Cheers greet Cuomo on goal of reviving Humboldt Parkway area
Governor Cuomo came to the Buffalo Museum of Science to announce local spending by the state for the 2016 - 2017 budget. His biggest announcement was a $6M study to cap a portion of the Kensington Expressway, the highway that severed the East Side from downtown and is the primary cause for its dubious economic decline. Urbanists have been calling for this and other highway improvements for some time now.
The project would partially restore a parkway designed by Olmsted, yet the cost of the project could turn out to be as much as $500M. However, if this is successful it could create a $1B economic impact on Buffalo in a neighborhood that is struggling with poverty. In addition, the state is funding a downgrade of the Scajaquada Expressway into a boulevard which will make Delaware Park more unified again. In Niagara Falls the governor is removing a stretch of the Niagara Expressway and investing $4.5M into Niagara Falls State Park further improving the attractiveness on the American side.
