Rep. Higgins leads Buffalo Waterfront Renewal, While Niagara Falls Asks, “When is it Our Turn?”

Brian Higgins holds press conference on north Moses Parkway removal with Mamie Simonson. Mrs. Simonson's house was demolished fifty years ago to make way for the accursed road.

 

Cautious optimism was the watchword two and a half years ago when Congressman Brian Higgins set up shop in the city of Niagara Falls, having easily won the newly-formed 26th district, which also comprises most of Buffalo and North Tonawanda.

Higgins took over from the venerable Louise Slaughter, who had represented the city since 2002. Slaughter's enduring legacy includes saving the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station, passing legislation that established the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area and winning $14 million for improvements to the Niagara Falls International Airport. She also obtained millions for street repaving here.

However, it would take Higgins, Slaughter and most of the Legion of Superheroes decades to undo the damage visited on the city by Congressman John LaFalce. For 28 long years, LaFalce presided over the gut-wrenching economic decline of the city of Niagara Falls. A lawyer by training, late in his career LaFalce took a shine to finance and got himself appointed ranking Democrat on the Financial Services

Committee in time to push through Bill Clinton's deregulation of Wall Street and the banking industry.

So five full years after he thankfully exited the scene in 2002, John LaFalce once again managed to sucker punch the city, this time by having lit the fuse on the ticking time bomb of the great 2007-2009 recession.

One lesson that may be learned from this distressing history is that if competence in government is desired, our best bet is to look for it outside of the local gene pool. There's something about the cynical, parochial politics of Niagara Falls and Niagara County that precludes great leaders from springing up here. Higgins and Slaughter, as imports, turned out to be not so bad.

As everyone knows, Congressman Brian Higgins has performed miracles on the Buffalo waterfront. The transformation of the Inner and Outer Harbors, improvements at the Harbor Marina and the Times Beach Nature Preserve and along the Buffalo River, all are due to the tireless advocacy, hard work, organization and funding provided by Higgins and his office. He obtained hundreds of millions of NYPA relicensing

dollars for Buffalo projects, and before the ink was dry on the agreement, demanded an additional $2 million in Greenway funds annually for Buffalo waterfront, and got it.

How important is this to Western New York's future? With record droughts in California, midwest aquifers running dry and Florida's water table fouled by seawater, our local water resources and waterfront will play an inestimable role in the nation's future. Higgins' efforts in Buffalo will pay off, but what about here in Niagara Falls?

"To get this thing started, to get the renewal, to get the energy that is needed in Niagara Falls, you’ve got to reclaim the waterfront for the people of this great, great city, and that’s what this does today," Higgins said at the November, 2014 ceremonial ground-breaking for the south Robert Moses Parkway reconstruction, as reported in the Buffalo News.

However, the newly-rebuilt south Moses Parkway, with its expanded footprint and useless traffic circle will, contrary to his assertion, do little to "reclaim the waterfront". Congressman Higgins was probably nudging closer to the truth in using the word "renewal". As in, the disastrous "urban renewal" that destroyed downtown Niagara Falls back in the day.

With regards to the north section of the Parkway, six miles of ugly, redundant roadway that cuts communities off from the Niagara Gorge, the purpose of which is to provide a short cut into the city for Lewiston commuters, Higgins has been unequivocal in both word and deed.

"Removal of the parkway is a critical step in giving the city the waterfront it deserves and unleashing the limitless economic potential that comes with it," Higgins stated at a January, 2014 press conference announcing a $2 million NYPA grant to get the ball rolling on the long-awaited project, "The New York Power Authority did the right thing, and the future of Niagara Falls will be better because of it."

Unfortunately, "Phase 1" of North Moses Parkway removal, only up to Findlay Drive instead of the city line, falls short of expectations in terms of both vision and impact. The "limitless economic potential" predicted by the Congressman will actually be quite limited, especially considering that it will cost much more to remove the Parkway in piecemeal fashion.

Further, the "Niagara Gorge Corridor Project" won't commence until late 2017, over two years from now, if it happens at all. James Glynn, owner of Maid of the Mist, cleared regulatory hurdles and built his boatyard in a matter of months, while state agencies and local politicians have dragged out Parkway public scoping and planning for 20 years.