Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - As a $1 billion project begins to take shape in covering a portion of the Kensington Expressway in Buffalo, an engineering authority at the University at Buffalo who has worked on Boston's big dig project says there will be some challenges in bringing different disciplines together to make the project a success.
UB's Anthony Tessari says a number of engineering disciplines will need to come together. "Structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, fire engineering, transportation, engineering, environmental engineering, all of these have to come together to successfully influence the outcome of an infrastructure project of this magnitude," says Tessari.
Tessari says 2 big challenges will also be intertwined. "One is the logistics of doing this correctly, making sure that the project doesn't sort of impede natural business and flow with people within the city. And then the second thing in my background is in soils and soils engineering is sort of the unique soil and bedrock conditions within Buffalo," says Tessari. He notes part of the Kensington is essentially founded on bedrock, and some of Buffalo is on clay soils, which are much easier to deal with, but have other engineering concerns that go along with them.
Tessari worked on the Big Dig in Boston, and he considers this a scaled-down version. "This sort of goes through in a neighborhood that was once connected. And same thing in Boston, you have the north end that was once part of Boston, they got brought back together by the Central Artery tunnel project," says Tessari. He says the results should be the same here in Buffalo.
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Tessari says the project will allow more flow of traffic from sort of local travelers, to frequent businesses and establishments within the local area, bringing back a neighborhood similar to what happened in Boston. "I think in 20 years from now, we'll look back on this and say, Wow, I wish we did this sooner," predicts Tessari. He believes this will be a key component to Buffalo's resurgence.
Tessari says a timeline can't be determined until people actually do recognizance and soil sampling on the site.