Is this what the future holds for us?
Over the past few years alot of talk has surrounded easing the traffic backup at the south bridges.
My solution has been eliminating the toll booths to allow the free flow of traffic up and over the bridges.
But behind the scenes the Thruway Authority and the Bridge Committee has been discussing moving the tolls.
In my discussion with Jeff Williams from the board of the NYSTA he disclosed to me their plan and this is what it is.
Moving the toll booths to the other side of the bridge like the north bridge toll booths. I grabbed a couple photos from Google Earth and created a view as to how I picture this to be. See the images to the left.
The first issue I see here is the overwhelming costs. The Thruway is estimating that moving the Williamsville tolls to be 90 Million. So would this be the same or more?
Why go to the expense of doing this when we could build a new bridge using Federal funds when the NYSDOT takes over the Niagara section of the 190. This plan makes no sense whatsoever.
Instead of traffic backing up onto the 290, we will have traffic backing up onto and sitting on the bridge.
Lets stop this nonsense and just turn the bridges and the 190 over the the D.O.T. Build a new bridge between the two south bridges then tear down the existing and expand them to four lanes on each side. This will eliminate all the traffic problems now and for years to come.
