BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — You can park your car and ride the light rail for just $2 to get from North Buffalo to Downtown Buffalo. A cheaper way to get from point A to point B.
"You can save a lot of money, riding the metro," said Donald Glenn and Veronika McDowell. "We ride it every day."
They live on Niagara Falls Boulevard, park at University Station and ride down for lunch, events and more.
Right now there are 14 stops, from the Outer Harbor to UB South Campus, but this couple wants to see more.
"I want it to go everywhere in Buffalo. Everywhere, you know. Why not?," said Glenn.
The expansion plan
The plan to expand the NFTA's Metro Light rail has been in the works since 1979, but money ran out, so since then it's been a proposal.
"The demand is even greater than it was in the 1960s, UB's population has exploded," said Jeffery Amplement, Planning Project Manager for the NFTA.
The plan is to add 16 stops, for a grand total of 25. The new route would stay above ground, going down Niagara Falls Boulevard, Maple Road, Sweet Home Road, through UB North and up to the 990.
"That would be good definitely. Buffalo does need a lot of expanding, why not? Why not start somewhere with an expansion. Buffalo needs a good push definitely," said Glenn.
Let's look at the numbers:
- Cost: Projected at $1.2 billion, but could go up
- Time to build: 4-5 years
- Current metro ridership: 2,478,181 in 2022
- Target construction start date: End of the decade
We know there are a lot of opinions around this, so we wanted to hear from voices on both sides of the issue, so you have all the information you need.
Against expansion
You've probably seen these signs along Niagara Falls Boulevard. Which is already a very busy stretch of road, people who live nearby are worried it would be ruined by this expansion.
"It just wouldn't be the same community. The same people that we have grown with for the past 25 years, it's sad. So that was the idea behind the stop the metro campaign, to give a voice to these people who are concerned. Seriously concerned," said Mike Nigrin.
Nigrin goes door to door in Amherst and Tonawanda communities with flyers and lawn signs for his "Stop the Metro" campaign, which has more than 1,300 signatures online.
He says this is not a "not in my backyard" rally cry, instead a fear that this plan has four main issues:
- Lack of awareness
- Accessibility
- Cost
- Impact to local businesses
"We talked to a lot of people who provide service for the area. Firefighters, garbage collection, police, ambulance, all of that would be restricted," said Nigrin.
He tells 7 News he's not against improved transit, his alternative is to go with a rapid bus system, using road space we already have dedicated to buses.
"And save the taxpayers billions," said Rick Goldberg, is co-organizer.
Local business owners are worried that years of construction will cut them off from their customers. Quite literally for Sweeney's Garage.
"It'll be difficult for us that's for sure. We depend on traffic because we fix cars here," said Phil Basinski, Owner since the late 1980's.
He fears this would repeat history from the first build in the 1960s/1970s.
"It destroyed every business downtown and until they restored traffic to Main Street, those businesses continued to die, why are they trying to repeat the same mistakes they made there," said Basinski.
He also hopes transit improves in our area, but says the Boulevard is not the place to do it. He has this sign up out front.
"If they're gonna saddle the taxpayers with a long term maintenance cost of a boondogle like this they better be damn sure people are gonna use it," said Basinski.
For expansion
James Gordon is sure people will use the expanded light rail.
"We have, right here, the gold standard of transit," said Gordon.
He says it's more environmentally friendly, can carry more people and is more efficient for people to get around.
We asked him, why not the bus? He pointed to the issues the NFTA has had with long waits and attracting drivers.
"You can have all the buses you want, but there's nobody around to drive them," said Gordon.
We asked him who is best served by this expansion, he says the 30% of Buffalonians who don't have cars and UB students who want to get back and forth easily are both currently being underserved.
We asked him if there's a way everyone can be happy here.
"Yes. Our organization is in our listening mode right now. We know we want it to go, but we want it to go the best way, we certainly don't want to inconvenience people if it's not necessary," said Gordon.
Jeffery Amplement is the conductor of this huge project and says he's listening to the concerns.
"If there's a crack along the line, the whole public says we don't want this, we'll go do something else," said Amplement.
But he backs this plan and thinks it's best for Buffalo and WNY and could help us grow.
"Younger generations don't want to drive a car, they want to live close to high quality public transit, this represents an opportunity to attract those individuals. I tink it'll go a long way to alleviate some of the issues in that corridor like traffic and congestion," said Amplement.
There's now a "Let's Grow Metro" campaign advocating for the change.
Here's the current timeline:
What's next?
The environmental review will take at least another year, then the design process and potential shovels in the ground before the decade is out.
But the plan is nowhere near finalized.
"We've never been closer than we are right now to having this happen, but we've got a lot of work to do still, I wanted to explain these people have a lot of opportunity to still influence this," said Amplement. "Nothing is being shoved down their throat, this is not the NFTA's project, this is a community project."
And you still have time to speak up.
Click here for info from the NFTA, click here to comment on the plan.
Click here for the Stop the Metro Petition page.
