BUFFALO, N.Y. — Some initial funding from New York state taxpayers is going to help start up enhanced bus service for a major East Side corridor in Buffalo.
The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority is getting $3.2 million in seed money from the state to pay for consultants to get this idea of a bus rapid transit system rolling for Bailey Avenue.
The goal is to hopefully boost ridership by making the busses move more efficiently through the normally crowded Bailey Avenue. They want to also to make that street safer following a City of Buffalo study that shows over 2,500 traffic collisions on Bailey over the past five years.
It includes certain features like dedicated bus only lanes in some portions of the street, redesigned intersections, and synchronized traffic signals to keep the buses moving a much as possible.
"As the bus approaches the traffic signal it will connect with a device, a transponder that we have in each and every bus," NFTA executive director Kimberly Minkel said.
"So then the light turns green for our buses. Keep in mind portions of this project will have a dedicated right of way for our buses so not all sections of Bailey Avenue will be sharing traffic with other vehicles."
City of Buffalo Department of Public Works Commissioner Nathan Marton adds that this fits in with the city's plans for streets overall to have better and safer traffic flow.
"Lanes and signals are something we've been working on as we do some of those main streets," Marton said. "Niagara Street comes to mind. We've been putting those Mio-vision cameras up Delaware Avenue, where we had some of those recently installed. So that is part of our movement and our process to try to get traffic flowing and we'll coordinate nicely with that in this bus rapid transit.
"We'll have the same devices, the same camera installations at these intersections, major intersections, and then synch up lights in between as well."
They will need more funding but this could be part of the City of Buffalo's overall use of over $50 million in available state and federal funding to make improvements on Bailey as well as Jefferson and Michigan. And they hope to eventually expand this bus rapid transit system to some of those streets as well.
People are generally in support.
But we also checked in with President Jeffery Richardson of the bus drivers union American Transit Workers Union Local 1342. He points out they need to hire more bus drivers at better wages or bus routes will be affected. They're hoping for more funding from the state to cover that as well as they prepare for upcoming contract negotiations with the NFTA.