8 October 2005
Bruce Jackson
It's time for intelligent design at the Peace Bridge
The jury appointed by the mayors of Buffalo, New York, and Fort Erie, Ontario, to come up with a design for the Peace Bridge expansion lanes has, in a 22-6 vote, recommended keeping the 1927 bridge and building a new signature bridge at its side. That vote has some signature bridge activists in a tizzy: they're worried that the project is coming full circle and will produce the anachronistic twin span proposed and pushed by the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority, the Buffalo-Niagara Partnership and the Buffalo News eight years ago.
That's not going to happen. There are too many sane and competent people on that jury for the rust-prone twin span to rise from the dead. There's nothing new in this vote, other than the press release. The deal was cut months ago with the Canadians: if we'd let them keep the old bridge, which they dearly love, they'll let us have a new signature bridge, which we desperately need.
The 1927 Peace Bridge looks a great deal better from the Canadian than the American side. The Canadians look at four graceful arches supporting the bridge, with the ugly Parker truss, put there when the U.S. Coast Guard introduced a 100-foot open box requirement over the Black Rock Canal at the last moment, off in the distances. The Canadian plaza feeds into green space, parkways, and graceful ramps. The American side has the Parker truss, an ungainly rise and drop to achieve that 100-foot open box, and a plaza that has destroyed a landmark Olmsted Park, clogged adjoining streets, and racheted neighborhood air pollution to unacceptable levels .
Even without the new companion (not "twin") bridge, the project has already produced a redesign of the American and Canadian plazas that will significantly reduce diesel truck emissions on Buffalo's lower west side. A chunk of Front Park will be returned to the city. All the plaza proposals currently on the table will restore a good deal more of Front Park, some of them even making it accessible to children, which hasn't been the case for years.
The fight now will be with the funding agencies to justify a six-lane rather than a four-lane signature bridge. If a six-lane bridge goes in, the old Peace Bridge with its mutilated design will eventually fall into desuetude; perhaps to be taken down, perhaps to be converted into a pedestrian and bicycle bridge.
Why would anyone want to walk or run or bike across a bridge to or from Fort Erie in a climate that can be pretty hostile five months a year? For one thing, the other seven months are pleasant enough for those activities. And some people might like to walk across the frozen terminus of one of the great lakes in the heart of winter, just as they walk in Delaware Park now.
It's a design and planning problem, isn't it? Just like the signature bridge will be. The signature bridge will have to be one that isn't defeated by the old bridge by its side and will look fine if and when the old bridge falls or is taken down. That's a more complicated design project than building a six-lane standalone signature bridge from the start, but it's not insurmountable. Urban architects do that all the time: Paris and New York and Boston and London are full of such juxtapositions. It's requires a bit more work, a bit more thought. At heart, it's just a question of intelligent design.
(Details on the bridge jury vote are in Patrick Lakamp, Companion crossing favored in key vote , Buffalo News, 8 October 2005)
Copyright 2005 by Buffalo Report, Inc.
