Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - "I feel like we have had a victory."
It's a "fresh start" for the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), as the agency announced on Wednesday it is starting the process over with the Kensington Expressway project.
Rich Fontana, NYSDOT spokesperson, says the agency remains committed to doing a project along the Kensington Expressway. The big component of the commitment going forward will be conducting a full Environmental Impact Statement.
"Today, we are announcing 'Queen City Forward', an initiative to grow this project from the ground up. It's emblematic of what we want to achieve here with this project along the 33, and truly brings the Queen City forward," said Fontana during a press conference on Wednesday. "We want the entire city to be seen, heard and understood. The people of the city must have their say."
According to Fontana, an outreach and listening tour with the community for the future of the project will likely begin this October.
"We want to hear from as many people as possible before we formulate a new plan for the project along the 33," Fontana added. "After we hear from the community, we will develop a scope for a new EIS, and will include a traffic study on a potential fill-in option."
NYSDOT also intends to do an in-depth analysis of where 75,000 cars a day would go if the Kensington ends up being filled in, as well as analyzing air quality impacts if traffic is diverted to other parts of the city.
"This will take time," Fontana noted. "Federal law requires us to start from the beginning of this, meaning that the EIS will likely take up to three or more years of work to complete before construction can even begin."
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The news of NYSDOT's reset with the Kensington project, as well as the openness to fill-in the expressway is welcome news for local community activists.
"I believe that Humboldt Parkway deserves to have a fill in. I never will support a tunnel," said former local lawmaker Betty Jean Grant with Joe Beamer on WBEN. "People that lived in Humboldt Parkway, the residents, the neighborhood around it did not want the tunnel. I don't know where New York State got this idea that people in Buffalo, particularly those on the East Side and especially those on Humboldt Parkway, wanted to endure a tunnel in their front yard."
Grant expects NYSDOT to hold its public engagement meetings and conduct its comprehensive EIS with people who have suffered for years along the Kensington Expressway.
"Their sickness and their illnesses can be documented and be included in part of the Environment Impact Statement. There's no way that we should have been considering a tunnel on a part of expressway that has documentation of the highest infant mortality in the United States. The highest rate of cancer and asthma in New York State. The highest rate of childhood diseases like leukemia and COPD for the older people," Grant said. "I am happy that the DOT is willing to say, 'You know what? We tried to force this on the community without the input. It didn't work. We're going to do it the right way. We're going to do an Environmental Impact Statement.'"
Grant feels that highways are becoming a thing of the past, with highway removal happening across the country.
"There are 20,000 less people working downtown, and so there's 20,000 people that probably won't be utilizing an expressway or highway. We want them to utilize those side streets like Walden Avenue, Broadway that goes from City Hall all the way to Lancaster and beyond. But people can get out of Buffalo," Grant said.
"Just think: Buffalo was almost at 600,000 people at the height of the car in the 1950s. People had a way of getting out of Buffalo, and they took those routes, and they got out of Buffalo very well. So I think if you look at it, we have less cars now than we had in 1950, and we're talking about other methods of public transportation. We're encouraging people to go on public transportation to Cheektowaga, to Amherst and in Tonawanda."
As for Terry Robinson with the East Side Parkways Coalition, he's glad NYSDOT is going through the proper EIS process with the Kensington Expressway. He feels the agency needs to get the right thing done at the right time, right now.
"They're back to saying, 'We're at Square 1,' and there's only two options: One is maintain the 33 - whether you cover it, whether you don't - or fill it in," said Robinson in an interview with WBEN. "All of the other stuff, all of the two, three years for environmental study, etc., most of the data they've got sitting there. All of the pertinent stuff they're going to need, you can refresh a little bit of it, but a chunk of that stuff is there. You don't really need to rehash that stuff, they just need to say, 'OK, we're going to do one or the other, and then, so to speak, go 'balls to the walls' for it. And if they do the right one, we're all going to benefit, and it'll happen sooner rather than later."
Robinson is hopeful that a decision with the Kensington Expressway is made sooner rather than later. He feels, though, the fill-in option for the expressway is a no-brainer.
"I'm talking about restoring monarch butterflies, restoring greenhouse gas emissions, a disadvantaged community, all of that stuff that they never even looked at, really, and putting it in the mix, coming up with the best solution and getting it done. That's kind of straightforward," Robinson said. "And at a cost, the money is already there, as opposed to $2 or $3 billion for the cockamamie plan that they do have. They'll be lucky to get away with $2 [billion]. This is about taxpayer money, it's about best interest of the community. It's about the environment, it's about historic preservation, restoration of one of the pinnacles of the greatest landscape architects in American history. All of that stuff."