From the Buffalo Report archives...
Other Peace Bridge articles...Rethinking the Loop and One Major Highway Plan that Never Happened: Buffalo is a city that has been impoverished by highways that were supposed to have made it rich. The Kensington destroyed viable neighborhoods and accelerated suburban flight. The downtown section of the Thruway cut the city off from the waterfront, its primary natural attraction, and hugely increased downtown air pollution. Boston, which made similar blunders, has sought to rectify them with the Big Dig. These two articles from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle tell how our closest urban neighbor avoided expanding the error a while back and how it is trying to get some of its city back now. (27 March 2003)
Public pressure and the International Railroad Bridge option (Peace Bridge Chronicles #61). The International Railroad Bridge was all-but-junked as a site for Peace Bridge expansion lanes. Very smart and well-organized NIMBY voting by Grand Islanders at Collaborative Workshop #4 moved it to choice position #2. What happens now? Has Buffalo been screwed once again? (25 February 2003)Pat McNichol, Luis Clay, Mark Boyer and Bill Wachob: Peace Bridge Expansion: It's NIMBY time. Grand Islanders turned out in force for Peace Bridge Expansion Workshop #4 at WNED on December 7. They had a single message: Not here, you don't! Three longterm veterans of the Peace Bridge Wars and one young man experiencing his first day at the front tell how Jake Lamb's most recent boistrous public event seemed to them. (16 December 2002)
Grand Island resident Russell R. Person responds, pointing out, among other things, that managing traffic flow may not be the optimum solution to the Bridge's air quality problems: maybe it's time for a serious look at alternative energy sources. ((18 December 2002)
• The lawyers for the City of Buffalo and the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority have finalized the Memorandum of Understanding with the bridge-building groundrules (including assignment by the city to the PBA of the power of eminent domain for the plaza construction)—should there ever be a bridge design everyone can buy into. The MOA was approved by the Buffalo Common Council November 26. Click here or on the title and you can see the lawyer-talk that they voted on. (in RTF format) (6 December 2002)
• That Buffalo/PBA MOU isn't sitting well with the Olmsted Parks Conservancy. They think the city may be giving away too much too soon to an agency that can be trusted too little. Here, in Word format, is their letter to Mayor Masiello saying what's wrong with the city's leap to harmony. (22 November 2002)
Designing the Peace Bridge: collaboration or predestination? The Peace Bridge Expansion Project's third public workshop displayed the design consultants' ideas for expanding capacity between Buffalo and Fort Erie. It also revealed the basic flaw in the whole public process. (27 September 2002)
Diane Christian. Peace Bridge Models. The Peace Bridge Expansion project had a public meeting in Crystal Beach this week so the public could look at its consultants' design proposals. They were a mixed bag, says Christian, generally dull, suggestive of MacDonalds' arches, tuning forks, and wishbones. What, she asks, happened to the Freschi-Lin design that got everybody turned on to the idea of doing something interesting here? (26 October 2002)
Peace Bridge pier repairs: a PBA memo. Construction crews have been working on the bridge piers for months. Cosmetic surgery or major organ transplant? Here's what the PBA says is going on. (27 October 2002)
The Folly of public process and the Peace Bridge expansion project. There's a lot of meeting and voting going on, reports Deborah Lynn Williams, but it's not at all clear if the public is getting a voice or is instead being manipulated to deliver what the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority wanted from the beginning. Here's her report on the first two public workshops. (2 October 2002)
Diane Christian, Peace Bridge Models (Buffalo Report 26 October 2002)
Four designs to get more trucks across the Niagara River. A CD-ROM left in my doorway in the dark of night contained color images of the four bridge designs the Public Bridge Authority just made public. (22 October 2002)
Sam Hoyt: The Peace Bridge and Eminent Domain.(15 March 2002)
A reader responds: Buffalo attorney Tom Schofield comments on the PBA's claim to a riverbank franchise and pursuit of eminent domain (21 March 2002)
And another reader stakes a claim: The Peace Bridge War had one more front, says Mark Mitskovski (April 2, 2002)
