a new bridge, other than the present location, have been ruled out. There will be no bridge (or tunnel) across or south of Grand Island (too expensive, too many environmental issues) or adjacent to the International Railroad Bridge (too expensive, no interest on the Canadian side, creates redundant security issues, creates new traffic and environmental problems on Buffalo’s West Side).
Detroit’s Ambassador Bridge Company, owned by reclusive Grosse Ponte transportation investor and bigtime Republican contributor Manuel Moroun, continues to say it has plans to build a private bridge at the International Railroad Bridge site, but despite repeated promises to reveal specific plans showing why and how such a bridge would be feasible, let alone acceptable to the City of Buffalo and Town of Fort Erie, they’ve come up with nothing. They’ve purchased some relatively inexpensive property in the area, but some observers opine that is just to keep up a pretense of intending to build a new bridge here while they do the real work shoring up their threatened operation in Detroit. Once the new section of the Peace Bridge goes up that property will increase in value and it can be resold, so the only real expense Moroun is running is his small office here. There may be substance to his Buffalo operation, but thus far it’s just air.
No one is attempting to answer what is probably the most important questions of all: Should a bridge that brings a huge amount of truck traffic into a residential area be expanded at all? Wouldn’t a plan that moved the truck traffic out of this area entirely be to everyone’s benefit? There is a wide range of answers to those questions—one kind offered by the small group of people who insist the truck traffic brings economic advantage to the region that more than compensates for the costs in economic and human terms the region bears because of the truck traffic, and another kind offered by the group that insists the truck traffic helps economic interests elsewhere, a small group of brokers here, and in sum is more harmful than not.
But those questions are not on the table. Unless someone can figure out a way to stop the entire process, it’s an abstract discussion.
That leaves only three final questions to be answered:
1. Will the new bridge replace the old bridge or will it be a companion to it?
2. Will the new bridge be located to the north (toward Niagara Falls) or south (toward Lake Erie) side of the present bridge?
3. What will the new bridge look like?
Opposition to the Bridge Authority’s 1998 plan to twin the 1927 bridge had three main points: the old bridge was in terrible condition (a fact that the Bridge Authority was hiding), the design of the old bridge with its Parker truss was a fluke and it was absurd to replicate it now, the steel technology of the old bridge was obsolete and expensive to maintain and there was no reason not to use cheaper and more efficient modern technologies.
Peace Bridge engineers and consultants now say that the first point was wrong: the 1927 bridge was very well built and has, engineers say, at least 75 years’ more life in it. They also say that tearing it down would cost as much as keeping it up, that it has potential historical designation status, and it’s not really an eyesore. Furthermore, the Town of Fort Erie is attached to it with a passion that transcends reason.
So their current plan is to keep the old bridge up and running and to build a companion bridge with the additional lanes. If opponents can overcome the arguments for keeping the old bridge up then it might come down, but that isn't likely.
"Companion" and "twin" they point out, are two different words. They insist that the PBA's 1998 steel twin plan is dead. Both the expansion engineers and Bridge Authority board members say they are dedicated now to building a companion signature bridge—a bridge with character and moment. There is no reason to believe they are disingenuous about that.
Currently, they would prefer to locate the companion bridge to the south of the old bridge and to pretty much utilize the current plaza for inspection operations (the toll booths and Authority offices will soon go to the Canadian side). That orientation, they say, would be easiest on the Canadian side. That plan wouldn’t free up any of the Front Park and Fort Porter territory those operations currently use, but new ramp orientations and access points would allow closing of the roads that presently slash through Front Park, making it nearly inaccessible. That plan would also require acquisition of the current Episcopal Church Home site for parking and truck holding facilities.
The City of Buffalo is about to submit a memorandum explaining why it prefers the northern location for the new bridge and plaza. That would free up far more of the park, but it would require acquisition of a good deal more residential and small business properties. Opponents of that plan argue that it would hurt the City because properties would leave the tax rolls. But since no plan can be executed without the City’s agreement, there is no reason any new plan couldn’t have as a condition fair payments in lieu of taxes by the PBA to the City. Some legislators in Albany have made a lot of noise saying they were going to bring that protection to the citizens of Buffalo, but Buffalo officials point out that the protection has been here all along in terms of the partnering agreement, which prohibits the PBA from starting any construction until the City of Buffalo, the Town of Fort Erie and the PBA itself all agree on the terms.
So that is to be worked out or fought over. And that leaves design of the bridge itself, which will be the subject of several public hearings and meetings over the next few months. No one knows what the new bridge will look like yet but it’s clear that it will not look like the old bridge and neither will it be the dramatic single-pier curving bridge proposed by Bruno Freschi and T.Y. Lin five years ago. Not one of the PBA's current design consultants thinks in curves.
Freschi and Lin didn’t offer to participate when this phase of the project was open to suggestions two years ago. When they decided to join the process later at the expense of Cannon Design (the other final design teams are funded by the project) the PBA refused to let them in, mainly because the Canadian members of the board said it was unfair to open the project up after it had been closed. American members and some of the consultants argued that it wasn’t like there were any other major firms out there knocking on the door willing to invest several hundred thousand dollars of their own money in a proposal, but the Canadians were adamant and the Americans gave in. Freschi is a Canadian architect and he has the Order of Canada, that country’s highest civilian award, but he seems to piss the Canadian members of the PBA off in a profound way and his proposal never stood a chance with them. T.Y. Lin died last year, so it’s moot anyway.
Some critics say that the entire process has been a scam, that the PBA, faced with the inevitability of Judge Fahey’s order, decided to act like it was going along but only in order to get what it wanted in the first place: an expanded bridge operation at the present location.
It looks like they’re going to get an expanded bridge operation at the present location, but that doesn’t mean the City of Buffalo isn’t getting something out of the process too.
The delay helped people understand more about the environmental issues on Buffalo’s West Side, which helped in the impetus to shift as many operations as possible to the Canadian side. Those factors will continue to be in play as the reconfigured plaza is designed. Whatever bridge is built will be better-looking and more ecologically sound than the anachronism the PBA, the Buffalo-Niagara Partnership, and the Buffalo News were trying to force upon the city five years ago. There will be some kind of gateway to the country and the city—something more useful than the array of flags currently decorating the inspection booths on the American side.
We still don’t know what the new bridge will look like or how much parkland we’ll get back or if that gateway will be useful rather than decorative or if the environmental problems will really be ameliorated. The process is narrower than it was, but it is still going on, and this is no time to relax the vigilance or the pressure.
Copyright 2004 by Buffalo Report, Inc.