The Erie Canal Harbor Terminal park is now open for sightseeing. The transformation from gravel parking lot and 70s era museum facility to historical recreation/interpretation of what was once there is truly phenomenal. Not just because it looks nice, but because it is a major downtown waterfront project that engendered controversy yet somehow managed to get done.

So far.

There’s a boardwalk, informational signs, a waterfall, a park, and the naval museum. There’s a hot dog stand, too. These are all positive steps towards an improved, attractive inner harbor. Now comes another hard part.

The historical aspect of this area gets people there, but now it’s important to keep people there and getting them to spend their money. In order to do that, we need buildings and shops and bars and restaurants. Bass Pro or no Bass Pro, it’s important that Benderson and the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation begin making palpable progress on the remainder of the Canal Side project. That means bringing the Aud down, bringing the Donovan down, and starting work on what will be on that block under the Skyway.

So, cheer this progress, and it is truly amazing that any of this got done at all in this town - a town that will take any mediocre non-event - like the removal of driftwood from an unswimmable beach, or the fact that the marina is open 12 months per year instead of 7, or where the mayor holds a press conference to announce pay & display parking meters. The inner harbor project is moving. There is something built there.

But realize that it’s only the 1st out of 4 quarters.

Last week, the City of Buffalo created an Erie Basin Advisory Group, (hereafter referred to as “EBAG”).

Back in February, a Labatt’s pond hockey tournament was held at Erie Basin Marina…

At that time, Mayor Brown called for the end of the annual Oct 15th to May 1st closing of the Erie Basin Marina and stated that a committee would be formed to provide recommendations on how best to utilize the marina area and the surrounding Erie Basin year round.

“Erie Basin is one of Buffalo’s greatest quality of life assets,” said Mayor Brown. “I am inviting ideas on how to make it an even better waterfront experience that all city residents and visitors can enjoy. I want to make our city great for all Buffalonians, Western New Yorkers and tourists and I’m interested in innovative recommendations on how to best achieve that goal along our city’s waterfront. To that end, I will make the Erie Basin Marina Beach open to public access by Memorial Day. At the same time, it’s important to consider the interests of the area’s residents, boaters, anglers and other parties who have long enjoyed their access to this important city waterfront location.”

EBAG is charged with:

* Remove barriers to the water
* Reviewing access hours
* Opening the Erie Basin Marina beach
* Determining appropriate signage
* Assessing security issues
* Hours of various operations
* Water access, including the beach
* User friendliness/beautification
* Park programming
* Identification of initial long term opportunities

If you want to find out what this group has been focusing on, best head over to Buffalo Rising, where Newell is veritably fired up about it all. Tim Tielman wants a “beach ring“, perhaps with a clam bar, and naturally, a beach.

But the beach would only be for lounging. Swimming would be prohibited due to minor concerns like pollution, shipping lanes, and liability exposure. Read more of Newell’s series here, and naturally dogs must be permitted.

The full list of EBAG members is here, and I’m curious to discover the selection process. Was there an application procedure? Who vetted the people competing for a slot? What, e.g., are Tim Tielman’s qualifications (over anyone else in town - like, say Jay McCarthy - to be a “public space advocate”?) Gosh, so many questions.

Chair - Brian Reilly, Chief Economic Development Officer, City of Buffalo

Boaters - Jimmy Jankowiak, Peter Stevens

Anglers - George Johnson, Black Anglers co-chair

Business - Mike Wolasz, Operations Director, Erie Basin Marina

Homeowners - Len Shabat, Waterfront Village Advisory Group

Marine Drive Apts. - Elizabeth Harris, Tenant Council President

Public Space - Tim Tielman, Public Space Advocate

Special Events - Sue Gonzalez, Special Events Coordinator, City of Buffalo

Public Works - Steve Stepniak, Acting Commissioner, DPW

Police - Dan Derenda, Deputy Commissioner, BPD

Congressional - Bonnie Kane Lockwood, Office of Congressman Higgins

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

Photo courtesy of Flickr member sigma

A gentleman in Izmir, Turkey sent Derek Punaro some amazing pictures of the Aquarama/Marine Star - formerly rusting on the Buffalo lakeshore - being dismantled for salvage. It’s incredible to see this familiar object in unfamiliar waters being taken apart at the port in Aliaga. See ya, Aquarama!

Mayor Brown wants to prevent the docking and mooring of decrepit old boats in Buffalo. I’m looking at you, Aquamarine. Right now, there’s a skeletal boat moored where the Aquamarine used to be. It’s owned by Specialty Restaurants, which owns the mehtastic Shanghai Red’s, and chances are that boat will be sitting there, like that, for quite some time.

The Mayor asked the Common Council to amend the zoning code to require approval before such boats are moored in the future.

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.

Two commenters in this thread, responding to the video contained therein, complained about it in an unexpected way. Paul Francis, whose arrogance and condescension know no bounds or apparent justification, wrote:

This forum is Buffalo’s official sounding board for mere commentators whose self-annointed pursuit is bashing the folks who do actually work hard advocating for the city. These commentators - oh wait, pundits - then sheepishly shrug their shoulders when those advocates savor a victory. Hopefully this knock on the Waterfront Coalition is one of those instances.

Hell, some bloggers are actually out fighting for this town. None here!

The notion that I’m not out fighting for this town is the biggest pile of horseshit I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t mind taking that hit from someone who actually has a record of some sort of activism that trumps mine. But who the hell is Paul Francis? What’s his record? Who is he to dismiss my record? For four years - a time when there were only a small handful of blogs in this town - I’ve been promoting the city and talking it up.

Harvey Garrett has also engaged me in comments and in email, and we’ve gone back and forth and reached stalemate with respect to the merits of Route 5, but he is very offended by the satirical video because it mocks people who are concerned citizens. He writes,

What happened to you two (and WNYMedia)?

Now, if you’ve already been to Geek’s site, and are thinking, “Pundit’s ripping off Geek’s idea“, you’re kinda right. But I haven’t really responded on my own terms, so apologies for the duplication.

Harvey tells me that we crossed the line. That we “took it too far”. I responded, “Being racist or defamatory or bigoted would be taking it too far. Making fun of a group’s political position is not.”

Here’s how I responded to Harvey’s query as to what “happened”:

Or would, say, Tim Tielman or the Riverkeeper enjoy it if I started a coalition calling for the immediate implementation of Bass Pro on the Central Wharf building in spite of the 2004 master plan, etc., because I think that’s a better idea. Or would they mock the living shit out of me? Because if I did do that, believe me - they wouldn’t deign to call me a “concerned citizen” or “activist”.

Like a lot of people in this town, I get up in the morning, get my kids ready for school, say goodbye to my family, go to work, do the best job I can, have lunch, go back to work, do a good job, drive home, see my wife & kids, play with my kids, have dinner, watch TV, pay my taxes, pay my bills, do chores, go to sleep, lather, rinse, repeat. I could just end it there.

But I also get active in the community. I singlehandedly organized a well-received & attended discussion panel on Bass Pro. I helped organize screenings and panel discussions on Darfur, on the media in America, on the future of politics, on Wal-Mart’s affect on communities, on the Iraq War. We co-sponsored “The Cost”. On top of that, I sacrificed a great deal of time and money to run for elected office, something from which I’m still recovering, and I’m considering becoming active in Clarence town government.

That might seem like a weak resume to some who do far more good than I, but I’m as much an activist as any of the people on that waterfront coalition, and through the work that I’ve done and the things that I’ve advocated for, I have earned the right to tell it like I see it, and to criticize whatever I feel like.

Others have suggested that this is merely part of an ongoing, nonexistent war between WNYMedia and Buffalo Rising.

Let’s examine.

Buffalo Rising is a local media outlet which, like the Buffalo News, is not above reproach or criticism. When they post something I find silly or comment-worthy, I’m going to do so. Buffalo Rising generally eschewed politics throughout its history. Until recently, that is. In the last couple of months, it has become the Komsomolskaya Pravda - the official organ - of the Waterfront Coalition. Buffalo Rising has staked out and promoted a distinct position on a political issue. I have found the arguments made and the language used to oftentimes be worthy of critique. I have commented there, and here, about it. Because I generally comment about politics and media in Buffalo, what Buffalo Rising has done with the Waterfront Coalition is, essentially, a perfect storm of comment-worthy material on this issue. End of story. Anyone reading more into it is flat-out wrong.

So, yes the video was silly, but we thought it was funny. We fully expected that many people would find it dumb and unfunny, and that’s fine. Hell, half the skits that make air on SNL suck eggs. The notion that we shouldn’t have done it because it’s mean to well-meaning people is unpersuasive.

The South Buffalo ethanol plant on the water is going forward.

Some see this as a positive.

Perhaps. But being less energy efficient than gasoline, and significantly less efficient than diesel, Ethanol and E85 are not, I think, the answers to our energy needs.

Furthermore, ethanol plants stink. Literally. Not only do they emit an alphabet soup of volatile organic chemicals, but

Much of the objectionable odor from ethanol plants comes from drying the leftover corn mash after the ethanol has been separated. While bad odor does not mean the emissions are hazardous to the health, the odor can be irritating to some individuals.

Sure they can (and most likely will) install some sort of emissions control equipment, but the plant will nevertheless be within 400 feet of homes, and not at all far from the already Skyway-blighted, political-stasis-ridden Canal Side project.

The prospect of shopping at Crate & Barrel while inhaling rotting corn mash, acetaldehyde, acrolein, and formaldehyde seems somewhat off-putting.

Maybe that’s why most ethanol plants are in rural areas. You know, where the corn is?

Because we can never have enough activist groups.

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

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan gave a speech in the shadow of the Berlin Wall and the Brandenburg Gate, imploring the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to “tear down this wall”. Two years later, it came down as a democratic revolution swept over the Warsaw Pact countries within the course of about 5 months.

The Berlin Wall wasn’t just a physical barrier. It was symbolic - it was the very embodiment of the East’s lack of freedom. It prevented its prisoners from visiting the West, where they would certainly come quickly to realize the inferiority of the brutal totalitarian state in which they lived. It was also one of the most brutally fortified de facto international frontiers in existence.

During the Berlin Wall’s 1963 - 1989 history, there were 5,000 escape attempts and 239 people perished trying to escape a communist totalitarian dictatorship and make a better, freer life in the West.

In 2007, a group of non-profits and community activists calling itself the “Waterfront Coalition” drenched itself in offensiveness and irony.

In order to protest one “wall” - the bermed Route 5 - the Waterfront Coalition purchased space on an actual wall. A billboard.

The billboard asks Governor Spitzer to “tear down this wall”. Evidently, it’s referring to Route 5, and not the billboard itself.

In making its point, the Waterfront Coalition invokes Reagan’s 1987 speech.

I will withhold, for now, comment on the substance of the Waterfront Coalition’s 40-minute long press conference where a representative from every. single. member. group. felt compelled to speak. WNYMedia will have video of that up later today.

But to equate Route 5 with the Berlin Wall is one thing and one thing only: an outrage.

Has Route 5 murdered or purged tens of millions of innocent people? Is Route 5 peppered with guardposts from which snipers target hapless pedestrians trying to cross from swamp to weeds? Is the grassy area between Route 5 and the incomprehensible maze that passes for Fuhrmann Boulevard laden with tank traps and mines to prevent progress or murder pedestrians?

To equate a bermed Route 5 - or even the Skyway, for that matter - with the Berlin Wall is absolute and utter bullshit, and those people who thought it would be pithy and on-point should be f*cking ashamed of themselves.

The only thing Route 5 is a barrier to is people’s views of the grain elevators and the Clean Water Act violation that runs around them.

Oh, and incidentally, the Riverkeeper once released this rendering of a “Citizen’s [sic] Vision for the Lakefront”:

Yes, that’s the Skyway and a bermed Route 5 in there.

Way back when, in the long long ago, I wrote a brief but memorable post. Here it is:

I said I was mulling a post about it, and figured instead that I’d solicit your comments about a theory that I have.

All too often, people in Buffalo mistake “would be nice” for “must be done“.

Example:

1. It would be nice if Pano kept the Atwater House around and incorporated it into his expansion plans; vs.
2. Pano must keep the Atwater House around and incorporate it into his expansion plans.

Geek adds to my earlier Tielman post. He puts a re-routing of a 2-mile stretch of the I-190 in the “would be nice” category. I don’t even know if it approaches the “good idea” slot yet, which is a condition precedent to reaching “would be vs. must be”.

Also, some in comments here make the point that Tielman is thoughtful, and well-respected, and has done a lot of positive work for the community. That’s all well and good, but when he answers a few questions that no one asked - re-routing the 190, a lift bridge across the Niagara River, and preserving an abbreviated, useless Skyway - he’s not above being criticized.

One of the canards going around is that all of this would be a net positive for the economy. Why, if we re-routed, thousands of people would flock to Riverside to snap up dirt-cheap homes with a view of the sunset over the water Canada.

Probably the thousands of suddenly inconvenienced Tonawandans and Kenmorians whose backyards have been turned into a trucking corridor.

In comments, Geek makes the point that multi-lane waterfront roadways have not hampered growth and progress in Chicago and Toronto. Denizen makes a similar point. Consider:

The presence or non-presence of a roadway along the waterfront is not an inhibitor to local economic development. There, I said it. The economy is an inhibitor to waterfront development.

Instead of playing with the waterfront with blocks and Matchbox cars,

If we focused instead on fixing our local economy, lowering our collective tax burden, incenting companies to build here, and creating jobs, there would be an impetus to design and implement such projects. Tielman’s plan is “cart before the horse” as they say…

Until we get to the point where Buffalo and Western New York are again economically viable business locations, projects like this will simply be fodder for blogs and public radio.

Are we really going to keep blaming limited-access roads for the decline of neighborhoods throughout Buffalo, or are we going to get serious about the real, root causes? Because I’ve seen communities thrive in spite of highways and freeways and expressways and turnpikes and parkways all over the world. Has Storrow Drive ruined property values on Back Bay’s Beacon Street? Are the Montreal neighborhoods around the Decarie bereft of life? Of course not.

With respect to the elevated I-190 that runs like a gash through downtown Buffalo, we are hardly alone. Back in the 50s and 60s, many other older cities actually wanted to separate their thriving downtowns from their smelly, industrial waterfronts. An elevated highway to make it easy to pass through or commute to downtown was a welcome addition. In Buffalo, the I-190 snakes its way not too far from the shore of the Niagara River, and is at-grade pretty much all the way down until it reaches the Niagara Street exit.

It was placed in that location for one reason - it follows exactly the path of the Erie Canal as it existed during the first half of the last century. The canal terminus (recent legislation notwithstanding) was subsequently relocated to North Tonawanda.

So, when I think I-190, I think of that section that physically (and to some degree psychically) continues the division of Buffalo from her waterfront. A Big Dig project is probably out of the question, since the money won’t ever be there, the Big Dig itself has become somewhat of a liability, and because Buffalo’s I-190 seldom sees the frequency or volume of traffic-tie ups that Boston’s old Central Artery had.

WBFO featured an interview with Tim Tielman recently, who talked about two ideas that he has. One of them involves the Peace Bridge and the 190, but doesn’t address what I had always thought was the biggest problem - downtown.

Instead, Tielman argues that there should be no second span at the Peace Bridge location due to the negative affect that would have on the surrounding community. He advocates for a second crossing should be at the location of the International Railway Bridge. On the New York Side of that crossing are, according to him, loads of unused track and rights-of-way that could be used to connect that bridge to the Scajaquada and a new “boulevard” that would funnel traffic up to the I-290.

In that case, a portion of the I-190 in Riverside could be dismantled.

Glancing at Google Earth, that would affect just over two miles’ worth of roadway. Presumably the expressway that leads to the Sheridan exit, servicing DuPont, the power station, GM Powertrain, and Dunlop would remain intact. Tielman is quite blunt that he doesn’t want to move the 190, he wants to eliminate it. He also doesn’t want a crossing from Canada to be high enough to accommodate ships in the navigable waterway - he wants it to be a liftbridge.

The only entity that has proposed using that location for a new crossing has been the Ambassador Bridge, and they want it to be for truck traffic only. There is no way whatsoever that any entity - public, private, or hybrid - is going to build an international crossing that utilizes a lift bridge or isn’t connected to a limited-access interstate highway of some kind. Period.

Setting aside whether “Boulevard” has become some sort of strange shorthand for “good planning” among some, Tielman all but promises that a “boulevard” along the rail right-of-way would “eliminate noise” and get tractor trailers “off residential streets”. Somehow, this would make us a “really progressive city”.

Tielman explains that Buffalo is “only major city in the Northeast” where you can watch the sun set over the water. Obviously, along the eastern seabord, the sun rises over the water, and Tielman points out that Chicago gets a sunset over “some suburban prairie”. He adds that one of the best places to watch the sunset over the water is Riverside.

A quick scan of your memory or this map will remind you that Riverside is - well, on the banks of a river. If you’re in Riverside, the sun actually sets over “some suburban prairie” in Ontario, Canada.

He also wants to preserve a part of the Skyway south of the Buffalo River, and turn it into an elevated open-air park. It would have to be ADA-compliant. Yes, the views from the Skyway are pretty. No, the Skyway is not “Jetsonian” or in any way futuristic. No, we don’t need teacup rides at the bottom of the Skyway. Yes, the liability of having people traipsing around 100 feet above is mind-boggling.

As it stands now, people could certainly make a utilitarian point about its functionality. But if you remove vehicular traffic from it, it becomes nothing more than an eyesore. If you want a nice view, build a tall building on the outer harbor.

I have to admit that I’m more in the “rip it the hell down” camp, but let’s be open-minded, shall we?

Geek has the skinny on one engineer’s idea to turn the Skyway - or a portion of it - into a green-roofed structure leading from downtown to the waterfront. It’s an intriguing idea, although it too closely resembles an airport jetway for my tastes. Check it out and find out more.