The council, acronym GBNRTC, released an in-depth study of traffic and mobility in the corridor area, which it calls Region Central. The “Mobility Experiential Guide,” released in October, relied on varied sources of information, including smartphone location data.
Among the report’s findings was that vehicle volume in the area, on the expressway and other main roads, has since 2016 fallen to its lowest level in two decades. That coincides with the lowering of the speed limit on the Scajaquada from 50 mph to 30 mph, after a 3-year-old boy was killed on Delaware Park’s Ring Road in 2015.
We have noted before that the 30 mph speed limit was an overcorrection that has caused bottlenecks on the expressway. When motorists take alternate routes, increased traffic on other streets creates a headache for residents there.
The Scajaquada Corridor Coalition has influential supporters behind it, including leadership of the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy, which cites the damage done to Delaware Park when it was split by the expressway. The conservancy would like part of the roadway to pass through a tunnel so that visitors could walk from the park’s meadow to the lake, an improvement on the pedestrian overpass that now links them.
Both the Scajaquada and Kensington expressways caused disruption and dislocation in our city. As we have noted before, trying to undo those decisions made six decades ago may not be the best use of federal aid dollars.