WNYMedia’s main page has the skinny and the renderings here.

Click here to read it.

Thanks to the BN Riverkeeper’s Executive Director, Julie Barrett O’Neill for forwarding it to me. Any environmental lawyers there who can give their take on this? I’d like to speak with O’Neill and someone from Higgins’ office to get the two sides of the story on this, but it’s way outside my expertise.

To quote the great 20th century philosopher Gomer Pyle, “Surprise, surprise!”

Certain of the Waterfront Coalition members have filed an action seeking to enjoin progress on the Southtowns Connector project.

State officials bid out the project in November following years of planning and discussion. But critics complain the design will maintain an elevated highway that has long been a barrier to waterfront development.

The court challenge is based on two issues, said Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper Executive Director Julie Barrett O’Neill. The first claims that major changes were made to the final environmental impact statement … revisions that should have triggered follow-up studies. The second allegation is that planners failed to make sure the Southtowns Connector is in compliance with the Niagara River Greenway Plan.

The Waterfront Coalition is made up of these groups:

The Baird Foundation
Buffalo First
Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper
Elmwood Village Association
Greater Buffalo Building Owners & Managers Association
Landmark Society of the Niagara Frontier
The League of Women Voters, Buffalo / Niagara
The New Millennium Group of WNY
Partners for a Livable Western New York
Preservation Coalition of Erie County
Sierra Club, Niagara Group
The Wellness Institute of Greater Buffalo

Yet only three of them have signed on as plaintiffs, and a non-member - Seven Seas Sailing Club - is a named plaintiff. I don’t quite understand why that is. I have an email in to representatives from all four plaintiff organizations to find out more.

In order to enjoin the project, the plaintiffs must show that there is an imminent risk of irreparable harm, together with a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim. The State DOT has not yet commented on the lawsuit. When I find out more, I’ll post it here.

What with this being the end of the year, and given that it’s going to be a pretty slow news cycle (i.e., your friendly neighborhood Buffalopundit is hard up for crap about which to write), let’s review what we talked about in 2007.

Ah, remember Shorter Buzz? We all wish Mary well on her hiatus. I hope it’s packed with Catholicism, beer, Wagner / Bach, and all things German.

Spitzer was on Day 4, and made a rousing speech calling for statewide unity, growth, and prosperity. We’re approaching day 365 and I don’t know that we’re any closer to that at all. The speech was light on “war with Bruno” and “licenses for illegals”.

I posted very lightly about “Troopergate”, because I didn’t find it interesting. What I do, however, find interesting is that anybody working for the piece of crap that passes for New York State government has access to a helicopter or a private jet. All in all, I was unimpressed by Governor Spitzer’s first year.

Hevesi and Holt found themselves in a world of trouble.

In January, people were still talking about the WNYMedia.net bloggers being blacklisted from WBEN. Good times.

Bass Pro. The story that keeps on giving - writing about a store that we’ve been chasing for half a decade or more. In 2007 we turned to Bass Pro on the Central Wharf. It was in January that we first heard rumblings of that aborted trial balloon. I still think it’s a perfect location, so there.

Also, remember this rule for any discussion about Buffalo development or preservation: Must be done vs. would be nice.

February was a bit slower, but we were embroiled in Albany politics 101, which dealt with the selection of Hevesi’s replacement. Same old, same old.

Much as idiotic arguments over strips of grass in front of Greek Diners are same old, same old. Thank God all other problems are solved so that we can really focus our ire on Diners.

I asked Buffalonians to take pictures of their winter beaters (which is a double entendre) and submit them to Flickr.

Dale Volker, WNY’s best unintended comedian, got into it with Scott Brown. “So, a 34-year incumbent walks into a public hearing…” At least he didn’t call anyone a “Bohunk”. That day.

By February, WNYMedia.net had its own space - a studio and everything. In other news, we still have it!

In February, I called the XSPAND tax lien sale at 105% “found money”. It still has yet to be approved.

Homeland Security needed some information on cross-border travel in WNY. Because, um, we live on the border.

In March, Al Coppola got his payback a freshly-created city job not long after he tried to spoil the race for cousin Marc waged a valiant effort to return to the State Senate.

There was some discussion on teh intertubes earlier this year about a flea market downtown. I can’t imagine it would be that difficult for someone to get a deal to use a downtown surface parking lot to set that up, but as it stands now nothing’s happened. It is Buffalo, after all, and if we can’t have precise perfection, we’ll settle for nothing less, dammit!

Cigarette taxes = Genocide. Godwin laughs.

By late March, we had promises of a signed Bass Pro deal. Yeah, right. But I liked it nonetheless. It was dead before it took its first breath, though. It’s interesting how much “debate” goes on in this town over what to do with the areas now overridden with weeds and asphalt. Some even started making comparisons to places that don’t compare.

Ultimately, however, WNYMedia.net and the WNY Coalition for Progress co-hosted a well-attended and well-received panel discussion on the Canal Side project.

Remember City Hall stonewalling on the story about Byron Brown’s kid taking the family car without permission? Sometimes it’s smart to just let the story go, and let it play out in 2 days rather than 2 weeks.

As early as April, I predicted Collins’ victory. I thought it’d be a squeaker. I was wrong. As a side note, don’t talk about using an 89 cent pen to help run your town when that pen should only be costing you a dime.

Whoever bought this ad in the Buffalo Challenger should be outed and subject to outrage and ridicule.

Freshman State Assemblyman Mike Cole drank too much at an Albany bar whilst watching a Sabres game, and all he got was this lousy censure. Meanwhile, Freshman Senator Antoine Thompson took to the floor to argue against the passage of a bill that he himself co-sponsored.

Remember June, when WNYMedia.net was down for, like, a week all so we could bring you a craptacular white-on-black template that pretty much everybody hated?

Me, neither.

At least the template-that-never-was was gone by December.

2007 introduced us to Jon Powers. 2008 is your chance to vote for him.

Hell, even I gave it a shot. And I won in Cheektowaga, even though I got creamed everywhere else. I posted some stories taking the county Control Board to task, but no one really seemed to care very much. Too bad. I’m going to keep writing them. I will also continue to mock Six Sigma. I don’t care how superbly awesome it might be. The whole terminology is begging to be mocked. Six Sigma black belt?

For the record, here’s a short list of stuff I want to see built in Western New York. Can you Digg it?

In September, this blog turned 4. Potty training has been slow, but it knows its A-B-Cs. We also saw the inaugural use of the Failboat, symbolizing the vanguard of political excellence in WNY and NYS.

Speaking of which, who thought the County Clerk’s race would become more interesting than the race for County Executive? You’re playing kindergarten. He’s playing in the big leagues.

I find that I hardly used the “Don’t Tase my ____, bro” often enough. But it was so apt for Vince Anello’s brother, Matteo.

In the immortal words of Public Enemy, don’t believe the hype.

The Bass Pro story may be more boring now, without Tim Tielman around to verbally assault it, but that’s why we have Route 5. Fatigue starts to set in, though, when we undergo yet another “dialogue” about “planning”, when neither word is quite right. With Route 5, we have the added attraction of Buffalo Rising acting as the unofficial spokessite for the Waterfront Coalition. The doctrine of laches came up as an overall response to that group, and WBFO appearances by Buffalo Rising writers and Common Councilman Mickey Kearns contained oh so much fresh meat for this blogger. As does just about any inane anti-suburb flame. The Waterfront Coalition paid for a billboard that has the distcintion of being both ironic and stupid. The Coalition of Enough, Already was only too happy to take the humorless Waterfront Coalition’s arguments a few steps further. And WNYMedia.net wants its outer harbor plan considered by the powers that be.

But at least we got some of the best threads ever out of it.

In his best of 2007 list, Buffalo News TV critic Alan Pergament gives an award to Alysha Palumbo:

Best TV News Critic: Channel 4’s Alysha Palumbo defended herself against a blogger’s criticism by responding with something critical of her superiors’ news judgment.

Here’s the thread where she and her red pantsuit took me to task.

It’s pretty clear that Richard Florida is on to something when he talks of the Tor-Buff-Chester megaregion to which we may belong. There should be more discussion about this, but only if the federal government starts being smart, rather than scared, about cross-border traffic and commerce.

As we close out 2007 and her fiscal year, we pause once again to thank Canadian shoppers, who helped bump Erie County into the black.

I’d probably have about 35 cents.

On December 15, 2004, then-owner of the Outer Harbor NFTA revealed three competing visions for that brownfield.

1. WestEnd (Ciminelli/Jerde)

I actually liked this one. It was nicely designed and not at all a pie-in-the-sky type project. They dubbed it a “lakefront creative community”.

2. Norstar Outer Harbor Redevelopment Plan

It was almost all parkland. We have a very nice waterfront park that very few people use. Parks don’t pay taxes. No more parks.

3. Buffalo Lakefront Development Team (Opus East/Uniland)

Naturally, this billion-dollar behemoth is what the NFTA selected. I called it Amherst-sur-Lac, and said that the only thing it was missing was an elevator to the moon.

4. The Riverkeeper’s “Vision”

I stumbled on this the other day. I don’t know why people think anyone will want to live, work, or shop on the canal side of Route 5 rather than near the water. But I’m just a philistine

5. E-Zone

Seriously one of the stupidest ideas ever to be proposed for the outer harbor. It would have cost $100 million, and featured Dave & Busters writ large:

* Mini Beach with Indoor/Outdoor Waterpark
* Year-Round Indoor Snow Palace with Snowboard Half-Pipe
* Children’s Playworld
* Themed retail shopping
* Themed bars, clubs and restaurants
* Performance venues
* Interactive games
* 3D/4D Motion Simulator rides

6. The Ever-Green Design Plan:

Posted today on Buffalo Rising, I found this to be a cross between an Amherst condo complex and Epcot, only colder.

7. The WNYMedia.net plan

It’s new, it’s different, but it’s doable.

You have staked out a position in direct opposition to that of Rep. Brian Higgins. I think it’s safe to say that few politicians have done more to advance the cause of the waterfront - especially Buffalo’s outer harbor - than he.

You use rhetoric that is either hyperbolic or patently false. Route 5 is a road - not a wall. I have been told that the reason why it was bermed in that location has to do with continuous wintertime snowdrifts due to the unimpeded wind off the lake. The at-grade section further south has the former Bethlehem Steel plant land as a buffer. Did you know that?

You constantly bring up the Skyway even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with this particular project. The Southtowns Connector project has one aim and one aim only - to reconfigure Fuhrmann Boulevard to a 4-lane boulevard, and to improve access to and from it off of Route 5. As you well know from your press conference this morning, it is extraordinarily difficult to navigate around the outer harbor. All you’re doing, whether you know it or not (and whether you care or not), is hindering and delaying the improvement of that access.

Right now, it takes a four-mile circuitous route to get from Buffalo’s inner harbor to her outer harbor. I know you’re all atwitter about the Boulevard Alternative petition that BRO has been linking to, but how many of you have signed Brian Higgins’ online petition calling for the Skyway to be removed? Why, frankly, isn’t the so-called “Waterfront Coalition” working hand-in-hand with Brian Higgins to help him in his efforts?

The removal of the Skyway isn’t just something that isn’t on the table right now - it hasn’t even entered the house. It is not under consideration by the state DOT, and even if that entity decided today to look into it, we’re talking years before we’d see anything actually done. And even then, after all the vetting and public comment, we’ll probably have some kooks calling for it to be retained in whole or in part.

So, let me get right down to it:

Do you really think that the man who wrote this letter would support - even for a minute - a project that would in any way hinder or delay the removal of the Skyway?

Back during the whole imbroglio over Larry Quinn’s idea to site Bass Pro on the site of the Central Wharf, just about every one of you - BN Riverkeeper, New Millennium Group, Campaign for Greater Buffalo, etc - argued that the 2004 Master Plan must be adhered to because it had undergone a considerable period of public comment and vetting, and this is what the “community consensus” called for - green space on the site of the Central Wharf.

Yet now, you would completely supplant the consensus reached through the DOT’s public comment and vetting period with your own vision. You are not being consistent. No rules are perfect, but we set things up as best we can and we play by them. Everyone succumbed to your insistence that the Bass Pro proposal ran counter to what the public wanted. Perhaps that victory is what emboldened you to now completely jettison the principles that helped you with the inner harbor. Oh, and incidentally - Brian Higgins, whom you now oppose, helped kill that Bass Pro plan.

Here is what Fuhrmann at Michigan (outer harbor, right under the Skyway) looks like today:

Here is what it would look like under the DOT plan:

Yes, the Skyway is still there. Guess what? Under the Boulevard Alternative, it would look exactly the same, except there would be one more travel lane in each direction on the new road. The Skyway will still be there, because as of right now there are no plans whatsoever to remove it. That is a whole other issue, and a whole other battle.

I corresponded today with Rep. Higgins’ office. It is his intent to push forward with Skyway removal, and he believes that the current DOT is a better catalyst for that outcome. If commuter and truck traffic can be re-routed via the Tifft Street Arterial, then the DOT can give serious consideration to removing the Skyway, which would then ultimately be eliminated from that second rendering - in which case we would have a 4-lane Fuhrmann Boulevard, rather than the 6-lane roadway advocated for by the Waterfront Coalition.

The Embarcadero, the Gardiner, and other elevated highways that immediately abut downtown cores are not comparable to this Route 5. Embarcadero : San Francisco as I-190 : Buffalo. Instead, San Francisco and Toronto show that, contrary to the claims, elevated highways are not some massive impediment to a city’s development. Poor access is an impediment, and that’s half of what the battle has been with respect to the outer harbor. The other half - inactive NFTA management - has already been solved.

Let’s not impede further a plan for improving access to the outer harbor. Keep it up with the overwrought, false rhetoric; delay improvements to waterfront access so much as one day, and I’ll oppose you vehemently. Let’s instead move forward with the current, approved & contracted-for plan, and then redouble our efforts to re-route Route 5 via Tifft Street, and getting rid of the Skyway for good. It will be win-win. And I would join you.

Love, BP

Congressman Brian Higgins (NY-27) is interviewed regarding the Southtowns Connector and why he thinks the current plan is not only the right one, but is going to get built. He explains that all of the is have been dotted and ts have been crossed, and that there were several public comment opportunities that were not very well attended.