SCAJAQUADA EXPRESSWAY
Public offers input on Scajaquada road redesign
Parkside neighborhood residents Wednesday were asked to share what they think will make the Scajaquada Expressway between Parkside Avenue and Main Street a safer and more aesthetically pleasing stretch of roadway.
About 40 residents of the neighborhood and elsewhere attended an informational meeting and workshop in St. Mary’s School for the Deaf. The forum is one of a series being sponsored by the state Department of Transportation, which is conducting an environmental study of the expressway, which runs from the Niagara Thruway to the Kensington Expressway.
“We’re looking at options to try and replace the existing expressway with a [roadway] that would still be a principal urban arterial for the City of Buffalo, but that will be more in harmony with the surrounding structures,” said Craig S. Mozrall, assistant design engineer for the DOT’s Buffalo Region.
About 65,000 vehicles travel daily over the Scajaquada between Parkside and Main, where a total of 764 motor vehicle accidents have been logged between 2005 and 2008. A third of them involved injuries, according to Mark McAnny of Bergmann Associates, which was hired by the DOT to conduct a detailed traffic study of the area.
That section of the corridor is also home to Delaware Park, Buffalo State and Medaille colleges, the Buffalo Zoo, Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society.
“I just find that the traffic seems very intense in the morning, especially with the [traffic from] the colleges. It doesn’t seem very pedestrian-friendly trying to get to [Medaille],” said Tom Greene of Crescent Avenue, who also is a member on the board of the Parkside Community Association.
After being briefed on a proposed project to reconfigure aspects of the expressway, Greene and the other residents were split into groups and encouraged to share their concerns about the roadway and offer suggestions for improvements, such as reducing the speed limit, restoring the roundabout at Agassiz Circle and reconnecting the section of Delaware Park that is bisected by the Scajaquada.
“I think the process is fine, but it seems like it’s going to take a long time, though, based on that timeline I saw,” said Sean Myers of Argyle Park.
“My biggest concern is, I don’t quite understand what the goals are,” he said. “I don’t think that it has been well-articulated. What is it? To reduce speed? Is it to make it faster? It’s not really clear.
“So we’re going right into a design without, in my opinion, . . . clear goals.”
If the project goes ahead, DOT officials said, work would not get under under way until 2015.
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