Another Voice / Peace Bridge
Authority ignores conservancy’s efforts on plaza design
The Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy, like everyone in this community, is eager to move forward with the construction of a new international bridge, a spectacular gateway we can all be proud of between Buffalo and Canada.
It is important to note that the conservancy has tried for many years to remain constructively engaged in the planning process for this long-awaited international bridge. To date, none of our recommendations or suggestions for improving the Peace Bridge Authority’s plan for the historic Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Front Park and its surrounding neighborhood has been taken seriously. In fact, the recommendations made in good faith by the conservancy are not apparent in any of the plans being presented. If this is the best the authority can do for our city, we suggest that it isn’t trying hard enough.
Luckily, federal law is on the side of protecting and preserving nationally significant historic sites, and the conservancy will have to simply pursue the remedies that federal law requires, no matter how long it takes. The authority has shown little regard for these resources as seen in its heavy-handed and unsympathetic treatment of Olmsted’s Front Park and the sublime views it was created to enjoy. The current flawed plan calls for walling off the park and forever blocking the very vistas for which it was created.
The conservancy has gone out of its way to present plans and ideas that would enhance the project and allow the millions who drive in and out of our city to be greeted in one of the premier public landscapes in our city and part of a world-class system of parks. The authority’s plan turns its back on our heritage and resources, in essence planning a truck stop that has little long-term economic benefit to our city.
The fatally flawed draft environmental impact study has presented only one option for the plaza, ignoring others that are feasible. Instead of honestly studying these options, the authority has swept them away with no official consideration, leaving our city with no options but the brutal truck stop it plans on imposing on our historic West Side neighborhoods.
Shared border management would cost a fraction of the amount of this unsympathetic truck stop option. The Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy urges all parties — including the federal government, which is reported to have rejected shared border management — to consider their legacy to future generations. Shared border management results in creating a stunning visitor arrival experience that celebrates and preserves our city, the Olmsted legacy and the spectacular land and waterfront vistas possible from Front Park, rather than a truck stop surrounded by a highway embankment that inflicts irreparable harm and air pollution on our city and its environmental, historic, scenic and economic resources.
Shouldn’t a signature bridge have an arrival experience to match?
David J. Colligan is chairman of the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy.
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