Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

Here's a fascinating solution to the problem of how to keep freeways from neatly bisecting neighborhoods. The overpass in this case is being constructed to support buildings with shops and sidewalks, so that a pedestrian has the illusion of never crossing the busy highway below. This might be an idea of which Buffalo should take note.

Downtown Buffalo is located very near the shores of Lake Erie, as are the downtowns of many cities. But years ago, Buffalo erected a freeway, Interstate 190, that connects downtown to the New York State Thruway, I-90 (which is known locally as "the mainline 90"). I-190 also leads to the Peace Bridge to Canada, and serves as a route to Niagara Falls. It's an important, and necessary, highway. The problem is that it was built right between downtown and the Lake Erie waterfront, resulting in a disconnection between the city and the waterfront that was once its economic raison d'etre.

Some in Buffalo have suggested a project on the scale of Boston's "Big Dig" to put the 190 underground, thus allowing downtown an unbroken physical connection with the water once again. I doubt very much if there is likely to be money available here for such a project any time in the next, oh, fifteen years, but perhaps this overpass-idea might be a way to go intermediately. It would still be terribly expensive, though, as the downtown section of the 190 already is an overpass, about four miles long; also, someone over on City Comforts speculated that car exhaust might be a problem for the businesses on the overpass. But this is the kind of thinking -- creative and geared toward linking disparate parts together -- that Buffalo needs.