The independent candidate for Buffalo mayor, Michael Gainer, outlined his transportation plan Monday.
Gainer's vision focuses on reconnecting the city’s parkways and neighborhoods by removing both the Kensington and Scajaquada Expressways.
Packaged as “the city in a park transportation initiative” after Fredrick Law Olmsted’s philosophy that cities should integrate parks and nature, Gainer calls for the City of Buffalo to be the co-lead agency with the State Department of Transportation (DOT) in all future transportation planning in Western New York. His pitch includes a full analysis of the region’s transportation network that prioritizes "long term outcomes" of reconnecting neighborhoods.
"These neighborhoods around us," Gainer gestured at a press conference held next to the Kensington Expressway. "The Fruit Belt neighborhood, Hamlin Park, Trinidad community — fully reconnecting the street grids in our neighborhoods and considering neighborhood health and strengthening the economic vitality of our commercial corridors."
The DOT appears to have put plans to transform the Scajaquada Expressway into a boulevard on hold after recategorizing it as an illustrative project. That means $100 million previously allocated to fund the redesign is no longer attached.
Meanwhile, the Kensington project also appears to be at a standstill after a judge ruled the DOT must conduct a full environmental impact statement following lawsuits from community groups.
Gainer argues it’s time the state takes a more holistic approach to transportation planning, and called for the DOT to treat the Kensington and Scajaquada projects as one.
Adam Walters, an attorney at Phillips Lytle who represents groups who sued the DOT, agrees.
"It's time for the DOT to acknowledge that the Kensington and the Scajaquada are inextricably linked," Walters said. "What happens with one significantly impacts the other and vice versa."
The DOT has not yet responded to BTPM NPR’s request for comment.
Gainer’s plan also pushes to prioritize various modes of transportation in the area, including light rail. He said the economic burden of his transportation initiative would not fall on the cash-strapped city, but would instead be funded by the state through the $1 billion already set aside for the Kensington project.
"That is the whole function of the [environmental impact statement] process. It's not just to figure out how we maintain a highway in the center of an urban neighborhood, it's to look at all of the alternatives," he said.
"We want the project objectives to consider our entire transportation grid, because anything that we do here on the Kensington Expressway is going to influence other aspects of the grid."
And he's not just considering city residents in his plan.
"'I want our suburban residents to frequent our downtown corridors. I want them to come to work three or five days a week and be and be excited about the experience moving through a city that has tree lined streets, that has vibrant businesses where they can stop and get a coffee on their way to work, or flowers for their partner on their way home. It contributes to their quality of life."
