I see no reason
I knew it wouldn’t be long before Gabe posted something over at ReUrbanize Buffalo that would annoy me, but I figured I had until the first snowfall before the Skyway would be on my radar screen again. I was wrong.
Gabe found an article from Reason.org that in it’s efforts to show the value of another elevated highway, the Gardiner Expressway, mentioned that it was more useful that the Buffalo Skyway.
In Buffalo, Milwaukee’s Park East example is being cited in moves to replace the Buffalo Skyway (NY5) an elevated spur off I-190 near the downtown. It goes high over the Buffalo River from the days when that river carried real shipping. The high bridge is no longer needed. Nor is the expressway itself. It goes about 3 miles down the lakefront to Lackawanna—a once-great steel and automobile manufacturing center but now a rustbelt ghost town with a mere 18k population.
Buffalo, like Milwaukee, is a metro area with a chronically stagnant and slightly declining population, and no prospect for increased traffic. The Skyway’s high level bridge over the Buffalo River is no longer needed because of the disappearance of shipping. And the expressway goes nowhere.
The high bridge isn’t needed for mass amounts of commercial shipping, but it is still used for SOME commercial shipping and recreational boats that would not otherwise clear an at-grade parkway/bridge. Further, the Skyway and Route 5’s value is not in connecting to Lackawanna, it’s in connecting to all of southern Erie County. Elsewhere in that article, they claim that Milwaukee’s Park East carried only 22,000 vehicles per day. The Skyway handles nearly four times that. And let’s not forget that demolition of the Park East was supposed to bring tons of new development to Milwaukee that has yet to appear.
Anyways, Gabe says…
The only people who really benifit from the continued existence of the skyway are those folks who commute from a home in the southtowns to jobs in Niagara Falls, Grand Island, and the Tonawandas. Or vice versa. So the question arises…
Should downtown’s waterfront be continuously fucked so a small handful of suburbanites can retain their quick suburb-suburb commutes?
Oh, darn those pesky facts. As I said before, About 70% of the inbound Skyway traffic exits onto either the north or south I-190, and the remaining 30% continues onto Delaware through the city. Of course, we can assume that of that 70% that doesn’t go directly into downtown, a large percentage of them get off any any of the 14 exits that lead off the 190 into other parts of the city.
The logic never makes any sense to me. Elevated highways are bad for walkable urban design, but big parkways are good. Funny, it always seemed to me that it would be easier to walk under this…
… than through this…
Incidentally, that intersection in Boston can’t be crossed on foot. What happens when a parkway becomes too dangerous for pedestrians? They build a bridge over it.
“I knew it wouldn’t be long before Gabe posted something over at ReUrbanize Buffalo that would annoy me”
WELL! If you’re gonna go into it with THAT kind of attitude… 🙂
Gabe’s good people.
Gabe and I have very differing opinions on things. One of my first posts here was in response to something he posting on BR, and ironically, a topic which has been the topic of conversation again this week.
I’ve never met Gabe himself, so I can’t dislike him. I can dislike his ideas, though.
ohhhh Derek…. you always seem to flare up when someone makes a rational post on how much a useless hulk of shit the skyway really is.
Well…maybe not to you. I’m assuming your “annoyance” to this issue stems from pure self interest.
Self interest stemming from your daily use of this road to commute from one blandburb (home) to another blandburb (work).
Why should land in my city’s downtown be sacrificed to make quick, easy suburb-suburb commutes for folks who probably won’t ever spend much time or money in the city?
I can picture you speeding your “pimped-out” eclipse over the skyway, blissfully oblivious (and probably blasting shitty music) of the effect this underused road (and its subsequent space-consuming ramps) has on the urban fabric of Buffalo’s downtown core.
But, you’ve stated you don’t like cities and don’t really give a shit about urbanism. So it all doesn’t matter. I guess it will suck for you when they finally tear this monstrosity down. You’ll have to either find another route to work, or better yet endure some traffic lights, forcing you to get your ass out the door 10 minutes earlier every morning.
Oh, and that little photohunt at the foot of your post is rather misleading. What is the city in that second photo? Looks like it has a booming economy and therefore traffic congestion problems that would result from this. Apples and Oranges, dude….
OK, enough of these fun insults, and onto your lame retorts:
A. The paltry remainder of Buffalo’s commercial shipping can be mitigated by a surface road feeding into a lift bridge. Ever been to Chicago? They’re everywhere downtown.
B. What amount of Milwaukee devlopment that has or has not occured AFTER THE FACT is completely IRRELEVANT to fact that the lack of traffic justified the removal of this unnecessary road.
C. As you point out Only 30% of the skyway’s (not so cumbersome) traffic spills out onto the main downtown exit, Delaware Ave. The rest of the traffic hooks up onto the 190. Besides one or two other downtown exits, the other CITY exits are all in highly-residential areas, non-probably destinations for morning southtown commuters (except buffstate perhaps). At any rate, people will find other ways to go, or endure a slightly longer commute (no the sky won’t fall…except yours maybe.)
D. I never said anything about a “big parkway” replacing the skyway.
Derek, how many people do you know who have actually walked under the Skyway?
Or are you talking about walking under it AFTER the waterfront is developed? Like that is going to happen anytime soon.
Gabe, lame insults just dilute the credibility of your arguments. Don’t make yourself look like a child.
Maybe I should use your argument to strengthen my point. It’s “your” city, but obviously you don’t use the Skyway, therefore you should have no say in it’s future. Only people that actually use it get a vote. (Stupid concept, right?) Of course I have an (self) interest in the Skyway. I actually use it every day. Therefore, I think I’m in a pretty good position to describe it’s usefulness.
That “photohunt” is actually my photo from Boston. I know you’d like to discredit me for being a “suburbanite” but I was once a city dweller, too. Yes, Boston’s economy is slightly better than Buffalo’s. Why do you assume that we’ll never have a good economy again? All this supposed waterfront development, even if it doesn’t impact the economy on a large scale, will still greatly increase the traffic along that corridor, no?
A. Lift bridges are so often mentioned as the great replacement to the Skyway, but why will nobody address what their true costs are? I’d love to know how much it costs to maintain them, how frequently they need to be overhauled and out of service, how much it costs to staff them, etc. Anti-skyway advocates are quick to say how much it costs to paint it, but never provide the alternative figures.
B. The lack of Milwaukee development is not irrelevant, as increased development after it’s removal was the key driver that Norquist used to push for the project. It’s been mentioned in Buffalo too. The FACTS are that the Skyway has far more traffic than the Park East had, and that project has yet to produce it’s promised development.
C. While I don’t have actual statistics, I can say that a lot of the traffic that takes the inbound skyway to the 190 N (the route I travel) get off at the exits before Sheridan Drive, so they’re going somewhere in the city. You can wish that it was differently, but I’m telling you from experience.
D. Downgrading route 5 to a parkway and using lift bridges over the water is the commonly mentioned alternative. I didn’t attribute that quote to you directly.
RandomThoughts101 – I’m not speaking about current foot traffic. Only that my idea of what’s pedestrian-friendly would be to keep the pedestrians and the cars separate. Since Chicago was mentioned, google “chicago pedestrian accidents”. The result? Four pages of pedestrian injury lawyers.
One small correction….I see that second photo is in Boston. (I was a bit drunk last night typing up that passioned response). BWI isn’t always the smartest thing…
Again…apples and oranges. Boston has traffic problems unimaginable to the average Buffalonian. That road is clogged because it’s in Boston, NOT because of its inherent neature of being a surface road.
Under your logic we should double-deck Main St. in Williamsville, or perhaps Transit rd., because such roads get too clogged with cars at peak hours for pedestrians to safetly cross.
Context man, context…
(note repost As this is the most current comments on this topic I thought I’d post em here 2)
Why? ummm you can’t really build condos/retail or anything under a freeway, and almost nobody builds anything but parking lots next to it, the why was the physical land was being wasted. The land in Milwaukee hasn’t been “turned†over to private development, both the city and the county have been reviewing RFPs and then selecting the projects they wish to sell to developers.
Things on the PE have not sprung up overnight but development takes time. This summer 3 projects break groud (one last week) in the PE area and there are numerous developer plans on the table (I’ve seen them), that could never of even been contemplated because of the highway before. The PE simply cut Milwaukee in half and created a large blighted area. Hell if they could drop I-794 as well it would be even better.
The pictures you show to replace the highway are misleading, what was built in Milwaukee was simply a boulevard and its quite walkable. PS walk under a raised highway at night, it doesn’t seem that friendly at all.