Greater Buffalo Niagara Regional Transportation Council (GBNRTC)
438 Main Street, Suite 503
Buffalo, NY 14202
RE: Public Comment on Draft TIP – Engineering & Feasibility Study for Phase 2 of Kensington & Scajaquada Expressways
To Whom it May Concern:
For well over a decade, Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper and other members of the Scajaquada Corridor Coalition (SCC) have worked collaboratively with numerous cultural organizations, state representatives, consultants, government agencies and hundreds of area residents to seek out a community-driven and community-vetted plan for the future of the Scajaquada (198) Expressway. We are extremely disappointed that the proposed 2026-2030 Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP) lists this project as “Illustrative” and eliminates the funding to move it forward.
Collectively, through our missions, our organizations have vested interests in the Scajaquada Creek corridor. We willingly volunteered thousands of hours of time and resources over many years for the visioning and assessment of the improvements and alternatives.
We committed ourselves to the GBNRTC and NYSDOT processes in good faith, knowing that our collective expertise would be valuable to the technical work and our collaboration would ultimately help encourage and achieve universal community support for that vision. And once the plan was released, we stood with the GBNRTC and the state to celebrate this collaborative achievement, something that is rare in communities across the state and country.
In short, we trusted the GBNRTC, the NYSDOT and the State of New York to follow-through on its commitment to the Scajaquada Creek Corridor communities. Eliminating the funding for the next steps of the 198 Expressway implementation under the 2026-2030 TIP is unacceptable to our community and our partners. We continue to strongly advocate for the collaborative vision and respectfully request the $100 million in funding be restored for the project to advance as previously planned.
Sincerely,
Jill Jedlicka
Executive Director
