Traffic and the lack thereof
By: Alan Bedenko
Date: April 28, 2008
Buffalo is the best city for commuters because we have a highway infrastructure designed in the 50s (and looking every day of it) for a population of 500,000+ people, which everyone assumed would just continue to grow.
(If I might just interject a suggestion or two here: 1. If you’re on the I-90 Eastbound by the airport, the I-290 interchange is counterintuitive. Reconfigure the exit so that the left lanes continue straight onto the 290, and the right lanes turn east towards Albany;and 2. Ramps onto and off of our expressways are banked backwards, increasing the risk of truck rollovers. Bank them correctly.)
The reason I bring this up is this thread at Buffalo Rising, which quickly devolved into silliness. But this post from “Prodigal Son” deserves to be highlighted, because I agree with every word:
I have no patience for either end of the urban vs. suburban debate. Einstein put it perfectly - there is more to either side than Transit Road and Fillmore Avenue.
Arbitrary “distinctions” between neighborhoods divide and hold back WNY as much as high taxes. There is no high moral ground to claim for living in the city, or living in a suburb. You live downtown, ride a bike to work, and eat lunch on Elmwood every day? Great for you - I hope you enjoy the lifestyle you’ve picked. The carbon footprint you save on your bike is dwarfed by your huge heating bill each winter as the energy leaks out of your architecturally correct but wasteful 100 year old windows. You live in Williamsville, drive to work downtown, and get take out from Tim Horton’s? Sounds good too. I hope you appreciate the same commute in Vegas would take 90 minutes and cost $15 a trip in your SUV. Nobody’s perfect - I’m a little sick of the vicious judgement on both sides.
You can’t make a suburb without an urb. Surrounding suburbs of Buffalo need a vital core at its center to thrive. The city is not saturated with uzi wielding hooligans (thanks Irv). At the same time, no successful growing city in America is a dense downtown core with no residential suburb surrounding it. Some people want space, and pay for it. That doesn’t make them bad people or a threat to your bohemian downtown existence.
Give it a rest. Both sides need each other. Let’s take all the the energy wasted in downtown vs suburb battles and invest in some businesses, create a few jobs, and start growing again.
Amen.
In the original post, Newell writes this:
If you want to check out some bad traffic, just head over the boarder to Toronto. I don’t know how the daily commuter can handle that mess. If you hit that traffic look out. You can get stuck for hours dealing with total gridlock.
So, Buffalo. A question.
Would you trade an easy-peasy commute for the growth and urban/suburban vitality of a Toronto? A Toronto which, incidentally, also enjoys a TTC subway/bus/trolley network (when not on strike) and Go trains and buses for commuters from Hamilton, Oshawa, or Barrie and all points in-between?
Alan Bedenko is the author of the website BuffaloPundit.com and a contributing author to many other blogs. He is the former president of the WNY Coalition for Progress. This column originally was posted on BuffaloPundit.com
© Alan Bedenko, 2008.
The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not represent those of the WNY Coalition for Progress.
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