Freschi's original design for the signature bridge was up river from the present site, a design that would have made for a shorter bridge and would have returned to the public some of the Olmstead park area that the current plaza occupies. When he submitted his plan to the Authority he was encouraged to draw it so it would land at the current plaza. To every attempt to question any of their assumptions they say, delay will increase costs. The gambit is, even if they did a rotten job we shouldn't question it because pausing to fix their errors will increase costs. The Buffalo News bought that cockamamie logic.
Buffalo deserves, and demands, that much at least.
This is a major construction project, one that will matter in public life here for a hundred years, yet the mayor has kept silent, as have all of the common council members except James Pitts, all of the state legislators, and all of the region's congressmen. What's really odd about all this is, hardly anybody except Brian Lipke defends the twin span. You talk to executives at the News and they say the same thing. Being a one newspaper town hurt us badly in this sorry process. Had the Courier-Express still been alive we would have seen a lively debate in the press about the merits of the various proposals and the PBC's refusal to consider them seriously.