Posted Jul 25, 2020, 2:40 PM
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Called ‘Misguided Mistake,’ Robert Moses' Parkway Removed From U.S. aNiagara Gorge
Called ‘Misguided Mistake,’ Robert Moses' Parkway Removed From Niagara Gorge
Jul 24, 2020
By Thomas J. Prohaska
Read More: https://buffalonews.com/news/local/c...c495b66b9.html
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The pavement is gone, and now officials are pushing forward for a belt of green space bisected by a narrow paved biking and walking trail to replace the four-lane highway along the rim of the gorge. "We hope to be substantially complete by the end of the year," Mark V. Mistretta, regional director for New York State Parks, said Tuesday. The $42 million removal project was designed to reconnect the city with the gorge.
- The parkway blocked pedestrian access from Whirlpool Street to the gorge rim only about 150 feet away. Local citizen groups had been agitating for the parkway's removal since at least 1990. When Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced the removal plan in 2016, then-Niagara Falls Mayor Paul A. Dyster said it was “illogical that something so great could be choked off by lanes of concrete that is scarcely used. Everyone has known the parkway was a mistake almost from the day it opened.” --- The disappearance of the 2-mile stretch of what was renamed the Niagara Scenic Parkway in 2016 was a key selling point in the redevelopment of Main Street in Niagara Falls. A private developer, Blue Cardinal Capital, last year purchased 38 parcels on and near Main Street, and managing partner Bob Richardson said at the time the deal wouldn't have happened if the parkway had remained in place.
- The reconstruction of Whirlpool Street as the main north-south artery through the neighborhood is virtually complete. Official completion is due by the end of this month, Department of Transportation spokeswoman Susan Surdej said Wednesday. The intersection of Whirlpool and Third streets was reconstructed, and Whirlpool Street is narrower than it used to be, although in place of wide shoulders there are a few bump-outs with on-street parking spaces. The leveling of the ground that once carried the parkway is underway now, to be followed by planting of grass. --- The project also involved demolition of a 1,700-foot-long viaduct that carried the parkway over the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge border control facility and the railroad tracks into Canada. Also removed were a pedestrian bridge over the parkway near the Aquarium of Niagara and an abandoned railroad trestle. Those demolitions were completed last fall.
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Part of the new trail through the route of the former Robert Moses Parkway in Niagara Falls on July 21, 2020.
A bicyclist heads up Whirlpool Street next to the route of the former Robert Moses Parkway between downtown Niagara Falls and the Lewiston border, along the Niagara River Gorge on Tuesday, July 21, 2020.
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