N.Y. State Hits Majors Speed Bump on Buffalo Olmsted Parkway
A plan by the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) to cap 4,100 feet of Buffalo’s Kensington Expressway (formerly Humboldt Parkway) hit a major speed bump when Judge Emilio Colaiacovo of New York State Supreme Court for the Eighth Judicial District ruled on February 7, 2025, the state had to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which the state had argued was unnecessary. NYSDOT had claimed that the Environmental Assessment (EA) they had undertaken, which in February 2024 concluded there would be no adverse effects on the community and the environment, was sufficient. A coalition of local residents and the East Side Parkways Coalition didn’t agree and sued. The expressway was created in the 1950s in Humboldt Parkway, part of the Olmsted-designed Buffalo Park and Parkway System. For many years advocates have been promoting the rehabilitation of the Humboldt Parkway and the removal of the Kensington Expressway.
In his ruling, Judge Colaiacovo seemed incredulous at the NYSDOT’s position and offered some pointed observations:
• “[T]he record demonstrates that the project will, among other things, replace age old bridges, create an almost mile-long tunnel, excavate sub-surface areas that will invade the local water table, and drill and blast existing roadways to make way for new parkways and roadways in an area that is a major traffic artery for the greater Buffalo area. The effects to the surrounding community from all of this are incalculable. Yet, [NYSDOT] simply argue[s] that any disruption and environmental effects would be ‘minimal.’”
• “Why the State thought it could simply entertain a project of this magnitude and not comply with what it otherwise orders others to perform remains a mystery.”
• “ln what is anticipated to be this community's largest, most expensive, most disruptive, and intensive construction project, it is baffling how the State, which portrays itself as the guardian of the environment, cut corners and ignored rules that any other developer would be required to adhere to.”
Near the end of the 21-page ruling, the judge stated: “No rational person can conclude, based on the record before this Court, that this project would not have an adverse impact on the affected community. To think otherwise simply overlooks the uncontroverted facts in the record before this Court. ln tight of the undisputed potential adverse health effects that will occur from the greenhouse emissions, traffic, blasting, and other related impacts associated with heavy industrial construction, [NYSDOT] erred by neglecting to perform an EIS.”
Judge Colaiacovo added that all of the permits previously granted for the project were annulled and the State would need to perform an EIS.
Designed between 1868 and 1915, the Buffalo Park and Parkway System, listed in the and a hallmark of the city’s urban landscape, was among the first of its kind in the United States. Its design inspired numerous other park systems nationwide. Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., collaborating with Calvert Vaux, developed a large, undeveloped parcel outside the city and connected it with other smaller parks by a system of parkways. Overlooking the city, “The Parade” (now Martin Luther King, Jr., Park) initially accommodated military drills and included a public hall that was later redesigned by John Charles Olmsted. The interconnected system of parkways created green ribbons that ran through the city’s residential neighborhoods. Humboldt Parkway, which connected Delaware Park to The Parade, is often considered the grandest of its kind, and was a broad boulevard featuring majestic, tree-lined avenues. As noted above this parkway was destroyed beginning in the early 1950s with the construction of the Kensington and Scajaquada Expressways.
The has created a comprehensive planning framework that addresses the totality of the park system. However, a Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) design to cap the highway rather than rehabilitate the nationally significant historic designed landscape would negate the possibility of ever reconnecting Buffalo’s full Park and Parkway System – the most ambitious and fully realized of the three pioneering networks conceived of by Olmsted and Vaux.
