The Campaign for Greater Buffalo has proposed an alternative solution for the Skyway renovation: the Buffalo Cloudwalk. The design includes the partial deconstruction of the damaging aspects of the Skyway (the 3,300-foot viaduct north of the Buffalo River and its massive Thruway interchange) while leaving the remainder erect.
What started as a good idea by Governor Cuomo in 2018—how to undo the urban damage inflicted on Buffalo by an obsolete state highway —has morphed into a $600,000,000 Trojan Horse.
The remaining Cloudwalk would connect the inner and outer harbors for those walking, pedaling, or using a wheelchair, and have an observation deck to take in the 50-mile view across Lake Erie and the cityscape.
“It is inexplicable from a transportation perspective that the primary goal of the DOT project is not transportation, but to ‘disappear’ all parts of the Skyway,” says Tim Tielman, Executive Director of The Campaign. “While there may be reasons to abandon it for vehiclular use, there is no argument to remove all the urbanistically useful parts of it along with the urbanistically damaging parts of it.”
Additional information on the proposed reuse can be found here.
