Boulevarnalism

In what has to be one of the worst displays of hyperlocal “journalism” by Buffalo Rising ever, I present Route 5 @ 5. In an attempt to sway the opinion of what we can assume they thought was an audience of bobble-heads, they posted a photo of a moderate amount of traffic coming off the skyway at 5pm last Friday. This photo was supposed to make everyone believe that there are no traffic jams caused by the recently added Ohio Street traffic light in the construction zone. Unfortunately for Buffalo Rising, people with actual cars also can read and responded in droves to the bastardization of the facts. You know, facts like traffic on a Friday during the summer is especially light (anyone who’s ever listened to a traffic reporter, or, you know, driven a car would know this) and that traffic only starts building at 5pm, because that’s when people start getting out of work on a normal day. The writer, Steve Stipanovich, wants so badly to make you believe in the “boulevard alternative” that’s he’s completely willing to warp facts and logic, launching a new brand style of writing – Boulevarnalism.

It’s true I no longer travel Route 5 on a daily basis anymore, but I did have the opportunity a few weeks ago. At 5:15pm it was a parking lot. It’s not a snail race because of the construction, traffic gets backed up onto the 190 because of a single stoplight added at Ohio Street. Now the anti-Skyway zealots said that traffic would simply reroute itself around any slowdowns one a slow boulevard with lots of stoplights was in place, and commuters would simply switch to driving an alternate path. Obviously this hasn’t been the case so far.

Earlier this week we were promised a whole series of articles detailing “current boulevard traffic patterns and reports”. Nobody has ever accused Buffalo Rising of being fair and balanced, but if future articles have anything like the egregious distortions in today’s article, they’d be doing themselves a favor by filing it in the same bin currently holding the Tifft Street Arterial plans.