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Buffalo spends $10 million to renovate Allen Street

Posted at 6:32 PM, Apr 17, 2018
and last updated 2018-04-17 19:22:14-04

Driving on Allen Street in Downtown Buffalo can be a headache. 

So much going on, from delivery trucks blocking traffic to parking. Ahamd Saleh owns Caffèology near University at Buffalo Medical School, on Allen. He said the parking meters near intersections cause traffic backups. 

“We’re surprised that accidents don’t happen here, because every single day 20 to 30 cars are honking at each other, about to hit each other,” Saleh said. 

Buffalo Common Councilman David Franzyk said Buffalo is addressing those issues. The city is spending $10 million over the next year renovating the entire Allen. Most of the money is from Federal Highway dollars the city received for the new UB Medical School in Downtown. 

Block by block crews will widen the street, redesign parking, build pedestrian friendly sidewalks/bike path, and place new street lights, benches, and bike racks along the busy street. 

The work will start here in front of UB’s new medical school and go all the way to Wadsworth. The work will be broken into two phases over the next two summers. 

Saleh worries construction work will halt business at his coffee shop. He said summer is his busiest time and that’s when the first phase of the project is set to start. 

“We’re thinking about signing up with Skip The Dishes or something in case people can’t get through the construction we can definitely have somebody come pick up the order and take it over there,” 

Franzyk tells me city engineers are working with the neighborhood to make sure this project goes by quickly without a hitch. 

Crews are set to begin on the first phase of Allen Street between main and Delaware late this summer. The goal is to be finished by the end of fall. The next phase will start sometime in 2019. The first phase will cost around $6.5 million. 

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