This article was scraped from Rochester Subway. This is a blog about Rochester history and urbanism has not been published since 2017. The current owners are now publishing link spam which made me want to preserve this history.. The original article was published December 18, 2009 and can be found here.
I recently invited my readers to attend a public meeting held by the City of Rochester and to make their voices heard. The purpose of the meeting was to inform the public about the Broad Street Tunnel Improvement Project which is slated to begin this Spring. The meeting was tonight and turnout was fair--not great, but I did get to meet a few RochesterSubway.com followers which was very encouraging!
Anyway, I wanted to share one opinion we got from a subscriber, Tim L., in response to our meeting announcement in which I pissed and moaned that the city failed to consider rail transit options for Broad Street. I don't disagree with all of what Tim has to say, but I do want to hear more of your opinions on this, which is why I'm posting it here...
Reader Opinion...
Tim L.
"The potential of a canal project is one of the best ideas that has been proposed in many many years. in my opinion. At least if it is the one that I am familiar with, which involves opening that subway tunnel back up (removing Broad Street completely) and filling it with water again and making a canal, with shops and restaurants, etc. Like the super successful Riverwalk in San Antonio.
Do you really believe that there is a need or any value from having a rail system in downtown Rochester again? Didn't they try that in Buffalo and it did nothing to improve downtown or the city?
Another mode of transportation is not really what is needed to get downtown happening. There is already buses and that stupid new bus station going in. An actual REASON to go downtown is what is needed, not another way to get around it. Once the area is established again as an actual destination of value, then rail could be considered to bring people from the suburbs into the city and back. But a small rail system that just circles around downtown adds what value to the city? Even if the downtown areas is reestablished, a circling line doesn't really add much value does it? Doesn't it make more sense to have straight lines going from the suburbs into the city and back? To re-establish a connection between the two again.
Just some thoughts."
-Tim L.
