A proposition…

The proposal to build an 800-mile system of 200-mph trains linking Southern and Northern California, by way of the Valley, has made a great deal of sense throughout its two-decade gestation. Proposition 1, the $9.95 billion bond measure, is the necessary first step.

High-speed rail will be an engine of economic development that we badly need in this state, creating tens of thousands of jobs in both its construction and its operation.

It will have a dramatic impact on our environment, removing thousands of cars from California’s highways. Less congestion will make the remaining vehicles more efficient for those that remain on the road. Conservative estimates suggest millions of barrels of oil could be saved annually, and as much as 22 billion pounds of carbon dioxide kept out of the atmosphere.

The rail system would also reduce the need for many short- and medium-haul airline flights, which pollute the atmosphere at an astonishing rate.

Now, with gasoline at $4.50 a gallon and rising, high-speed rail is no longer just a good idea. It’s imperative.

High speed rail with Buffalo as a hub connecting Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto, Albany/Boston/New York would be a pretty dandy thing now in the days of $4.50/gallon gas, hourlong TSA lines, and Amtrak dreck-o-rama.

As the Bills have decided to regionalize their fan base by playing some regular season games up in Toronto, there has been some movement, spurred on by Buffalo News publisher Stan Lipsey and Senator Chuck Schumer, to have the Toronto Raptors play some home games at our own HSBC arena.

Sounds like a great idea to not only bring the NBA back to Buffalo, albeit in a limited way. It would also help to further the cause of Buffalo-Toronto economic and cultural integration, from which both cities stand to benefit in some way.

Now if we could just get Via Rail to propose a dedicated high speed service between Buffalo and Toronto with pre-screening at the station so there are no border waits, and with improved transportation links in Buffalo to sports, shopping, and cultural attractions. That would be huge.

(Image courtesy Buffalo Braves’ History)

As Richard Florida argues, it’s an idea whose time has come.

…mega-regions have replaced the nation-state as the economic drivers of the global economy. These are places like Bos-Wash (the Boston-New York-Washington corridor), Chi-Pitts (running from Chicago through Detroit and Cleveland and over to Pittsburgh), Nor-Cal (around San Francisco and the Silicon Valley), Cascadia (which stretches from Portland through Seattle and Vancouver), Europe’s Am-Burs-Twerp (from Amsterdam to Brussels and Antwerp), Lon-Leed-Chester (around London) and Asia’s greater Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai.

Clunky sounding or not, the 10 largest mega-regions account for 43 percent of the planet’s economic activity and more than half of its patented innovations and star scientists. They generate all those pioneering breakthroughs while housing only 6.5 percent of the planet’s population. And to take an even broader overhead view, the top 40 mega-regions produce 66 percent of the world’s economic activity and more than 80 percent of its patented innovations and most-cited scientists, still while being home to just 18 percent of the world’s population.

Tor-Buff-Chester is one of the world’s very biggest mega-regions, bigger than the San Francisco-Silicon Valley megaregion, Greater Paris, Hong Kong and Shanghai, and more than twice the size of Cascadia in the Pacific Northwest. Its economic might is equivalent to more than half of all of Canada’s. If it were its own country, it would number among the 16 biggest in the world, with economic output bigger than that of Sweden, the Netherlands or Australia.

Being able to run a great think tank — the Martin Rotman Prosperity Institute — in this great mega-region is what moved me back to it. I know both Buffalo and Toronto pretty well. During my time in Buffalo, I endured some large snowstorms, lived in the terrific Elmwood neighborhood, ate my share of real chicken wings and beef on weck and took in as many Bills and Sabres games as I could.

At that time, Buffalonians always would remind me of how, during the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, it was Buffalo with its manufacturing muscle and exciting downtown that was the more energetic, stronger city while Toronto rolled up the sidewalks at 10 p. m.

Times change, and these days Toronto has become the engine of the mega-region. Greater Toronto is growing at a fantastic clip, adding thousands of immigrants and 115,000 people a year. But it’s also clear that Buffalo’s economic hemorrhaging has stabilized. Despite shedding 17 percent of its manufacturing jobs between 2001 and 2005, the region’s manufacturing sector actually expanded its output by 3.5 percent, according to a study by UB’s Institute for Local Governance and Regional Growth. The same report shows an increase in creative-class jobs in information technology, financial and business services, which I define as ones where people use their minds to create economic value.

Not only is Toronto growing, it isn’t resting on its laurels. One can whine all day about Canada’s socialism, cleanliness, friendliness, and aggressive drivers, but does Buffalo have an agenda for prosperity? Does Rochester? Or are we on the US side of this mega-region satisified instead to harken back to the good ol’ days of Xerox and Kodak; of GM and Bethlehem Steel?

Compare Toronto’s “doing business” section on its website to Buffalo’s, which recently got a re-vamp that actually added a “businesses” section.

The second section of Toronto’s site is its “agenda for prosperity.” In Buffalo, it’s “incentives“.

They plan for growth. We beg for stasis.

In any event, setting aside the completely different mindsets when it comes to growth and prosperity, Buffalo needs to re-focus its gaze in many ways. We need to stop wringing our hands over past mistakes and instead develop a plan to learn from them and avoid making similar ones in the future. We need to - and I admit I’m the biggest culprit of this - stop whining about Albany this and Albany that, and start looking beyond Albany - start looking beyond downstate’s comparative prosperity and figure out a roadmap to Western New York’s return to prosperity.

Look forwards, not backwards.

We need to look to Toronto, look to Rochester, look to the Southern Tier, look to Erie, and realize that the megaregion has much to offer. The border is an impediment to this, but it is not insurmountable. There are small, symbolic ways to begin the mental integration of this mega-region right now. It’s things like when Skybus was going to call the Niagara Falls International Airport “Toronto/Niagara” on its website. It’s things like the Bills playing a few games in Toronto or the Sabres playing a few games in Rochester. There is so much potential within a 100 mile radius of the city of Buffalo, as the epicenter of the mega-region Florida talks about.

We just need to start tapping it, and develop a plan to integrate the region.

This article in Salon, which skewers the United States’ idiotic, backwards, counterproductive border policy with Canada, is must-reading for any Buffalonian.

A snippet:

It’s terrible for trade,” he said. “NAFTA was supposed to be so we were all strong — 450 million of us to compete with those guys in Europe. If you go to Europe, it’s wide open. The borders here are not open, but were getting that way. If 9/11 hadn’t happened, it would have been laxer. Seventy-five percent of the time, when I took a bus to see the Tigers, we just breezed through. Now, they stop the bus and board it.”

Like many other Canadians, Mastronardi finds the restrictions insulting. Proudly multicultural, Canada is scrupulous about minority rights. To American border hawks, that makes it a haven for radical Muslims. In February, Chertoff told the New York Daily News that “more than a dozen” potential terrorists have tried to infiltrate the United States from Canada. According to a DHS report, Canada harbors “known terrorist affiliate and extremist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria.”

Mastronardi scoffed at the idea that the Canada was a haven for radical Muslims. “You’ve got eight million Muslims. We’ve got, what, 800,000?”

This February, I made a trip around the Golden Horseshoe, a cultural and economic region that encompasses the western bell-end of Lake Ontario, from Toronto to Rochester, N.Y. The two sides of the Niagara River have been getting along splendidly ever since the War of 1812 ended. Ontario has the wineries, the Shaw Festival, and the best view of Niagara Falls. New York has the Walden Galleria. The Buffalo Sabres depend on Canadian hockey fans; the Bills are so popular in Canada that they’ll be playing games in Toronto next year. Canadians also cross the border to ski in western New York and fly out of Buffalo-Niagara International Airport.

At Fort Erie Race Track & Slots in Ontario, a popular destination for Americans, Sue, a gambler from Buffalo, was lingering by the slots. “I just carry my birth certificate,” she said. “I got asked coming across. It’s a lot harder going back. They’ll look in your luggage. I saw a group of 80-year-olds, and they had their bags open. It’s not like they’re al-Qaida.”

and

I visited the Soo three years ago. Even then, the border was a serious issue. The DHS would have been a source of derision, with its fleet of Turtle-waxed SUVs and its speedboats churning the river, if it hadn’t make a quick run to Canada such a pain in the ass. “They’re not fighting terrorism,” griped the wife of a Canadian tour boat captain whose business was suffering. “They’re fighting tourism.”

Canadians think the United States has gone all Rambo since 9/11. I found that out on the International Bridge Walk, which starts at Lake Superior State and ends across the river. One morning, I fell in step with David Orazietti, the local member of the Provincial Parliament. Orazietti’s uncle had been captain of the first Lake Superior State hockey team. As a boy, his Pee-Wee hockey squad played in Michigan. So he was worried that a Fortress America would estrange the Soos. The new border-control measures mean that Americans are practically being told to stay home, he said.

At the Canadian end of the bridge, we walked through the border booths, no questions asked. A welcoming committee garlanded us with maple-leaf flags.

This summer, bridge walkers will have to bring birth certificates to celebrate the closeness between the United States and Canada. Next year, passports or the equivalent. It doesn’t make sense to Leisa Mansfield, director of the Sault Chamber of Commerce.

“When you think that the 9/11 attackers were here legally, I doubt a passport is going to protect us against terrorist threats,” she said.

And that’s the point. All of this is sound and fury, signifying nothing. The federal government figures any threat - however minor - must go to eleven, and it has acted accordingly. Octogenarians get searched. All this helps to further retard economic development in border areas like Buffalo and Niagara Falls. It’s bad enough we hamstring ourselves with a despicable state government and lackadaisical county officials. It’s bad enough we keep clinging to past glories rather than plan for future goals. It’s bad enough the state has made itself inhospitable to both business and residents. At least Buffalo is next door to America’s largest trading partner, right? At least Buffalo has all that water, right? Well, the water’s still there, but we’re treating Canada like Mexico, which is disproportionate to the threat.

If we had an ounce of forward thinking, we would, through a bilateral treaty, harmonize entry requirements for Canada and the US. DHS would work in conjunction with Customs Canada at points of entry throughout North America, and border requirements between the two countries would be abolished.

Imagine if we actually installed high-speed rail between a borderless Western New York and Southern Ontario. Hell, you could commute to Toronto from Buffalo or Niagara Falls.

There is so much untapped potential in this city, looking forward. But we have no brand, no goals; instead, we cruise along in an easy mediocrity, and constantly consider what could have been while ignoring what should be.

The NFTA recently transformed a lot of its buses to diesel/electric hybrids. So did Toronto’s TTC. But in Toronto, they discovered this:

Toronto’s new and expensive hybrid buses are saving less than half the amount of diesel fuel the transit agency - and the governments that paid for them - claimed.

The Toronto Transit Commission and the federal, provincial and city governments said as recently as March that the new hybrid diesel-electric buses - which cost $734,000, compared with $500,000 for a conventional bus - were using 20 to 30 per cent less fuel.

But the TTC’s current fuel-savings estimate, incorporated in its 2008 budget after tests on the new fleet last summer, is just 10 per cent - although officials expect that number to improve.

Since hybrids only make sense in stop-and-go, heavy traffic*, I’d wager that the fuel savings in the Buffalo-Niagara region is even lower still.

The NFTA says:

Metro estimates a 25% to 30% reduction in fuel based on the efficiencies of the hybrid drivetrain.

If Toronto is getting 10 - 20% savings, I’d bet that we’re getting 5 - 10%. If that.

*The hallmarks of hybrid engines are engine start/stop, occasional electric propulsion, and brake regeneration. For that to make sense, you need to be stopping and braking a lot. Hybrid vehicles make zero sense in zero traffic WNY.

Buffalo is the best city for commuters because we have a highway infrastructure designed in the 50s (and looking every day of it) for a population of 500,000+ people, which everyone assumed would just continue to grow.

(If I might just interject a suggestion or two here: 1. If you’re on the I-90 Eastbound by the airport, the I-290 interchange is counterintuitive. Reconfigure the exit so that the left lanes continue straight onto the 290, and the right lanes turn east towards Albany;and 2. Ramps onto and off of our expressways are banked backwards, increasing the risk of truck rollovers. Bank them correctly.)

The reason I bring this up is this thread at Buffalo Rising, which quickly devolved into silliness. But this post from “Prodigal Son” deserves to be highlighted, because I agree with every word:

I have no patience for either end of the urban vs. suburban debate. Einstein put it perfectly - there is more to either side than Transit Road and Fillmore Avenue.

Arbitrary “distinctions” between neighborhoods divide and hold back WNY as much as high taxes. There is no high moral ground to claim for living in the city, or living in a suburb. You live downtown, ride a bike to work, and eat lunch on Elmwood every day? Great for you - I hope you enjoy the lifestyle you’ve picked. The carbon footprint you save on your bike is dwarfed by your huge heating bill each winter as the energy leaks out of your architecturally correct but wasteful 100 year old windows. You live in Williamsville, drive to work downtown, and get take out from Tim Horton’s? Sounds good too. I hope you appreciate the same commute in Vegas would take 90 minutes and cost $15 a trip in your SUV. Nobody’s perfect - I’m a little sick of the vicious judgement on both sides.

You can’t make a suburb without an urb. Surrounding suburbs of Buffalo need a vital core at its center to thrive. The city is not saturated with uzi wielding hooligans (thanks Irv). At the same time, no successful growing city in America is a dense downtown core with no residential suburb surrounding it. Some people want space, and pay for it. That doesn’t make them bad people or a threat to your bohemian downtown existence.

Give it a rest. Both sides need each other. Let’s take all the the energy wasted in downtown vs suburb battles and invest in some businesses, create a few jobs, and start growing again.

Amen.

In the original post, Newell writes this:

If you want to check out some bad traffic, just head over the boarder to Toronto. I don’t know how the daily commuter can handle that mess. If you hit that traffic look out. You can get stuck for hours dealing with total gridlock.

So, Buffalo. A question.

Would you trade an easy-peasy commute for the growth and urban/suburban vitality of a Toronto? A Toronto which, incidentally, also enjoys a TTC subway/bus/trolley network (when not on strike) and Go trains and buses for commuters from Hamilton, Oshawa, or Barrie and all points in-between?

Toronto will be sponsoring a public art competition that might make some in Buffalo cringe. Because they don’t think creatively.

Though it’s possible for one to interpret its blue-green turquoise underbelly as reference to the clean and sparking waters that attacking American ships sailed in on during the War of 1812, the City of Toronto has initiated a public art competition to better mark the shoreline, and the winning and short-listed entries are on view this Thursday during an open house.

Most remarkable about this competition is that the Gardiner itself is being used in the selected artwork. Though it may send shivers down the engineering and roads departments from a technical point of view, this is a major first step in activating the underside of the Gardiner and hopefully more sections will follow. Once that happens, and the underside of the expressway is made pedestrian friendly and welcoming, we might just forget it’s up there

The winning entry, called “Watertable” will be unveiled on Thursday:

The concept WATERTABLE reveals the original shoreline of Lake Ontario and creates the look of shimmering water, appearing to float under the surface of the Gardiner Expressway. It is a beacon not only for the new entrance to Fort York, but also for the revitalization now underway of its entire underdeveloped 43-acre site in anticipation of the Bicentennial celebrations of the War of 1812. Fort York, the birthplace of Toronto, is being restored and redeveloped to reflect its enormous importance as a national historic site and to provide much needed parkland for the communities rapidly emerging around it.

I’m still astonished how Toronto can grow and thrive in spite of that “scar” Gardiner on its waterfront. Premier McGuinty, tear down this wall! *Sniff*

A couple of years ago, we spent a weekend in Toronto and stayed at the Intercontinental on Bloor just west of Avenue Road, across from the ROM. The skeleton of Daniel Libeskind’s ROM Crystal was just going up at the time, and it looked as if a crane had accidentally dumped a bunch of steel girders, and that they had landed in a somewhat haphazard manner.

It’s now done and open, so we checked it out Saturday afternoon. From the outside, it looks like Salvador Dali got a hold of the plans of the original building and had at them:

From the inside, it’s rather impressive. The best way to describe it is to invite you to remember Superman’s Fortress of Solitude from the 1978 movie. The only thing missing was the green crystal that made Marlon Brando talk.

It’s cool how the building reflects its surroundings:

Here’s a shot of the atrium just inside the ticketing area:

Third floor. Dinosaurs.

It’s one of those areas that’s crowded enough that you’ll wish: (1) you had checked your coat; and (2) you had checked the stroller, too. The Crystal is perfect for this exhibit, because you focus on its details, rather than the building.