Both sides have a point on Peace Bridge neighborhood plan

   WASHINGTON — So if the National Trust for Historic Preservation is to be believed, the Peace Bridge Authority wants to "pave paradise to put up a parking lot," which is why the preservation group put the Peace Bridge neighborhood on its list of most endangered historic sites.

   But in the view of the Peace Bridge Authority, its plan for an expanded truck plaza — which would wipe out good sections of the historic neighborhoods nearby — is an absolute necessity to ensure smooth passage of truck traffic from Canada into the United States.

   Who's right?

   I went to the neighborhood last week for the first time in many years to take a look, and sure enough, the homes and trees and streetscapes are exquisite. It's the kind of neighborhood that gives Buffalo its timeless appeal.

   Yet when I looked into the distance, I saw a line of trucks stacked up for entry at the border, and thought: there's money being lost in a long wait.

   And it all brings to mind a question.

   Could this be one of those tough public policy debates where both sides are right?

   And if so, what should be done?

   -- Jerry Zremski

Comments

[Martha Bliss]

Preservatonists!
Please forgive me for raining on your parade, but the Peace Bridge project will eliminate the creeping decay of what was once a vibrant family friendly neighborhood. We live on the street that would be taken by the bridge.(Massachusetts Ave.) Obviously the historic area pictured in your article is of the part of the neighborhood not yet attacked by our blight just a few blocks away. To suggest that it is being "paved over" is an out and out falsehood - It will be saved from what we are experiencing just a block or two away.
Right now our street has two owner occupied homes, two transiently rented houses and eight empty and abandoned houses. The one across the street from us, supposedly designated "historic", has been a site of drug trafficing and violence for a decade - there is no sign of any historic remains. If the Peace Bridge project goes ahead, this blighted part of this historic neighborhood would be replaced, yes with a plaza/bridge/new roadway system, but the remaining neighborhood would be separated from it with beautiful parkland.
Anyone even having half a brain would recognize that this would add value to the remaining neighborhood. We have been waiting so long for this to take place and wish the nay-sayers would accept the fact that if this doesn't happen their wonderful neighborhood will die too. Please heed Ron Rienas' response as it's right on the money.

[The Relocated]

This is not a situation where both development and preservation can't live harmony. Sacrifices and comprimises will have to be made.

If we stubbornly cling to the past the future will pass us by.We've seen this and know that Western New York is not the community it once was. Until it's accepted that people need to make compromises nothing will happen to improve the situation. I'll give the community credit for having it's fair share of crusaders on many issues but believing your right about something doesn't make it so. The region needs a healthy dose of pragmatism to start making progress towards a greater future.

The neighborhoods are wonderful but will it matter if they're empty because no one can find a decent job. The PBA could use some sensitivity but given that they're a private organization doing a public service they should have the right to do what they want with thier property. They've been wanting to improve the situation for over ten years and have dealt with nothing but obstructionists that want to cling to the past or want to build a "Signature Bridge". What seems to be lost by everyone in this debate is that the Peace Bridge is NOT public property. It may receive some subsidies for serving the public interest but ultimately it's private property.

[Comino Reality]

Arrest the suburban drug buyers coming to Buffalo and the gang problems will start going away.

You can't live in a Signature Bridge but you can live in a great old house in a neighborhood that should be better. Raise the bar in Buffalo. It's become too easy for drug buyers and shadow governments to step over it.

Disband and break up the Buffalo and Fort Erie Peace Bridge Authority. Raise the bar higher!

[Lawrence]

Over the years, I have spoken with a few people who have moved to Buffalo from out of town

-- and they were enthralled when shown Victorian housing stock with beaded woodwork and leaded- and even stained-glass windows, that many parts of the country literally just don't have, and took the offers to rent or buy them at a song.

These homes were on the lower West Side. And they had no idea they were moving into drug-gang turf where you keep shuttered in at night.

Some of the houses in question may have made nice backdrops for "Meet Me in Saint Louis", but what about their real-world context?

[manny]

since the bush administration wants us to shake in our boots they will never allow cross border management. After all everyone knwos teerroists are goign to cross with as much lights cameras and traffic as possible so we know they are coming, ( being sarcastic) not along the natural unmanned border areas. Why not flip the whole plaza north and use up the vast wasteland of abandoned wharehouse , brownfields and train tracks? naw,,,,to simple

[Mike Regan]

Here we go again. Leave decisions (decisions that have taken more than 10 years, by the way) to our leaders and this is what you get. There's got to be another way to have,essentially, a truck stop without taken down more or our architectural wonders.
When a real estate resurgence begins on the West Side, the city and state want to tear down the very reasons people want to live there.
When there's finally some action downtown, after decades of a downward economic spiral, the city allows a casino to be built.
When manufacturing moves to Asia, the city clings to it like it's our only saving grace, rather than reinvent itself.
When will there be leaders in place in this city and the region as a whole who can make the right choices?

[louis]

Buffalo and appeal do not belong in the same sentence. The bridge is a farce and making every neighborhood a historic museum is idiotic. Buffalo is a dead city and these stupid stories keep it in the grave. Thanks for another non-interesting story Buffalo News.

[Comino Reality]

Put a highway next to your home in Wheatfield and reward your opinion.

[Steve in Wheatfield]

...or we could build a Star Trek Transporter that would magically move the trucks from one side of the river to the other. Baa Haa Haa.

There is one point that no one is really making. I have talked to a few people over the years who have moved or plan to move from this immediate neighborhood. They are ecstatic about moving because they would be getting far more than market value for their homes. It's not like the government is tearing down their homes and kicking them to the curb. Some of these people are getting many $10,000s more than their homes are worth...in a declining neighborhood. I can't get that good of a deal for my posh spread in the suburbs.

[ShelB]

Does Tim Tielman have a day job?

[Comino Reality]

The truck bridge should be located in Lewiston.

The reason the Buffalo and Fort Erie Peace Bridge Authority wants to bull doze Buffalo's West Side is they are in too much of a hurry to promote Fort Erie interests for development that harms the City of Buffalo.

There never seams to be enough staffing at the Peace Bridge to expedite rapid truck and automotive traffic movement. A new Peace Bridge is not the solution to this grid lock problem. All that a new Peace Bridge does is give trucks and cars more space to idle while they wait to clear border inspection. Why than do we need a new Peace Bridge? We need instead more border inspection manpower.

Common sense should rule over this problem. First there is a very old and historic neighborhood and historic park lands in a densely populated urban area on the U.S. side of the Peace Bridge. On the Canadian side of the Peace Bridge there is expansive open space that is less densely populated.

Therefore a large shared border management facility makes more sense being built over in Fort Erie. The problems encountered under the Bush Administration calls for 2009 marriage counciling between Canada and the U.S. We need to build a state of the art border facility in Fort Erie and staff it with ample inspectors to keep the traffic flowing more efficently in order to avoid fuel waste, protect the environment and health of our citizens, to waste less time crossing the bridge and clearing customs and foremost to protect the safety of both our countries.

Here is a creative idea that would generate power and wonder. In my opinion if a new bridge is build across the Niagara River it should be totally enclosed in solar panals and serve as not only a traffic crossing but as a massive solar power generation station. Hook up hoses to crossing truck exhaust systems and feed them into a pipe that would be used to heat water into steam abd drive another turbine and clean the nitrious gases from the exhaust to stop creation of smog and health problems. Build under the bridge a tern nesting habitat. This may seam far fetched but so was the Erie Canal when it was constructed in it's time.

Repeat stop further destruction to the West Side of Buffalo and the people's health in this neighborhood and move trucks and cars faster through a shared border inspection facility in Fort Erie and increase the staffing and we can get beyond building a bridge that is not really a solution to fostering creation of greater travel routing and efficency through Buffalo and Fort Erie.

[Todd Mitchell]

Neighborhoods are the life of the city. During the 1960s and 1970s, we did our best through Urban Renewal to tear down and rip out the blight in our city, and many neighborhoods were sacrificed to this effort. Unfortunately, what resulted was highways through parkland and neighborhoods, numberless buildings downtown replaced by a shopping mall and a convention center, and entire neighborhoods wiped away on both the east and west sides. If you want to see the benefits of this approach to curing the ills of the community, take a tour of the Ellicott District. Where once stood vital, intact neighborhoods, you will now find block after block of empty fields, an urban prairie. The cure was worse than the ill.

The Peace Bridge Authority is poised to repeat history; over 100 houses are to be torn down, and an intact neighborhood destroyed. This is too great a price to pay, particularly when there are alternatives. If we wait just a few more months, the next administration is sure to be less lethargic than our current president, and we will have another opportunity to successfully negotiate a shared border management agreement with Canada.

To find out the truth about this neighborhood, take a tour. "In the Shadow of the Peace Bridge" is offered Sundays June 1, July 6, and August 3 from 1 to 3 p.m. Meet at the corner of Columbus Parkway and Columbus Park.

[diane Burley]

The entropy that is Buffalo is astounding.

European cargo goes to Halifax -- which then goes by truck or rail into the States -- it could be via Buffalo. Or Detroit. Or any other border city that makes the process reasonable.

Buffalo does NOT make it reasonable. Light industry (reassembly of goods) could be the rise of the next middle class here in WNY -- storage is inexpensive and educated people at near-3rd world rates are readily available.

We need a bridge. We need inspection stations. Shared border management would have been great -- but our federal government nixed it. So that puts the burden on our side of the bridge.

I can't believe with all the eyesores we have downtown we couldn't build a park/inspection station that would be appealing --and in close proximity to the bridge.

Where the hell is the leadership, where the hell is imminent domain?

[gale]

I don't live in the Buffalo area but I care about the preservation of these buildings. Whether they are historically designated landmarks or not, it doesn't change the fact that they are a part of Buffalo's history. Once they are gone, it's forever. Proceed with caution in progress.

[Salvatore Abbate]

Message to Tielman: This is not "The Great Pyramid" and neither are those disgusting Grain Mills you love so much. Let's demolish this garbage and move on.

[Client Ten]

"Yet when I looked into the distance, I saw a line of trucks stacked up for entry at the border, and thought: there's money being lost in a long wait."

Who's money is being lost, and why?

At the time of the backup you saw, Jerry, were all inspection booths fully open and staffed?

[Client Ten]

What eveidence is there that increased truck traffic on a new bridge will have much positive economic impact for Buffalo?

Won't most trucks just pass right through Buffalo?

What is Buffalo getting in return for that little neighborhood being torn down?

[Danno]

Both sides are right, but in this case the side for development is "righter".

As far as history goes, we should be thinking of making history right now. This is a great opportunity, let's not dither and miss it! Our factories are gone, and our grain mills stand empty, but we still occupy a strategic corner of geography which we can put to our advantage.

First to go should be Front Park. It's already cut up by roads and seldom used. We're hardly talking about paving paradise here. It would relieve the city/county of a maintenance chore and maybe save some of the homes. Next to go should be the crappy neighborhood south of Porter between Niagara and the 190. Good place for a car plaza to funnel the car traffic downtown. The trucks should go uptown to a plaza on Niagara north of the peace bridge. Most of all: No new bridge!

[S]

I live on the West Side and I want to know what good these historic buildings and parks will do as the neighborhood around them falls into disrepair. Why are these houses so important when on the next block over there are more boarded up houses than there are lived in ones. What good is a park if people are afraid to go to it because of drugs and gangs?

If these people care so much about keeping these houses there and stopping any sort of progress on the West Side, maybe they should look at the bigger picture than an individual parcel of land.

[Don H]

The entire City should be designated a historical treasure and all buildings and structures preserved. In a few years, tourists would flock to Buffalo to view "the little city that couldn't".

[Eileen]

Unfortunately, we are missing the entire point here...this is the City that torn down Millard Fillmore's home and the home where McKinley died (nothing left but a sign). As well as the City that put a highway throught an Olmstead park. I agree that anywhere else in the country this would not be happening. We need to stop somewhere and this may be it. The person who talks about "run down houses" and not mansions, remember how many mansions we lost in the Delaware district before preservations put a "stop" to this and now at least some have been saved. Also, how many of us know about Buffalo's history - how about the Fargo mansion which took up several blocks in this area or the Coit house. We seem to think the only way to make a better Buffalo is by tearing down the past. This hasn't worked so far what makes us think it will work now.

Oh, don't get me wrong I'm all for more trade through Buffalo but can't we find another area, not far from this neighborhood that could use urban renovation. I would think that we could - it we worked hard enough and it would be a WIN-WIN situation. We need remember that it is those things that make Buffalo a unique destination that are as important as bigger bridges and faster highways. People can find that anywhere....

[Lawrence]

This is the kind of "debate" that has driven half the people of Buffalo out of this area, over the last 40 years.

I keep thinking more and more that I should join them.

The sign on the 33 West should actually read "Welcome to NIMBY-Land"

[Buffalo Gal]

Uh, not for nothing, but we're not exactly talking about stately mansions in pristine condition here. I'm all for preservation, but a lot of these houses have fallen into disrepair (to put it kindly) and would need significant remodeling and restoration to be considered historic, IMO. Yes, I think buildings should be saved in some cases, but this isn't one of them. Just because something is old doesn't make it historic.