Buffalo Tests Smart Streets Design on 7-Block Stretch of Washington Street- Buffalo News
Movable curbs. Electronic sensors to detect parking availability. Heated sidewalks. Charging stations. New pop-up “parklets” or “streateries,” play areas or public seating. Dedicated lanes for bikes and scooters.
It’s the street of the future, and it’s coming downtown.
A seven-block stretch of Washington Street from South Division to Genesee streets will be the guinea pig for the city’s first implementation of its new Smart Streets design, to highlight new and alternative ways to not only get downtown but to get around once there.
That means not just using traditional cars, Metro Rail and Metro Bus, but electric vehicles, autonomous shuttles, e-bikes and e-scooters.
“We’re looking collectively at mobility in Buffalo and the central business district in particular,” said Brendan Mehaffy, Buffalo’s economic development commissioner, and executive director of the Office of Strategic Planning. “We’re trying to take what we do in Buffalo up to a higher form of sophistication.”
