Let's try not to screw this up by directing the downtown traffic to surface streets and closing our highways. I know that many of you don't care about the people who live in the suburbs, but they are the lifeblood of downtown, so let's not let our myopic dreams of an interstate and car free society take away one of our key differentiators.

I believe that everyone should spend a couple of weeks driving in one of the top 10 cities, like Atlanta, Houston, LA or DC just to see how good we have it here. One of the issues with Buffalonians is that many of us never leave the area and base our perceptions on very limited experiences.

low density, sprawled out region + extensive highway system + shrinking regional population= #1 commute in america!!!!

^^^..sprawl breeds traffic, it doesn't help manage it. The rest of your complaints may be valid, but that is simply nonsensical

Queenseyes, this is indeed a big selling point for Buffalo Homecoming and all Queen City boosters - and also for de-conversion of urban grade-separated highways like Rt. 5, the Squajaquada, and the Kensington. It frankly helps deflate the case of those who claim that the Boulevard plan - unanimously favored by Common Council and the Boulevard Coalition - won't handle the congestion. What congestion--?

Buffalo boosters, planners, and public officials alike should salivate at the prospect of creating perhaps North America's only city that would not be scarred, cut up, and cut off by grade-separated urban superhighways - that is, by converting them to surface boulevards or restoring them to the precious parkways some of them once were - while still enjoying one of the easiest commutes in the nation. Under that scenario, it would be not only one of the easiest commutes, but also one of the loveliest.

Einstein,

When was the last time you purchased groceries in the city? When was the last time you took public transportation in the city? The last time you had dinner and a movie with the kids in the city? Paid a tax in the city?

I am sure that suburbanites consider themselves "boosters" when they take in an occasional Sabre game and a beer and a burger after that or have lunch at work in the city. But the fact remains, Buffalo is a segregated community. White flight of the 1950's-1970's and a highway system that catered to that coupled with a legislature who was trying to build a suburban utopia (some making very suspect land deals in the suburbs; UB, Rich Stadium, etc).

Lifeblood? From Amherst or Williamsville? I do not think in the city of Buffalo. Lifeblood to Wal-Mart, Costco, strip malls and gallerias that pepper their Utopia... Indeed. Sadly our schools and kids are the ones that suffer the most from the segregation.

Speaking of commutes, may I make a shameless plug (or plea)--? I've been using transit in My Fair City for several years, as a lifestyle choice. When visiting or occasionally doing projects in Your Fair City, I simply add an intercity bus or rail leg to my trip - it can make for a long day, but it works fairly well. But I recently landed a longer term gig in Buffalo, and while I hope to move when the time and circumstances are right, for the moment the daily commute is getting to be a bit of an ordeal. If anyone knows someone who commutes (drives) regularly from Rochester to Buffalo (or the north towns) who might like - in this era of rising gas prices and thruway tolls - someone to share costs, feel free to drop a note to my BRO message box. Thank you!

RaChaCha perhaps you can look to GoodGoingWNY carpooling site to find a partner. i know there are many people who drive in practically daily from Rochester to UB. So I am sure there is someone out there whom you might be able to connect with.

When you say city, I am taking that as within the City limits, so to answer your question: 1) Public transportation does not go from my neighborhood in North Buffalo to my job; however I do take public transportation at least 2 - 3 times a week when I meet with clients downtown or give platelets at Roswell. 2) I eat dinner in the city almost every night, and I can't tell you the last movie I saw in the City. I believe the last movie I saw was at the IMAX on Transit Road. 3) I pay more than enough taxes to the City to warrant the complaints that I have for the services that I receive.

The majority of people that I work with, do business with, speak with, or know live in the suburbs. More than 60% of them work somewhere within the city limits, the other 40 odd percent have either worked in the city at some time, or had their jobs relocated from the city to the suburbs (National Fuel is one example of this). If you look at the statistics, in a region of roughly 1.5M residents, only 300,000 live in the city limits, and of those living inside the city limits, nearly 1/3rd are living under or within 5% of the poverty limit. Given the size of the workforce is in the city, it is safe to assume that people from the suburbs are making up a large percentage of the downtown workforce.

Without suburbanites and city residents who commute to downtown, what do you have? Buffalo relies on the suburbs for workers, could they live in the city, absolutely. Should they? Well that is up to personal choice and preference. I am writing this from a friend's house in Clarence, who moved from the city two years ago to send their daughters to the Williamsville Schools. I can't fault them for their relocation, it was the best thing for them to do at the time. He commutes from Clarence to M&T every morning, while she commutes from Clarence to HealthNow 3 days a week. They were much happier downtown, but unfortunately for us, the city was not able to meet their basic needs so they moved to a place that could.

Actually, given current climate trends it is probably better to keep cars moving on the highway then idling at surface street stop lights. Keep in mind that there is more to the city than crime and subpar schools, and there is more to the suburbs than strip malls. If you want to use Transit Road or Niagara Falls Blvd as the stereotype for all things suburban, then don't be offended when people use Fillmore Ave or Jefferson to characterize all things Buffalo.

For the record, I am a big fan of urban development over suburban sprawl, and I am also a big fan of mass transit and either biking or walking whenever possible. This is one of the reasons I like my neighborhood and enjoy living in the city. I put less than 5,000 miles a year on my car, and most of that is put on during one of my three regular road trips. Please don't judge me just because I posted something that goes against your opinion, base your objection on my comments not your perceptions of the type of person who would make such a comment. Your prejudice has jaded your perspective, you might want to keep that in check.

We are only low on the commute chain because of our regionally shrinking population with a highway infrastructure made for a larger population. While beneficial (for those who drive) it has basically undercut any spending for biking or public transportation improvements because our lack of congestion.

Also our lack of congestion has fueled our exurbs to sprawl even more without the feel of consequence. How many new buildings are being built right now in Clarence, Lancaster, Orchard Park (town) or Wheatfield. I would bet hundreds. In a region with fewer people these homes rely on the fact that there isn't any traffic to make living there and the commute to everywhere tolerable. If we ever can hope to reign in our sprawl congestion is the only thing besides a regional planning body and a growth boundary that seems to have any effect is commute time. But then again by the time we hit personal limits on commuting Buffalo's exurbs would reach Rochester and probably beyond.

What we need to focus on now is improving public transportation and commute options because if we don't and our region starts to grow in the status quo like it has. I can guarantee that you will watch the highways fill and become unusable very fast.

Look at how worse congestion and traffic have gotten in the past 3-5 years. with a population in decline. More and more people are spread out over the region causing more and more congestion. God forbid we grow the traffic would overtake the highway infrastructure in no time flat. ]

Keeping our commute time low is now about smart growth and transit options. Without them you can watch Buffalo slide down that list in the years to come.

sbrof, Good Going - I checked it out, signed up, and already got a potential match - thank you! Your comment also gives me the idea of contacting UB - transportation office, perhaps - to see if they maintain a list of potential carpoolers looking for matches. BTW, I also like your more recent comment on Buffalo's exurbs - I sometimes tell people I'm from Buffalo's easternmost suburb...

What would you rather have, traffic and low property tax or no traffic and very high tax?

I would rather have traffic and pay low property taxes. Friends in Atlanta have beautiful homes with very low taxes. Life is about having a nice place to live.

Declining population + declining tax base = no traffic

Politicians don't get it around here. The largest obstacle to growth in WNY ......... high taxes.

You can get a monster house in Atlanta for 280k and 2k/year in taxes.

If Buffalo had a metropolitan area the size of New York City, NY or Washington D then Rochester would be part of the suburbs because Rochester is only 70 miles from Buffalo, while some of the DC suburbs are more than 90 miles away. Same with NYC and Poughkeepsie, NY (85 miles) or Danbury, CT (70 miles).

You people don't know how good we got it here. You also have no right to bitch about people taking the 10 mile commute from Williamsville to Buffalo, they live there because Williamsville is better than Buffalo. Hands down - no question.

So you want the suburbs to be what Buffalo is now because you want Buffalo to be what the suburbs is now. Good plan people, good plan.

Williamsville is certainly not better than Buffalo 'hands down' they each have different things to offer which work for some people and not others. I have a friend that lives in North Buffalo is a very nice home because the taxes were much lower than Williamsville but there are others that move for the school systems. Each to their own but neither is 'hands down' better than the other.

I have no patience for either end of the urban vs. suburban debate. Einstein put it perfectly - there is more to either side than Transit Road and Fillmore Avenue.

Arbitrary "distinctions" between neighborhoods divide and hold back WNY as much as high taxes. There is no high moral ground to claim for living in the city, or living in a suburb. You live downtown, ride a bike to work, and eat lunch on Elmwood every day? Great for you - I hope you enjoy the lifestyle you've picked. The carbon footprint you save on your bike is dwarfed by your huge heating bill each winter as the energy leaks out of your architecturally correct but wasteful 100 year old windows. You live in Williamsville, drive to work downtown, and get take out from Tim Horton's? Sounds good too. I hope you appreciate the same commute in Vegas would take 90 minutes and cost $15 a trip in your SUV. Nobody's perfect - I'm a little sick of the vicious judgement on both sides.

You can't make a suburb without an urb. Surrounding suburbs of Buffalo need a vital core at its center to thrive. The city is not saturated with uzi wielding hooligans (thanks Irv). At the same time, no successful growing city in America is a dense downtown core with no residential suburb surrounding it. Some people want space, and pay for it. That doesn't make them bad people or a threat to your bohemian downtown existence.

Give it a rest. Both sides need eachother. Let's take all the the energy wasted in downtown vs suburb battles and invest in some businesses, create a few jobs, and start growing again.

I think one point which needs to be pointed out. The reason Forbes put us on the list at number for best commute time is because of the Metro Rail line.

Now we just need to spend billions more to expand it to parts like Warsaw and Batavia so more people will take it and we will sustain our supremacy for years to come.

In all seriousness, is it safe to assume the Metro Rail was the biggest and costliest infrastructure mistake of our lifetime.

"is it safe to assume the Metro Rail was the biggest and costliest infrastructure mistake of our lifetime." hardly a mistake the system has upwards of 20,000 trips taken on it daily. Many of which are to and from downtown for the work commute. What would 10,000 (gross estimate) more cars do to the parking and highway system into and out of downtown each day.

Far from a mistake but as you said is probably one of the reasons we have been able to maintain low commute times in an increasingly sprawled and wasteful region.

gaustad -- I lived in Orlando (#4 on worst congestion list) and now back in Buffalo. Florida has no state income tax and sales tax of 6%. Gas tends to be about 20cents cheaper/gallon. Property tax is about half what it is here if not less. To answer your question I prefer living here. It gets old QUICK when it takes 45 minutes to get anywhere and 20 minutes to get a couple blocks away. I don't mind paying my part to help society. People in Florida don't and it shows.

Tiburon, there is definitley a trade off. In a sense, we pay an expensive premium to live hassle free here.

If you want to own an average house, taxes are doable. If you want to build/purchase a house with any kind of amenities you will be paying close to 1000k/month in property taxes which you will never see again.

I agree with what you are saying, but that 1000/month is a huge nut to swallow, for anyone. My point is, if Erie county could drop taxes by even a third....it would be well worth it for everyone.

Sbof. More like 18k., but while quibble. Let’s look at the aggregate ridership over time.

Year Ridership 1996 7,135,746 1997 6,918,812 1998 7,213,821 1999 6,335,643 2000 6,568,165 2001 6,355,955 2002 5,797,407 2003 5,857,687 2004 5,478,002 2005 5,373,321 2006 5,631,864

Looking at 1996 and 2006, a ten year decline in ridership to the tune of 1,503,882, or 21%. The economic argument is also clearly one-side against a useful expenditure of public dollars. It cost hundreds of millions of dollars to complete. In 2006, $32.8 million was allocated for upkeep. NFTA’s five year capital plan is projected at $130,338,841. ¾ of NFTA riders go via bus. Big money and bigger waste of money

I am with Einstein's interpretations. One and a half million in the Region. The trolley car brought an end to the insular city.

Buffalo at it's finest - 42nd annual Snow Symposium

RaChaCha ---- Rochester has a plug on Forbes also!! In Depth: Best And Worst Commutes In Small Cities Best: No. 5: Rochester, N.Y. Rochester's 10 hours of annual delays on the roads is the lowest of the nation's 75 largest cities. It loses points because virtually no one walks, carpools or uses public transportation; this makes residents more vulnerable to price swings in the oil market. The 12.6% efficiency rating is 12th worst in the country. Link = In Depth: Best And Worst Commutes In Small Cities Best: No. 5: Rochester, N.Y.

It is a trade off. One of the things I love most about Buffalo is the ease with which I can get anywhere. When I come back each year, I drive around just to drive around and visit old and ne sites. I currently live 90 miles east of LA and can honestly say that I have not been there in four years. Nothing there is important enough to make me endure the traffic.

Taxes are another trade off. If you own a home worth $1,000,000, you pay $850/ mo. in taxes. But, the average home is $500,000. That will get a 2BDRM, I bath. Trade offs.