Bury The Big Mistake Here, Too . . .

From "Artvoice" comes Bury This Big Mistake -- A story about Buffalo's Kensington Expressway, its past, and possible future.

The $45 million Kensington Expressway tore up Frederick Law Olmsted’s tree-lined Humboldt Parkway, claimed hundreds of homes in previously stable neighborhoods, ripped a trench in the ground that emphasized the city’s racial division, and diverted automobile traffic from the East Side’s once-thriving business strips to a limited-access expressway that shuttles commuters from downtown Buffalo to the northern suburbs in about 10 minutes on a clear day.

In other words: Making the city a backyard to its suburbs. Depressing property values. Starving small businesses on Jefferson and Fillmore of customers and abetting the evisceration of those business districts. Subjecting two generations of residents surrounding the expressway to air and noise pollution.

This could be Downtown and West Utica, with the expressway being the E-W and N-S Arterials. Downtown and W Utica were each divided in two, with scores of businesses eliminated along Oriskany St. E & W, traffic removed from Whitesboro Street (which was chopped into separate pieces) and Lincoln Avenue, and residents in W Utica being brought air and noise pollution.

In Buffalo, the state is now considering options of capping the expressway (i.e., running it underground) and restoring an approximation of the old parkway on top . . . Local officials, however have something else in mind . . . something much cheaper, but, perhaps better for the City of Buffalo.

Last August, Mayor Byron Brown introduced a new design option that has attracted considerable interest among local transit activists: burying the entire thing, from Oak Street to Delavan, and replacing the high-speed, limited-access expressway with a low-speed, at-grade boulevard, fully integrating the traffic it carries with the urban street grid. Coupled with the long-debated plan to slow down the Scajaquada Expressway and convert it to a walkable, bikable boulevard, Brown’s recommendation presents the city an opportunity to restore vital elements of the city’s Olmsted patronage, and to join the 21st century in regard to urban transit planning.

Read the article about Buffalo, but think about Utica . . .

Milwaukee dismantled some of its mid-century highway system. A few years ago, Toronto tore down the eastern section of the Gardiner Expressway. Seoul, South Korea removed one of its busiest expressways, carrying 100,000 cars per day, spurring private investment in the real estate along the boulevard that replaced it. The Champs d’Elysees in Paris carries 80,000 cars per day. The New Millennium Group’s brief (available at www.nmgonline.org) refers to Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn, an urban boulevard with an Olmsted pedigree that carries 70,000 cars daily, just as the Kensington does. There is plenty of evidence to be found in other cities that urban boulevards offer more than adequate traffic capacity, while conferring economic, aesthetic, and health benefits to the surrounding community.

These are the kinds of things Utica needs to be thinking about . . . Reconnecting Whitesboro Street to Main, to Varick and to itself. . . Restoring Oriskany Circle (which was near the Aud) . . . Converting the N-S arterial into a boulevard enabling its incorporation into the urban street grid and seamlessly integrating the Brewery and the Arts Districts, creating a walkable neighborhood from Oneida Square to Sculpture Space.

The best future for Utica could be a perfected version of its past.