“This past winter, I was chatting with my friend … about the city and the Skyway,” she said. Rachel Schneekloth, a Buffalo public school teacher who serves as administrator of the Skyway Club on Facebook, said her group organized soon after what she discovered was a growing commonality of love for the bridge and opposition for its removal. The topic has become prominent on social media pages, notably on Facebook where two groups – the Skyway Club and also the Buffalo Area Transportation, Industry, Architecture and Defense – have come out in opposition to any plans for removal. It has also led to many residents in Buffalo Niagara questioning the reasoning of both Higgins and Cuomo for removal of the span at this time. She said DOT is looking at the future and alternatives.Ĭalls for removal come off a massive, nearly $30 million Skyway redecking project completed recently by DOT that is projected to extend the span’s service life at least two decades. “Not only waterfront development, but recreational on the waterfront and mixed-use development. “The Skyway has become a physical and visual barrier to waterfront development,” said Susan Surdej, DOT regional public information officer and engineer, in February 2020, as she echoed calls for removal by Higgins and Cuomo. Costs for the connector are still in development, and funding for either project has yet to secured. In turn, a new highway connector starting at New York State Thruway I-190 Exit 3 (Seneca Street) and continuing though South Buffalo neighborhoods to the Tifft Street interchange at Route 5 would replace it.Įstimated cost for removal of the Skyway complex itself is said to be in the range of $600 million to $1.4 billion, according to the DOT. It would call for complete removal of the 1.4-mile Skyway complex. Since early 2020, DOT has been considering a plan to remove approximately 3.5 miles of interchanges, highway approaches and infrastructure on the span extending from Church Street in downtown Buffalo to Tifft Street in the Outer Harbor area. Andrew Cuomo, who has directed the New York State Department of Transportation to undertake an exhaustive scoping study to determine the Skyway’s future. Higgins’ backing has won the support of Gov. He went on to call Buffalo and Western New York, “a case study of this damaging period in urban history.” “In the Biden-Harris administration we will make righting these wrongs an imperative,” Higgins wrote. He argued the span has become obsolete, has critical infrastructure and safety issues, and is impeding development of the Buffalo waterfront. Department of Transportation Secretary Peter Buttigieg on this issue. Higgins also included his call for removal of the Skyway in correspondence to U.S. Included in his remarks were calls on the federal level to address the major arterials in Buffalo – namely the Kensington (Route 33) and Scajaquada (Route 198) expressways. “It hurt city neighborhoods and destroyed a lot of quality of life.” “A decade of expressway building in the nation in the 1950s, including Buffalo, fed that era’s obsession with automobiles,” Higgins said in recent congressional testimony in support of Buffalo projects as the Biden-Harris administration considers a massive federal infrastructure bill. Rep Brian Higgins, whose 26th Congressional District includes the Skyway, has been a leading voice in calling for its demolition. It serves approximately 46,000 vehicles daily, including an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 trucks and commercial vehicles.ĭespite its heavy use, a push continues to take down the span in order to allow for new and continued development on the waterfront and outer harbor areas. Today, the Skyway remains in service as a primary transportation link from downtown Buffalo to the south towns. The span first opened in the early 1950s to serve the transit needs of a then-growing metro region plus numerous waterfront interests, including a large steel industry, related coke manufacturing, forge plants, flour-milling operations and ship-building/maritime facilities. As the New York State Department of Transportation continues its extensive review on the future of this heavily used waterfront span with a push for demolition, the debate in Buffalo-Niagara continues.
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