Metro Rail extension study to UB North Campus progressing

A comprehensive environmental review required for the long-discussed project, which opens it to federal and state funding, should be completed and approved next year.

A design study is expected to be finished in 2027 and construction, estimated to take four years, could start as early as 2028 if funding is available, said Jeffrey Amplement, the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority’s planning project manager guiding the transit project.

“We are working to put the final touches on the draft EIS, with a goal of holding another round of public hearings in early 2025,” said Amplement, referring to the acronym for an environmental impact statement. “Then we’ll take that feedback from the public and stakeholders to create the final EIS, and wrap it up by the end of 2025 with a record of decision from the Federal Transit Administration.”

The environmental study is also examining more frequent bus service as an alternative, but members of the NFTA board of commissioners favor adding 7 miles to the existing 6.4-mile Metro Rail line that runs from Canalside to UB South.

That light rail rapid transit extension would run northeast from the Metro station on South Campus, mostly above ground through parts of the towns of Tonawanda and Amherst, and end on the outskirts of the UB North Campus at Interstate 990.

The Greater Buffalo Niagara Regional Transportation Council also includes light rail in its long-term transportation planning.

The rail extension would start below ground at University Station on UB South Campus, before looping west on Kenmore Avenue and surfacing at Niagara Falls Boulevard near Princeton Avenue.

From there, Metro Rail would run down the middle of the boulevard, turning onto Maple Road and going underground at Sweet Home Road and resurfacing north of the intersection before turning into UB’s Rensch Road entrance. The plan calls for three stops across the campus before continuing on John James Audubon Parkway and ending at an NFTA Park & Ride lot just north of I-990.

A prior plan to go under Bailey Avenue in Eggertsville proved unpopular during a state study and was scrapped.

The choice to put light rail at-grade, without building underground stations, was found to be the most cost-effective approach. It’s three times less expensive than building an elevated train and 10 times less than building underground, Amplement told The Buffalo News.

All told, the extension would include 10 above-ground Metro Rail stations. The plan also calls for major roadway and signal improvements, with pedestrian-friendly sidewalks and bike lanes.

“This is a win-win all the way around,” said Jim Gordon, treasurer of Citizens for Regional Transit, which has long had the project at the top of its priority list.

“The Amherst extension has been our No. 1 priority and will be the culmination of work of many, many people,” Gordon said. “It’s been a very, very long, drawn-out process but will be worthwhile once people get to use it.”

Gordon said the Metro Rail extension will allow students, faculty and staff to take a single ride connecting the three university sites – including the downtown medical school on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus – as well as all riders to better participate in city life and access stores and restaurants along Maple Road and Niagara Falls Boulevard.

Gordon is also excited about the environmental benefits of zero greenhouse gas emissions.

“It’s the greenest form of transport you can find, with the exception of bicycling and walking,” he said.

Amplement emphasized the benefits will extend far beyond UB.

“Public transit is really a powerful tool in helping the community achieve long-range planning goals of economic development, environmental sustainability and community connectivity, and this is one of the busiest transportation corridors in the region,” he said.

Often overlooked, he said, are the disproportionately low-income residents in the area who will be served by the extended light rail system.

Discussions for a regional rail plan date back to the 1960s, with track lines suggested to go to the Northtowns, Southtowns and Buffalo Niagara International Airport.

A 1980 study by seven urban planning students at the UB School of Architecture and Environmental Design even imagined a 106-mile passenger rail system between Niagara Falls and Salamanca.

Only the Metro Rail along Main Street was built in the 1980s, but interest in connecting to UB North began picking up steam in the past 10 years.

The Greater Buffalo Niagara Regional Transportation Council in 2018 completed a 328-page feasibility study that examined 36 different route alignments before whittling down the options to the current plan. A state review was followed by the NFTA, with participation by the New York State Department of Transportation.

The plan to put passenger rail where it’s now planned was spelled out in an August 1971 study by the New York State Urban Corporation, “A New Community in Amherst.” It imagined light rail serving a dense residential development of 30,000 residents living in 9,300 dwelling units that were to be built between 1972 and 1980 on the Audubon highway corridor, north of UB, along with six “neighborhood centers” that included shopping, four elementary schools and a hospital.

“What we are proposing is almost identical to what was talked about then,” Amplement said.

About $30 million to date has been allocated for the environmental reviews and design study, but the cost of the overall project is expected to be well over the $1 billion estimate in 2018. A more realistic cost assessment is expected to be available next year, when 30% of the design study will be completed.

About half of the project’s capital costs are expected to come from the federal Department of Transportation’s Capital Investment Grant Program.

“They have a scoring criteria, and I think we are going to score well because of the project’s development potential, the potential environmental benefits and the projected ridership,” Amplement said. “We are connecting more than 30,000 students, which is an important part of the criteria.”

The NFTA is applying this year in what is a two-year funding process, he said.

Significant funding will still be needed from New York State. Other investments, Amplement said, could come from in-kind investments from the municipalities of Amherst and Tonawanda in the form of lighting, sewer and roadway improvements.

The project is advancing despite neighborhood opposition at the northern and southern ends of the project.

“It no longer makes sense,” said Joe Lane, president of the Audubon Community Homeowners Association. “It was a project from a plan that is now obsolete. What we have is 3,000 people at the northern end, one-tenth of the population predicted. There are 600 homes, not 10,000, and there are no schools, no shopping centers and no hospital. The plan was never realized and the density of the population never happened.”

Additionally, students live in housing complexes along Sweet Home Road and north of Dodge Road that have shuttle bus service and don’t need light rail, Lane said. Other land once envisioned for housing is now dedicated wetlands.

There are also concerns about vibrations from the trains that could impact stone foundations, as well as noise levels that would be most pronounced in the nearest cul-de-sacs, Lane said.

Nearly 100 members of his association filled out a survey, with 70% opposed to the project and preferring buses instead, including paratransit that offers door-to-door service. An online Amherst Bee poll taken last year found 77% opposing the rail expansion.

Meanwhile, yellow-and-black “Stop the Metro” signs can be seen along the southern end of Niagara Falls Boulevard, near where light rail would surface above ground.

It’s also the name of the group opposing the project.

Co-organizer Mike Nigrin said residents at the southern end are concerned about yearslong disruptions that will affect homes and businesses.

“We have people who have generations of families with businesses along the boulevard that would be destroyed by the construction delays,” Nigrin said. “The cost to our way of life outweighs the benefits.”

Another big concern, Nigrin said, is the blasting required to break through limestone and dolomite to extend the tunnel.

“That blasting would radiate about a quarter of a mile, and could possibly cause structural damages to many of the homes in the area,” Nigrin said.

Instead, the group, like the Audubon homeowners group, prefers buses to light rail.

Stop the Metro had around 2,000 signatures on petitions from people living mainly along the proposed southern end of the extended rail line, including the western Eggertsville and Kenilworth residential areas.

“The people who would be most likely to use it are opposed,” Nigrin said.

Amplement believes some of the opposition stems from fear of the unknown.

“A lot of the residents near the southern end of the line, and the Audubon community in the northern part, have lived there for generations and are a little fearful of what a major construction project could mean,” he said. “I think it’s hard for them to envision what this could look like because we don’t have a high-capacity transportation system.

“But this works all across the country and all across the world,” he said. “There’s no reason we couldn’t do it here.”