Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The re-reimagining of the Kensington Expressway begins Tuesday night, as the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) is set to officially launch its public outreach for "Queen City Forward" with its first public listening session for the future of the project in Buffalo's East Side neighborhood.
The open house-style listening session will be held Tuesday at the Schiller Park Senior Center, located at 2057 Genesee Street in Buffalo from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. It is the first of several public listening sessions planned for the coming weeks throughout Western New York to gather community input on the project, and give the public a voice in this beginning phase of the project.
"There's a lot of people that this roadway impacts. There's people that live along it, there's people that drive it every day. We're trying to find ways to hear from everybody," said NYSDOT spokesperson Ryan Whalen in an interview with WBEN. "We will have people from the department ready to listen to your concerns, your thoughts, your ideas. We will have some boards up to sort of lead people along to things that they might be interested in, but in general, we want to keep this open, because we really want to hear from you.
"We know this is something that a lot of people have a lot of opinions on, and we're not going to be able to do a great project unless we figure out what people want and we find some consensus. When we say public listening session, that's really the goal here. We want to hear from everybody, and we want to listen."
Queen City Forward represents a fresh start in reimagining transportation in Western New York. The State Department of Transportation is inviting the community to share its vision for a project that will enhance the quality of life and create a transportation solution on Buffalo’s East Side that works for all.
Through strong community collaboration, NYSDOT is committed to delivering on a vision that will help the region thrive.
"This affects a lot of people. We want to hear from the people that have been involved, we need them. But we also want to see who else is interested in this and what they have to say as well," Whalen said. "We want to see as many people as we can get out there.
"This is a full reset, so we want to hear everybody's voice."
Input gathered will inform the project scope and analysis of effects, including a traffic study on a potential fill-in option and the diversion of 75,000 daily vehicles and an assessment of the associated air quality effects.
This will be the first in a series of listening sessions throughout the region. Sessions will be held not just in the City of Buffalo, but also in areas where residents are affected by proximity to the expressway, as well as areas in which users of the expressway reside.
"We will be out in Cheektowaga, we will be in other communities where people drive. We're also going to be in the communities of people that might be affected, depending on what the Kensington plans are. We're doing a comprehensive traffic study, as we announced already, and we're looking at options like filling the Kensington Expressway in," Whalen explained. "There's 75,000 cars that travel on that Kensington Expressway, and they've got to go somewhere. So if we're finding that we're shifting cars to other parts of the city or to other communities, we need to see how they're affected and what they have to say as well. So we will be all over the place, and trying to get all of those opinions."
The last time NYSDOT worked to provide a solution for the Kensington Expressway, there were two loud voices throughout the process. The Restore Our Community Coalition (ROCC) is a group that lives along the Kensington that has been trying to work for decades on a project, and they were in support of the tunnel project. The other group being the East Side Parkways Coalition, which opposed the tunnel project and brought NYSDOT to court, eventually forcing the state to abandon the original concept.
While Whalen recognizes the importance of both groups and their voices at the table, he's encouraging others to join the discussion and voice their thoughts on what they want to see done with the Kensington Expressway.
"We know they have strong opinions, we want to continue to hear from them and we encourage them to come out. But we also know there's a lot more people that this affects," Whalen said. "We have the commuters, we have other neighborhoods that haven't been out and maybe didn't realize they could be a part of this conversation. That's really the message we're trying to get out."
And if you can't get out to the first session on Tuesday, there will be more public listening sessions to come.
"We have an Instagram page, a Facebook page and an X page, all under 'Queen City Forward'. If you search that, you should be able to find us, follow us. We're going to be keeping up with regular information on there," Whalen noted. "When the next meetings are announced, they'll be up there as well. And we'll also be getting the message out to local media, and we hope that you'll spread the word. Like I said, our goal is to really drum up some public participation in this process. It doesn't work without public participation."
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Meanwhile, Terry Robinson from the East Side Parkways Coalition is a bit skeptical of NYSDOT's intentions of a true, genuine reset for the project to find the best solution for the people that live right along the Kensington.
"All we want is the right decision, the best decision as soon as possible. Now, I think what they're going to do, and from what I've heard, is a rehash of all the previous positions and a rehash of all of the fallacious arguments from before. We don't want that," said Robinson in an interview with WBEN. "When you look at the circumstances, what is the best thing for the City of Buffalo and the people that are affected by it?"
Robinson does believe that Tuesday's public listening session, as well as the meetings to follow in the coming weeks should see a large turnout of people in Buffalo and across the surrounding area.
"Everyone, not just the people in the immediate area, but everyone in the City of Buffalo is tremendously affected by this decision, because it's not just a narrow decision. It affects the whole economic, environmental and well-being of the City of Buffalo. That's what we've been saying all along," Robinson said. "It is something with a large impact on a lot of people, and they should all be heard. But I think when you hear them all, you will realize that this is not a 'localized decision'. It's something that goes back to restoring Buffalo as the best designed city in the world."
What frustrates Robinson with the Kensington Expressway project is with certain projects such as this, he has found that the agencies involved in the entire process are not always talking with each other and trying to come up with the right plan for the community at large.
"The Kensington Expressway project is a billion-dollar-plus project. The combined sewer overflow project is a billion-dollar-plus project. The Brownfield opportunities plan for that area that's right next to it - what they call the Northland Beltline plan - that's a billion-dollar plan. What I realize is that none of these entities - not the DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation), not the Department of Transportation, not the Buffalo Sewer Authority, not the Buffalo Common Council - no one is talking to the other parties to do the right plan, the right way that affects everything," Robinson explained.
"We want the Scajaquada Creek restored, they just came up with the Scajaquada Heritage area. They just came up with a lawsuit that said the taking of the land was illegal for the Seneca Nation and the Thruway. All of these things reflect the same problem: Whether it's the stamp plant, whether it's Zoar Valley, whether it's the Kensington Expressway, environmentally, they're not doing the right thing for the people of the City of Buffalo and the region. They need to talk to each other, they need to do the right thing."
Robinson's message for those involved in the project is the same as it has always been: Do the right thing for Buffalo residents according to the law.
"The State Environmental Quality Review Act should be followed. That means that you should assign the lead agency, you should talk to the other involved agencies in the project or are related to the project. And when you listen to the people, when you listen to what is important - historic cultural resources, restoration of the watershed, concern for the people in the disadvantaged communities that are adjacent - we're the only people that would actually be sidelined from this proposed tunnel project. You couldn't get on to it from any of the four disadvantaged communities that are going to be hosting the five years of construction," he said.
As for what he believes is the right solution for the Kensington, Robinson is still adamant that filling in the expressway is the only right way to address the issue.
"It's the most economic, it produces the biggest environmental and economic impact on behalf of the citizens, and it should happen right now according to the plan," Robinson said. "Not five, six, 10 years later, do the right thing. Spend that billion-and-a-quarter instead of some pie in the sky $2 or $3 billion that goes to mega out-of-state construction companies. Do the right thing, the right way for the people that live here."