The NFPB does not disappoint. For the next 22 years it operates as a nationally respected pioneer in metropolitan regional planning. These twelve elect a thirteenth member to be chair of the board. Consistent with the times, the board staff comprises one or two engineers and draftsmen, and a secretary. It operates for its first few years out of offices in Tonawanda, then, after a few inactive years during the Great Depression, from offices in the new city hall in Buffalo.
Funding is locally discretionary but never withheld except around the Depression.
The board does not make decisions, but rather carries out dozens of detailed studies on issues of regional significance, including airport siting, water distribution, flood control, bridges, canal and harbor improvements, highways, parks, and more. The board initiates and develops ideas to the point where actual legislation or construction is required to proceed, then provides its detailed report and turns over the project to governments for action. The Board also helps towns and villages to set up municipal planning and zoning boards, and drafts maps of all parts of the region. One of its most sustained efforts, one on which the Board perseveres from the mid-1930s til its end in 1947, is aggressive opposition to the St. Lawrence Seaway, which the Board predicts will be ruinous to the region. The regional board, by its own hand, ceases operations in 1947.